For years, AMD's professional graphics accelerators have worn a FireGL label, but with OpenGL 2.0 joined by DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1, and soon OpenCL, the GL tag is losing its authority. Enter FirePro, the new brand for AMD's professional GPU products. If you'd like to get acquainted, the new ATI FirePro V3700 lets CAD users migrate from the 2D world to ISV-certified 3D for just $99.

The PCI Express 2.0-compliant V3700 features 40 shader units, 256MB of memory with 15GB/sec of memory bandwidth, and two dual-link DVI connectors for resolutions up to 2,560 by 1,600 pixels.

The economy card's senior sibling is the ATI FirePro V5700, a 320-shader-unit powerhouse with up to two times the performance of the company's FireGL V5600, shipping next month for $599. Its true 30-bit display engine produces more than one billion colors at any given time, while Unified Video Decoder 2.0 provides full Blu-ray feature support including dual-stream and picture-in-picture capabilities.