AMD Introduces $1,800 ATI FirePro V8750

It's for professionals.

Yes, it's a $1,800 GPU, and it's for serious business. AMD today announced the ATI FirePro V8750 3D high-end professional graphics hardware for CAD, Digital Content Creation (DCC) and oil and gas professionals.

Of all professional GPUs today, AMD claims that the ATI FirePro V8750 3D has the highest number of shader engines (800) with the highest memory bandwidth (115.2 GB/s).

The video card features 2 GB of GDDR5 frame buffer memory, two DisplayPort outputs, one Dual Link enabled DVI output and one Stereo sync output.

AMD is also bringing out ATI CrossFire Pro technology to the professional like, which, like the Crossfire we already know, enables users to combine two discrete graphics cards to scale their application performance. ATI CrossFire Pro is also planned for the FirePro V5700, FirePro V7750 and FirePro V8700. Currently, only Windows XP is supported, but AMD said there are plans for other operating systems to follow in the second half of 2009.

Does a $1,800 graphics card sound like an insane price to pay? For a consumer card it is, but AMD believes that it's a bargain for those in the professional sector.

"Digital content creation and high end CAD users have been held hostage to high-priced solutions for advanced rendering," said Janet Matsuda, senior director, AMD Professional Graphics. "The ATI FirePro V8750 3D workstation graphics accelerator delivers unparalleled performance and two GB of frame buffer memory for less than $1,800 MSRP. Creative and engineering professionals can now afford the powerful graphics they deserve."