ATI FireGL V5600

The manufacturer positions its next professional graphics accelerator, ATI FireGL V5600, as a more advanced solution than FireGL V3600. It costs about $500. Nevertheless, this card is based on the same RV630GL chip compatible with DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1.

So, the GPU used in ATI FireGL V5600 can boast only 120 shader and 8 texturing processors. This graphics card performs faster (ATI FireGL V5600 offers 3.2GPixel/s fillrate) due to higher core frequency of 800MHz. it also has more graphics memory: 512MB. While its memory bus is equal to the same 128bit, the 35GB/s bandwidth is achieved by clocking the memory to 2.2GHz, which was possible thanks to the latest GDDR4 SDRAM chips.

In other words, ATI FireGL V5600 looks very much like Radeon HD 2600 XT equipped with GDDR4 memory. Besides the similar technical characteristics, these two different graphics accelerators also boast similar PCB layouts. In fact, the only noticeable visual difference is the absence of a TV-Out on a professional card. Even the cooler is also borrowed from the gaming counterpart. It is a single-slot active solution made of copper and aluminum that is cooled with a small centrifugal fan.

ATI FireGL V5600 card is a little bigger than ATI FireGL V3600. Nevertheless, the graphics card receives enough power via the PCI Express x16 2.0 bus and there are no additional power connectors on the PCB. However, there are two Crossfire connectors, which do not really have any real practical value: professional graphics card drivers from AMD do not support multi-GPU modes.

However, to be fair we have to say that nevertheless it is possible to install several FireGL cards into the same system and each of the cards will work independently with its own monitors. Just like ATI FireGL V3600, ATI FireGL V5600 features two Dual-Link DVI Outs supporting LCD panels with resolutions up to 2560x1600.