so a FireGL with a directly lower model number is better than the Firepro with a directly higher model number

I guess they assume workstation people are in the know regarding this...

Well, it now looks like the FirePro V5700 is based on RV730, according to the very reliable CJ in this thread at Beyond3D:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1200990&postcount=21

As noted in the B3D thread, it is a bit unusual for ATI's professional products to launch before or around the same time as their contemporary consumer graphics parts when based on the same chip (as the FireGL stuff normally lags by a few months), but it must likely be a case of schedules aligning and wanting to announce the product now at SIGGRAPH for availability next month when RV730 is expected.

So these are RV730 and RV710 cores?

Or are they older R600 family cores? Except they didn't have DisplayPort support IIRC.

The specifications are rather paltry though, for the price. Still, we now know what the specifications of RV730 and RV710 are. 320 and 40 shaders respectfully.

#2 They could just also be re-branded RV670 and RV620 parts with cheap DDR2 RAM and/or halved-bus widths. Presumably as entry-level/value CAD/visualization cards, arithmetic power is more important than bandwidth.

#5 I believe that all of ATI's 55nm RV6xx products (RV670, RV635 and RV620) have the necessary DisplayPort logic, however not many AIBs equipped products based on them with DisplayPort adaptors.

I don't get it. Is the FireGL brand name getting dropped?

The V5700 appears to be based on a hypothetical Radeon 4650 : 128bit GDDR3 with 320 SP. That will explain the September availability and 29Gb/s bandwidth.

$600 and $100. That's a really wide range.