Since initial launch of the FireGL products a few months back we have been constantly bombarded with the ultimate question, when are you going to do a head to head of the monster memory cards at the top of the scale. At the ultra high-end position this is were really the serious players come into force and items of this calibre have to be spot on, first go! There can not be one slight point of error at this level of the playing field. Last month we clearly stipulated that there was a clear and present danger to NVIDIA due to the aggressive pricing and performance that the FireGL cards had brought to the fore. What we can say is that it is good and many out there are wondering what's next? - 3D Professor

AMD FireGL V8650 2GB Workstation Graphics Review

At grass roots, the fight for leading the field in the ultra high-end arena is bitterly fought for. Both AMD and NVIDIA putting huge amounts of effort into these areas and it is severely fought over. More so, currently by NVIDIA branching out with their PLEX range of Quadro's. A month passed and very quietly NVIDIA sneaked out the door its next array of entry level new Quadro cards, some of which have been aggressively positioned and priced to meet the threat which by then from AMD's new FireGL range was as we said by some analysts perceived a clear and present danger not to be taken lightly!

Today is a first outing for you all on the FireGL V8650 and many will be wondering just how it really performs and does it live up to the claims made by AMD's FireGL team. It has been one of those events that we would have wished to have shown more. The clock ticked hard and fast against us as there is a huge demand to see this excellent new graphics card from ATI. There is so much it has to offer. The technology uptake that AMD's FireGL has brought to the fore most certainly is the most comprehensive release of new professional graphic cards. The FireGL V8650 shown here today is an early shipping sample.

With that being said, the FireGL V8650 is in fact based upon the R600 chipset which is also used in a different format as the Radeon HD 2900 XT but with the frame buffer expanded to 2GB. And yes, the previous Radeon HD 2900 XT could also be bought already with 1GB of memory, but this has been doubled for the workstation graphics card. A similar action as what NVIDIA had done with their Quadro FX5600, using the G80 core but doubling the memory towards 1.5GB as a total compared to the GeForce 8800 GTX graphics accelerator. The AMD FireGL V8650 will be shipping from distributors early January 2008.

Taking into consideration its price performance point we have to seriously think about this card when buying a new system or upgrading. At a price point of just $2600, the irrefutable results shown here today verbalize volumes. You have to be completely crazy to miss out on an opportunity of this magnitude. Remember too, the Quadro FX4600 costs same price as the FireGL V8650 and take note, the NVIDIA Quadro FX4600 has only a third of onboard GDDR3 memory and nearly half the memory bandwidth of the FireGL V8650. It does not take a mathematician or rocket scientist to formulate out the answer.

The gauntlet which was thrown down from AMD's FireGL team to NVIDIA has been picked up they are still well behind. In the past NVIDIA just about always cleared the board with the full remit of awards for their new professional graphics cards. Now in just a short space of 3 months the AMD FireGL team have successfully and completely dominated the whole remit. How the times have changed... It's very difficult to believe this could ever happen, seeing the roles being completely reversed especially at these levels.