ATI announces 1 GB graphics card

ATI recently unveiled the first workstation-oriented graphics card to support one gigabyte of memory, the FireGL V7350.

ATI’s Avivo video and display platform brings an increased level of visual fidelity to the professional graphics market with features such as automatic gain control, gamma correction and increased color bit depth. With a 10-bit per RGB component graphics pipeline, instead of the standard 8-bit, the FireGL’s color palette increases to over a billion colors. The result is a finer level of detail throughout the visible spectrum, enhancing details in shadows and making highlights come to life. In addition, high-end displays supporting 16-bit per RGB color component can be fully utilized by the FireGL V7350 and FireGL V7300. Two dual-link connectors also give end users the ability to drive multiple ultra-high resolution displays, yielding a massive desktop display over 5,000 pixels wide.

The 1 GB V7350 and the 512 MB V7300 (both PCI Express cards) will retail for US$ 1,999 and US$ 1,599, respectively.

With that price tag, I don’t see the 1 GB version–nor the 512 MB, for that matter–in any end-user desktops anytime soon. But no doubt, professionals in the graphics and video fields, and hardcore gamers as well, would be very pleased with this new product.