ATI's FireGL brand of workstation class graphics cards have played second fiddle to NVIDIA's offerings for some time now. NVIDIA's rival Quadro lineup has been an incredibly strong competitor, and combined with the fact that the last several FireGL graphics card releases have suffered from late arrival dates and lackluster performance by the time they hit the market, NVIDIA has been able to get a solid foothold in this market. However, with the power of the R600 graphics processor under the hood, ATI has introduced a new lineup of workstation cards which are giving NVIDIA a run for their money in terms of price to performance metrics. In end that is what the workstation segment really needs. - HotHardware

ATI FireGL V7600 512MB Workstation Version Review

The R600 may not have been a tremendous hit for the gaming market, but in a workstation environment, the power of this GPU can be harnessed in a much different way. Today, we have the new ATI FireGL V7600 512MB workstation video card. This card is based on the same basic board design as the Radeon HD 2900 lineup for gamers, but is tweaked on both the hardware and software level for enhanced workstation performance. The card is the least costly of ATI's FireGL lineup based on the R600 GPU, and currently retails for just south of $1000. At this time, NVIDIA has nothing directly competing against this product.

This gives ATI an opportunity to strike for workstation users who want a high-end workstation card at a price tag under four digits. The closest competitor, from a price perspective, is NVIDIA's Quadro FX4500 card, which can currently be had online for about $900. While the Quadro FX4500 is a solid competitor, it's been on the market for several years, and doesn't support some newer technologies like Shader Model 4.0. However, in the workstation market, where OpenGL is still king, this feature matters very little. The driving factors for workstation buyers are still raw OpenGL graphics performance and clean drivers.

The FireGL V7600 card features the same base PCB design as the Radeon HD 2900 lineup, which utilizes a somewhat elongated PCB that is likely to extend past most standard ATX motherboards. The extended length didn't prove to be an issue in any of our scenarios. Of course, the card is double height as well, as its cooling system requires the FireGL V7600 to occupy two case expansion slots. The cooling system on the card is quite impressive, although not entirely without fault. Underneath the plastic airflow routing shroud, ATI has a massive copper heatpipe cooling system with a load of aluminum thin fins.

The FireGL V7600 card by itself is not without a few shortcomings. While we were impressed by its raw performance and value, the card is significantly louder and creates more heat than other workstation cards we've tested. In a closed case environment, it's unlikely that the noise will be a detriment, but when the card kicks up to its highest fan speed, it becomes very noticeable. The card is also double width and requires an 8-pin PCI Express power connector, although these are fairly standard system requirements for a high-end workstation card today. And driver support and availability also pose other problems for this card.

To date, we could not find this card on any store shelves, despite press releases about the board's shipment hitting the web last month. Even if you wanted to get one of these cards, it's nearly impossible at this time. And if you did manage to get your hands on one, as we did, you may quickly run into driver related issues. The beta drivers we were provided with had some quirks, and there are no new drivers available yet. In addition, to date, this card does not have 64-bit drivers available, which is a huge roadblock for potential workstation buyers. We're certain that 64-bit drivers will be included in the final shipping retail package.

All in all, the FireGL V7600 graphics card gives ATI a much needed shot in the arm for their FireGL lineup. It provides excellent performance at its price point, has modern GPU features like DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 support. So, we feel comfortable that despite current maturity issues, it will be a solid product when it ships. We look forward to what NVIDIA will counter with at this price point but for now ATI's FireGL V7600 board looks to be a very competitive and compelling professional workstation graphics product.