Nvidia has launched its latest "high-end" workstation-oriented graphics card, the Quadro FX 3500, with Dell claiming to be the first OEM to introduce a machine equipped with the part.

The card itself contains 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM clocked at around 675MHz and connected across a 256-bit bus to deliver 42.2GBps of memory bandwidth - the highest of any Quadro-class card to date. It can fill 9.4bn texels every second and process 174m triangles in the same timeframe.

The board consumes up to 80W and sports twin dual-link DVI-I ports. Two of the boards can be installed on suitable motherboards and set to render scenes co-operatively using SLI.

Dell said it was putting the board to work in its Precision 380 workstation family, based on a range of Intel Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors. Adding the Quadro FX 3500 to the specification increases the 380's price by $415. ®