AMD SHOWS NEW FIREPRO BRAND OF GRAPHICS ACCELERATORS

LOS ANGELES - Advanced Micro Devices (www.amd.com) has introduced two products that are part of the company's new FirePro brand of professional graphics accelerators. The ATI FirePro V5700 and FirePro V3700 are derived from the company's ATI acquisition and underscore its commitment to deliver pro graphics accelerators that compete at every price point.

The ATI FirePro V3700 is a $99 model designed for professional 3D graphics. The V3700 features 256MB of frame buffer memory, two dual-link DVI connectors and VGA mode support on all display outlets.

The higher-end FirePro V5700 graphics accelerator is priced at $599 and gives users increased performance for shader-intensive applications, up to two times more than the previous generation. The accelerator features 512MB of frame buffer memory, dual link DVI and DisplayPort connections. Its true 30-bit display engine produces more than one billion colors at any given time, empowering designers to see more of their data.

The Unified Video Decoder 2.0 feature provides full Blu-ray feature support, including dual-stream and picture in a picture (PIP) capabilities, and handles decoding of various formats in the graphics processing unit (GPU), which helps free up the CPU to handle other tasks.

The ATI FirePro V3700 is generally available, while the V5700 is expected to begin shipping in September.