ATI Technologies today became the first graphics card manufacture to ship a 1 gigabyte workstation graphics accelerator, with the introduction of the ATI FireGL V7350. This new card will be ideal for working in large design and engineering datasets, including point clouds, large BIM models, engineering simulations, and real-time visualization.
The graphics processing unit (GPU) in the new accelerator is based on a 90 nanometer process technology and a 512-bit ring bus memory architecture, allowing the card to take advantage of higher speed memories and support 1GB frame buffers. ATI says the high clock rate combined with full 128-bit precision and parallel processing result in floating point processing power that exceeds a 3GHz Pentium processor by seven times.
ATI claims the new FireGL V7350 is the fastest commercial workstation graphics accelerator currently available. In tests run on a 3.8GHz Pentium 4 processor with 2GB of DDR2 memory, Windows XP and an Intel 925 XCV chipset, ATI reports that the FireGL V7350 received a combined SpecAPC geometric mean score of 3.255. This was the highest geometric mean score for a commercial workstation product. The nearest combined SpecAPC geometric mean score for a competing product was 3.031.
Features include increased color bit depth (allowing 1 billion colors) and the ability to drive multiple ultra-high resolution monitors for a possible desktop display more than 5,000 pixels wide.
“ATI has made tremendous strides in their market position over the last year and they’ve done that by zeroing in on features and pricing that resonate with professional users,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, President of Jon Peddie Research, the leading workstation market research firm, located in Tiburon, CA. “This latest foray into the ultra high-end segment market gives ATI a complete top to bottom offering and will solidify their position as a leader in workstation graphics.”
The FireGL V7350 is shipping today from a variety of workstation system integrators including Alienware, Amax, Boxx, Colfax, Monarch Computer Systems, Omnitech, Safe Harbor, Systemax, Polywell, Velocity Micro, Xi Computer and 3DShop.com. It is available as a stand-along purchase from resellers for $1,999.
More information: www.ati.com/FireGL.
--RSN