AMD Graphics Accelerators

ATI FireGL V3600

ATI FireGL V3600 is the youngest professional graphics accelerator in the current lineup that AMD offers for CAD and CAM applications. However, we can hardly call it a budget solution, because it retails for a little over $200, which is the price of a gaming Radeon HD 3870.

At the same time, ATI FireGL V3600 is not based on the newest GPU, but on the 65nm RV630GL that ahs already stood the test of time and that belongs to inexpensive solutions from the “gaming” prospective. The graphics core frequency is also not that impressive: only 600MHz. It means that ATI FireGL V3600 is very similar to Radeon HD 2600 Pro without the introduced professional optimizations. However, the professional card is equipped with 256MB of DDr2 memory with 128-bit bus that works at 1GHz frequency. So, this professional graphics accelerator compatible with DirextX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.1 features 120 shader processors, provides about 2.4GPixel/s peak fillrate and has memory with 16GB/s bandwidth.

The exterior looks of ATI FireGL V3600 turned out exactly as we have expected. It uses the same PCB as Radeon HD 2600 Pro. The only distinguishing feature is a small cooler that is made of copper in this case. This cooling system cools only the GPU: the memory chips on both sides of the graphics card PCB do not have any cooling of their own.

The card is compatible with PCI Express x16 interface version 2.0 and is equipped with two Dual-Link DVI outs, so it supports monitors with up to 2560x1600 resolution.