AMD announced that AMD FirePro professional graphics are entering the data center with Dell blade servers. The new AMD FirePro V7800P professional graphics are designed to deliver ultra-fast performance, superb visual quality and massive parallel processing power in a passively cooled form factor ideal for server environments.

In addition to supporting traditional workstation graphics in a client/server model, AMD FirePro V7800P professional graphics also enable GPU compute, remote graphics and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments.

"The AMD FirePro V7800P is AMD's first multifunctional server solution for compute, VDI and professional graphics offering IT departments GPU compute for High Performance Computing matched with leading edge graphics virtualization," said Sandeep Gupte, director of Professional Graphics Product Management, AMD. "The AMD FirePro V7800P allows AMD to draw upon a powerful professional graphics solution to meet the needs of an entirely new set of data center customers."

"AMD and Dell share a long history of collaboration spanning commercial and consumer notebooks and desktops, workstations and servers," said Brian Payne, executive director of Platform Marketing for Dell's PowerEdge Server portfolio. "We're collaborating together to drive innovation around graphics processing solutions and you won't find a better example than our Dell PowerEdge M610x blade. This blade helps support and accelerates multiple remote users while providing a rich graphical experience and maximum hardware asset utilization."

Dell and Microsoft have worked to certify AMD FirePro V7800P professional graphics and Dell PowerEdge blade servers with Microsoft RemoteFX in the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). This certification provides the stability and reassurance healthcare, financial services, government and education customers need to equip a workforce with remote and secure access to business productivity applications or specialized applications with rich graphics.

Based on a single unified driver, AMD FirePro V7800P professional graphics are specially designed for use in rackmount servers, blade servers and PCIe expansion chassis, and feature:

• Passive thermal solution for deployment flexibility
• Single-slot, energy efficient design that helps minimize power costs
• Optimized for a broad range of business and professional applications
• Revolutionary single and double floating-point performance across a wide range of computing applications

AMD FirePro V7800P professional graphics start at $1,249 U.S. MSRP and are available from Dell in addition to other channel partners worldwide this spring.

AMD is exhibiting at Microsoft Tech-Ed 2011 held May 16-19, 2011 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.