Originally posted by: shokan
I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow you. You say that the Radeon drivers would not be good for 3D work that I should go with the FireGL with less memory?
Shokan, thanks for the article. I think it mainly confirms bunnyfubbles explanation that the main difference are the drivers (multi-threaded, OpenGL-optimized, etc.).
I believe what Seggybop meant in her above post was that a regular card (i.e. 3870, 4850, etc.) that is modded to run on FireGL drivers will always beat the FireGL equivalent in terms of cost (and speed, if comparing among different generations). The only time a true FireGL card is preferable is when you cannot get the FireGL drivers to run on the regular equivalent.
Radeon 3870 (Rad. drivers) < FireGL V7700
Radeon 3870 (FGL drivers) > FireGL V7700
Applying this theory to the 2 cards pointed above, the Radeon 4850 will be far superior to the FireGL V3600
only if you can mod the 4850 to run on FireGL drivers. Otherwise, the lack of optimization in the standard Radeon driver should make the FireGL V3600 a stronger card with respect to 3D work assuming driver optimizations are in place.