Nvidia yesterday rolled out its latest workstation-class graphics cards: three boards based on its 'G80' unified-shader graphics chip. The trio can be used to accelerate science and engineering apps as well a graphics software, the company said.

The three new boards are the Quadro FX 4600, FX 5600 and Plex VCS Model IV. Nvidia didn't detail the specifications of the Model IV product, which is designed for the company's own Plex external 64x SLI rendering box.

The 4600 and 5600 have, respectively, 768MB and 1.5GB of GDDR 3 video memory connected across a 384-bit bus. The 4600's memory is clocked at 600MHz (1.2GHz effective), the 5600's at 800MHz (1.6GHz effective). Both are dual-slot boards and consume up to 134W and 171W, respectively. They each have two dual-link DVI ports and stereo audio out. Both have optional add-on cards for Genlock pro-video editing.

Nvidia said the 4600 will process out 250m triangles per second and offers a 12bn texel fill rate. The 5600 ups those numbers to 300m and 19.2bn.

All three cards operate with OpenGL and DirectX graphics APIs - and Nvidia's Cuda technology, which allows coders creating non-graphical apps to use the boards to accelerate other kinds of calculations.

The Quadro FX 4600 will retail for around $1,995, while the Quadro FX 5600 is priced at $2,999.