AMD Cranks Up Workstation Graphics with ATI FirePRo V8750

Feel a need for 2 GB of video RAM? The ATI FirePro V8750 has that, two DisplayPort outputs, 115 GB/s memory bandwidth, and over 800 shader engines. And it's not cheap.

Chipmaker AMD may have been having to write down portions of its pricey acquisition of graphics developer ATI over the years, but that doesn’t meant the company can’t still produce some high-end kit. Today, the company announced the ATI FirePro V8750, which takes over the high end of the ATI’s workstation graphics offerings. The card will definitely keep the CAD and rendering crowd happy with 2 GB of GDDR5 video RAM, 800 shader engineers, 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, and two DisplayPort outputs—but the pricetag will put the unit out of range of most mere mortals.

“Digital content creation and high end CAD users have been held hostage to high-priced solutions for advanced rendering,” said AMD Professional Graphics’ senior director Janet Matsuda, in a statement. “Creative and engineering professionals can now afford the powerful graphics they deserve.”

The card leverages ATI Stream Technology to dynamically allocate graphics resources from both the CU and CPU to accelerate graphics performance, and the GDDR5 memory and massive memory bandwidth mean even bigger performance boosts—although the card’s clock speed remains the same as the less expensive FirePro V8700. The card also features a dual-link DVI-I output, antialiasing features, DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.0 support, and a Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) for H.264/AVC, VC-1, and MPEG-2 video.

What will all this cost? $1799, available now from OEMs and AMD’s channel partners.