NVIDIA Quadro FX 1100: midrange graphics card

CADalyst, March, 2004 by Ron LaFon

NVIDIA's new Quadro FX 1100 midrange graphics card replaces the company's popular 980 XGL card and offers improved price/performance value. The Quadro FX 1100 targets graphics and engineering professionals in the CAD, digital content creation, and scientific visualization markets.

The street price of the Quadro FX 1100 should be about $625-$650, making it a good choice for moderately priced, midrange CAD workstations. This is not the NVIDIA FX 3000 graphics card, in either performance or cost. Though we can at times become jaded by constantly looking at the latest and the fastest, the FX 1100 fills the CAD market's need for a midrange graphics card that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Performance is steady and stable, registering the kind of numbers you expect from a midrange card.

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 1100 was part of Hewlett-Packard's workstation xw4100 machine that it submitted for the workstation review on p.10. On this workstation, the graphics card achieved a C2001 Total Index score of 98. Other tests were the usual SPEC ViewPerf proe-02 test suite (37.64) and MAX4Bench (51.90). The results reflect the fact that this is a midrange card. Many users will be very happy with the performance and the price.

Like other cards from NVIDIA, the FX 1100 uses its unified drivers, which are updated regularly, often with significant performance improvements. In addition, workstation software such as MAXtreme for Discreet's 3ds max and PowerDraft for AutoCAD is also available. The current version of the graphics drivers offers many options for configuring performance in OpenGL or DirectX, as well as the ability to tune the performance of individual applications. The Quadro FX 1100 comes equipped with 128MB of memory. At its heart is a 0.13-micron GPU (graphics processing unit), which gives it higher performance with lower power consumption.

The FX 1100 is an AGP 8X graphics card. It features a true 128-bit graphics pipeline to deliver a high level of display accuracy and visual quality, as well as 12 bits of subpixel precision for greater geometric accuracy and the elimination of sparkles, cracks, and other rasterization anomalies. Like other cards in NVIDIA's FX series of graphics cards, the FX 1100 offers third-generation vertex and pixel programmability that lets you simulate a broad range of physical effects and surface properties.

Because it follows in the footsteps of the 980 XGL, the FX 1100 should prove to be a very popular addition to the NVIDIA product line. For those who need a midrange graphics card, the FX 1100 is a good choice at an attractive price, offering both consistent performance and a stable, solid display.

NVIDIA FX 1100

Midrange Graphics Card

pros: Moderate price.

cons: None significant.

price: $650 (estimated street price)

NVIDIA

408.486.2000

info@nvidia.com

www.nvidia.com

Ron LaFon, a contributing editor for Cadalyst, is a writer, editor, and computer graphics and electronic publishing specialist from Atlanta, Georgia. He is a principal at 3Bear Productions in Atlanta.