AMD announced the release of five high-end professional ATI FireGL video cards designed for workstation use in CAD, DCC and medical imaging applications. The ATI FireGL V8650, FireGL V8600, FireGL V7600, FireGL V5600, and FireGL V3600 graphics accelerators are based on the new graphics processing unit developed by AMD's graphics division that features a new unified shader architecture powerful enough to process up to 320 individual streams of data. The new generation of ATI workstation video cards are all ready for Microsoft's DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 APIs which translates in a huge, 300 percent, performance increase over previous models. "During performance tests, the ATI FireGL V5600 demonstrates more than 300% the performance of the ATI FireGL V5200 running the Viewperf 9.0.3 UGS Teamcenter Visualization Mockup (tcvis-01) benchmark test", according to an AMD press release.

"The rich feature set of these new ATI FireGL boards represents AMD's industry-leading GPU engineering excellence and provides unprecedented power for design professionals," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Products Group. "AMD's ability to continually offer graphics innovation at the high end, while delivering full-featured products at the entry level reflects our strategy of enabling the ultimate visual experience for professional designers and those who consume their content." The ATI FireGL workstation graphics boards use a huge amount of video memory - 2GB - in order to enable users to interact with more complex 3D models at high resolutions.

"ATI FireGL products from AMD are known for bringing key new advancements to the workstation graphics market," said Jon Peddie, principal, Jon Peddie Research. "With first-to-market features like 2GB memory and AutoDetect, AMD should continue to gain traction in the high and ultra-high end segments of this market to compliment their solid showing in the entry-level and mid-range." Using the AutoDetect feature, these graphics cards are able to store, use and optimize several display configurations in order to let users experience an easier way to work by no longer having to manually change the video setting when switching between several graphical applications.

By using a unified driver architecture, all ATI FireGL cards are easier to install and use as well as being easier for users to support multiple operating systems, Microsoft Windows Vista being also supported. "We look forward to working with the new ATI FireGL family of products. AMD has a history of innovation and delivering excellent value and performance," said Rob Hoffmann, senior 3D product marketing manager for Autodesk Media and Entertainment. "Professional content creators will appreciate features that increase visual fidelity and performance. We expect Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max customers to see a significant performance increase using the next generation ATI FireGL graphics cards."