ATI Paints a Pretty Picture
Top of the heap for the Markam, Ontario-based ATI is its FireGL family of workstation graphics accelerators. These cards appeal to CAD users and engineers who need the sharpest graphics and fastest performance. Certified for OpenGL and DirectX programs, the FireGL line can pump out 2,048 by 1,536 resolution and is just as capable of helping CAD engineers design the next suspension bridge as displaying a terrain map.
The company's flagship FireGL X2-256 card matches nVidia's QuadroFX in many respects with a comparable 256-bit memory path and 256MB of memory. Dinesh Sharma, Director of Workstation Products, ATI Technologies says, "FireGL architecture delivers advanced features across the entire product line from mobile workstations through high-end systems, in addition to its price performance advantage."
Based on ATI's FGL 9800 chip or visual processing unit as the company calls it, the FireGL is an 8X AGP card that uses a 128-bit floating point engine with four parallel geometry engines and eight pixel pipelines for top performance. Its 24-bit color engine and advanced pixel shaders can create stunning real-life effects, while the pair of 400MHz RAMDACs speed the images to the screen. All told, it's capable of generating nearly 400 million triangles a second.
A half step down the technology ladder, you will find the company's FireGL X1-256p and FireGL X1-128 cards. They are similar but use the slightly less sophisticated FGL 9700 chip. These cards can still deliver the digital goods with four geometry engines and eight parallel rendering pipelines, 256-bit memory path and 400 MHz RAMDACs, but the 256p model features 256 MB of memory and the AGP Pro50 interface, while the 128 model has 128 MB of RAM and uses AGP 8X connections. The FireGL X1-256p is also unique among ATI cards in that it can create stereoscopic images for vivid 3-D effects.
Used in a variety of HP workstations, ATI's FireGL Z1-128 uses the FGL 9500 engine. It is based on four geometry engines, four pixel pipelines and can come with as much as 128MB of memory. "ATI's FireGL Z1-128p is excellent for CAD users running leading design automation applications such as Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks and Catia," offers ATI's Sharma.
Entry level for ATI is its FireGL T2-128. The card, which sells for $260, uses the intermediate FGL 9600 processor combined with 128 MB of memory. Like its pricier brethren, the T2-128 has a pair of geometry engines, but it gets by with four parallel rendering pipelines and its memory channel is limited to a peak of 128-bits, half that of the company's high-end models.
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