ATI Technologies today announced that the FIRE GL X1-128MB workstation graphics board, and the brand new FIRE GL Z1, are now shipping and available in retail distribution channels. The FIRE GL X1- 128MB and Z1 are the first in the world to deliver a fully programmable floating point architecture which supports OpenGL 2.0, Microsoft DirectX 9.0. Both the FIRE GL X1-128MB, based on the FGL 9700 visual processing unit (VPU), and the FIRE GL Z1, harnessing the FGL 9500 VPU, provide the power demanded by CAD (computer-aided design) and DCC (digital content creation) applications. The board’ support of AGP 8x offers a two-way high-speed interface between the graphics subsystem and the workstation at a speed of 2.0 GB per second, providing twice the data throughput and delivering quicker response and shorter development time for users.

Both FGL 9700 and FGL 9500 VPUs are based on the RADEON 9700 technology.

The FIRE GL X1-128MB is the only workstation board on the market to offer eight parallel rendering pipelines - at twice the rendering power of any competing product - giving digital content creators the ability to preview finished scenes of cinematic quality in real time, saving days of production time.

The FIRE GL X1-128MB will be available in December 2002 with a suggested retail price of $795. The FIRE GL Z1 will be available in January 2003 with a suggested retail price of $595. To view the FIRE GL X1 picture, click here.

Besides, ATI also introduced its FIRE GL E1 professional graphics card based on the FIRE GL 8800LE GPU. The FIRE GL 8800LE product is soon to be discontinued, so, E1 will simply be a cheaper version of the mentioned solution. FIRE GL E1 utilises different PCB design (see here) compared to FIRE GL 8700 (see here).