Keeping up with Nvidia"s Quadro video card ATI has unveiled a new version of its video card the FireGL. The new FireGL isn"t expected to ship till later this month, but it should give Nvidia"s Quadro a good run for its money. To name just one of the improved features it packs a 12 pixel pipelines fed by six geometry engines. It"s expected to cost around $1,099.
ATI will ship its latest workstation-class graphics card, the FireGL X3-256, later this month, the company said today. The successor to the X2-256T, the X3-256 provides the same 256-bit memory bus, connected to 256MB of GDDR 3 memory. The new GPU provides 12 pixel pipelines fed by six geometry engines, up from its predecessor"s eight pixel and four vertex pipelines.
ATI did not disclose memory or core clock frequencies, but it did claim that the new chip offers a 30 per cent increase in performance over the previous generation of FireGL products. The board on which the chip sits connects to the host across an AGP 8x bus. It provides two DIV ports with Stereo 3D support - unlike the X2-256T - and the ability to drive a nine megapixel display.