AMD Launches FirePro 2270, ATI FirePro V5800 Enterprise-Level GPUs

The AMD FirePro 2270 comes with support for a variety of connectivity options, including DVI, VGA and DisplayPort. he 2250 and the 2270 boards both measure 6.6” x 2.3. The FirePro 2270 GPU features 512 MB of DDR3 memory, 15 W of maximum power, and a PCIe 2.1 bus. In addition, it is the first FirePro graphics card from AMD not to bear the ATI brand name AMD dropped in August. AMD plans to ship the FirePro 2270 to retailers in February for a starting price of $149.

Mitch Furman, Senior Product Manager for AMD FirePro said in an interview with CRN that FirePro graphics cards afford several advantages to enterprise customers, including multi-screen ATI Eyefinity visualization technology, with up to six displays powered by a single chip. Neither of the cards AMD launched on Monday included Eyefinity technology, which is AMD's consumer graphics cards and high-end FirePro professional graphics cards.

"FirePro includes support for OpenGL 4.1, Direct X 11 and other new technologies which we're actively promoting," Furman said, "because AMD wants to be a leader in the market by always looking for best performance at every segment -- high, low, and mid-range -- and we're also trying to be the best price performer in the market."

Furman said the FirePro GPUs offer business users a reliable solution that will not require them to change older peripherals, but offers support for a variety of connectivity options -- as well as unified drivers, OEM Qualifications, and certifications from ISVs.

"A mix of different graphics cards means a mix of different drivers," he said. "Our customers don't want that. They want one card that will meet different groups' requirements and function in any environment."

Furman said he speaks to end users as well as OEM customers and often brings end user customers to the OEMs in order to jointly develop technology that will meet the end user's needs. In the case of the FirePro 2270, Furman said AMD is focusing on offering a graphics card that meets low-power requirements.

Furman said the FirePro 2270 graphics card targets financial institutions, trade room floors, power plants, and refineries. Furman said professional applications for AMD's FirePro 2270 include high-end software engineering using CAD-based and DCC-based applications. In addition, power plants, assembly lines, and process control centers can all leverage the FirePro 2270 GPU in their systems, he said.

Among these various applications, Furman said medical imaging applications will benefit from a significant improvement in visual detail by going from the 8-bit FirePro 2250 to the 10-bit FirePro2270. Also on Monday AMD launched the ATI FirePro V5800 DVI workstation graphics card with support for up to two independent displays. AMD says the FirePro V5800 is a mid-range GPU that includes 2.5x the processing capability of the previous generation of FirePro V-series cards. The V5800 features 800 stream processors, 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, 64 GBps memory bandwidth. It offers support for Direct X 11 and Open LG, but not ATI Eyefinity technology.

Starting price for the V5800 DVI is $469.