Any gamer would love to own an HD 4870 X2 or GTX 280, but lost in the shuffle of gaming-centric videocards is the hardware aimed at the professional graphics designer. This includes Computer Aided Design (CAD), Digital Content Creation (DCC), and other tasks that have nothing to do with fragging aliens in Crysis or honing team-based tactics in Team Fortress 2. It's this latter group that AMD is aiming its new ATI FirePro series at.

The company claims its new ATI FirePro V5700 and V3700 videocards will boost application performance up to 200 percent over previous generation workstation cards, representing a significant upgrade.

FirePro V5700

In its press release, AMD touts the ATI FirePro V5700 as delivering "the perfect balance of price and application performance for CAD and DCC professionals." The card comes equipped with a 512MB frame buffer, dual-link DVI and DisplayPort connections, 30-bit display engine, and ATI's Unified Video Decoder 2.0. The V5700 will carry an MSRP of $599 when it begins shipping next month.

FirePro V3700

Wile the V5700 targets the high end, AMD says its new V3700 "establishes a new, low entry price for a professional 3D graphics," a claim the company backs with an easy to swallow $99 MSRP (available now). The C-note gets professionals on a budget a smaller 256MB frame buffer, two dual-link DVI connections, and VGA mode support.

Both cards, which are planned to be shown at Siggraph 2008 (August 12-14), also tout support for DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 2.0, PCI-E 2.0, and Shader Model 4.1.

Image Credit: ATI