ATI rolls out new FirePro cards

Business graphics line expands reach

AMD has added two new cards to its ATI FirePro line

AMD has unveiled two new additions to its line of enterprise graphics cards.

The new cards are designed to fill holes in areas ranging from high-end markets such as medical imaging and computer animation to lower-end markets such as financial analysis or computer aided design.

The two new cards will join ATI's line of FireGL and FireMV, which will now be known simply as FirePro.

At the low end of market will be the FirePro V3700. The $99 card will feature 256MB of memory and sport a pair of Dual Link DVI outputs.

The company hopes that the V3700 will appeal to users who have until now been forced to use consumer cards which may lack the driver and application support of the traditional FirePro line, explained Janet Matsuda, senior director of AMD's professional graphics business.

"This is going to be big news for these low-end users," she told vnunet.com.

A bit higher on the spectrum will be the mid-range FirePro V5700 model. The $599 card will target the mid-range market. The card will sport 512MB of memory along with HD component outputs two DisplayPort connection outputs.

Both cards will compete directly with cards from rival Nvidia. The V5700 will take on the FX 1700 model, while the V3700 will compete with the FX370. Matsuda is confident that her company's offerings will fare well, due to higher benchmarks and more features.

"We beat them hands down," boasted Matsuda.

"And one of the reasons we beat them is because we have more hardware on the card."

The company plans to make the V3700 available immediately, while the V5700 is expected to ship next month.