AMD FireGL V8600 On Linux

One of the first things to notice about the ATI FireGL V8600 (and V8650) is its size. This graphics card is huge. If you are in the market for the V8600 and were hoping to squeeze it inside a normal ATX case, you can kiss that idea goodbye. The FireGL V8600 is about 35 centimeters long and is the longest graphics card we have seen in modern times -- some old ISA graphics cards are longer. In order to properly fit this full-length workstation graphics card in a computer chassis, the case should be EATX compliant. Some of the Extended ATX cases that would work well include the Cooler Master Cosmos, SilverStone Temjin TJ10, and the SilverStone Kublai KL03. To show just how long this graphics card is, below is the V8600 on top with the Radeon HD 2900XT and Radeon HD 3870.

In addition to being very long, the FireGL V8600 will also take up two expansion slots because of its large cooling system. The FireGL V8600 is based around a copper heatpipe cooling solution and this cooler runs the length of the graphics card with some additional pins at the rear for additional heat dissipation. At the end of the graphics card are the dual-link DVI connectors along with stereoscopic output.