Both ATI and MSI are making thick and chunky waves with some much anticipated news which, albeit at a price, gives you more options on your desktop. One, to have up to six screens blasting your face with beautiful light. The other, reducing everything into a compact desktop workstation that could rival, dare we say, an iMac? Take a look.
MSI Wind Top 3D All-in-One
It’s a thing of beauty. The first 3D Multi-touch all-in-one computer. The Wind Top AE2420 3D packs 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, a 1 TB SATA, a web-cam, a Blue-Ray/DVD burner, and a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 into a 22 x 16 x 2.5 inch desktop icon of simplicity. That means a 24-inch, 1080p, 120Hz display. SWEET. It runs an Intel Core i7-860 (2.8GHz) processor ans is full multi-touch with Windows 7 Premium (64 bit) serving your interactive needs. The price? US $1799 to slip on the 3D glasses and smudge your screen in style.
The Radeon GPU is not the most ideal for 3D modeling work. With SolidWorks, you won’t get the benefit of RealView… if you consider that a benefit, unless you do a softmod to bump it up to FirePro (FireGL) status. I’ve been wanting to get all-in-one and this is just about what I’m looking for. Throw in an option for a better GPU and you’ve got a gem of a computer.
ATI FirePro V9800
Perhaps even more exciting is the news ATI has announced. The ATI FirePro V9800 is available and beating the competition, along with their statements about multi-monitor performance, into the ground. The V9800 gives you the options of connecting up to six monitors to one GPU. That. is. amazing.
Of course, it comes with a cost. The 4GB GDDR memory card with 6 mini display port connections, DirectX11, OpenGL 4.0 and stereoscopic supports will retail for… US $3,499. A big step above the competition’s offering or any other ATI card that allows only a maximum of 2 displays per GPU.
The wonderful thing about this graphic’s card is how it’s could affect the price of the lower and mid-range cards. The next round of cards, will likely have many of the same (or better) features and come in at a price much lower. The ball is on Nvidia’s court now.
So, even though it seems freakin’ silly cool to use six screens for product design, it is now possible. ATI even did a case study with Dassault Systemes (pdf), makers of CATIA and SolidWorks, where Christophe Delattre of DS R&D states, “A powerful graphics card is mandatory when handling large data sets in an application like CATIA…” [Emphasis added] Are you CATIA users ready for 6 monitors?
Via Develop3D (ATI FirePro V9800) and Tom’s hardware & Engadget (MSI All-in-One)
