NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400 Professional Graphics Card

Monday, January 23, 2006

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This NVIDIA high-end, superfast professional graphics card from the Quadro series makes light work of 3D applications and does a fine job as a gaming card as well

We have always wondered that since games today are so advanced that they are pretty much animated movies in themselves, and a lot of 3D modeling for the game characters perhaps happens on such professional cards, how exactly would they perform in a regular gaming environment. This same theory we wanted to test by putting a gaming card into our 3D test suite to find out how it would do. We compared the NVIDIA FX3400 with the 6800GS since they are the closest cores available today. The Quadro FX 3400 is a professional graphics card from NVIDIA's Quadro series unlike others that are gamers' delight. We would've preferred the 6800GT but NVIDIA doesn't make it anymore, so it was not available.

The test results left us stunned. Being incorrigible gamers, everything we test needs to pass muster in games and that was the suite we ran on the Quadro card first. We ran Doom3 at multiple resolutions with and without AA/AF and also the brand new game F.E.A.R. We over-clocked both these cards with the Quadro being clocked at 401 MHz for the core and 1 GHz for the memory speed (stock speeds: 350 MHz and 900 MHz). The 6800GS was overclocked to 515 MHz for the core and 1.13 GHz for the memory (stock speeds: 475 MHz and 1.1 GHz).

The gaming benchmarks
In gaming tests, we would particularly like to tell you the scores in the 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 range with 4xAA and 8xAF. In Doom3, at 1280x1024, the Quadro actually does better than the 6800GS! Of course, the difference is just under 3 fps so its negligible but even if the Quadro can match an out and out gaming card, it sure is commendable. A trend we noticed was that at lower resolutions like 1024x768 and with AA/AF switched off, the 6800GS beat the Quadro, but when graphics were really stressed at higher resolutions and AA/AF were on, it caught up with the 6800GS and in instances even surpassed it. This led us to believe that a professional graphics card can indeed give an excellent gaming experience. The performances were even more similar when you look at F.E.A.R, where at higher resolutions the cards exactly matched.

The 3D benchmarks
For 3D benchmarking we used the standard software SpecviewPerf 8.01. This software benchmarks the card on a variety of 3D apps, from CAD to modeling and so on.We ran the benchmark at default settings. While the Quadro just zipped through the tests, our overclocked 6800GS failed to complete the tests and reaching unsafe heat levels, it was shut down. Despite various attempts with external cooling fans and , it would not run, so we had to run it at the stock speeds. This speaks for the professional 3D application capabilities (or the lack of them!) of the 6800GS. Though the Quadro is not made for this, it does a brilliant job at it! In all the tests, except for Ensight, the 6800GS scored half or less than Quadro.

Bottom Line: The Quadro is a mean performer though a tad expensive at Rs 45,000 plus taxes. Only word of caution is that if you get this for your graphics expert and find him avoiding work and playing Doom 3, please don't blame us or him!

Varun Dubey

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