AMD yesterday unveiled two new series of video cards, the Radeon HD 3400 and Radeon HD 3600 series. The new series target the entry-level and mainstream customer markets.

The Radeon HD 3000 series will range in price from $49 to $65, while the Radeon HD 3400 series price range will be $79 to $99.

According to AMD, these are the world’s first GPUs with integrated DisplayPort support, which offers twice the bandwidth of DVI. "AMD is demonstrating its technology leadership with the introduction of dual integrated DisplayPort capability in the ATI Radeon HD 3400 and ATI Radeon HD 3600 series graphics," said Bruce Montag of Dell"s office of the CTO. (Dell is a fellow supporter of the DisplayPort standard.)

Both series support DirectX 10.1 and PCI Express 2.0. They also feature CrossFireX, ATI"s technology for allowing the use of multiple graphics cards. In addition, the ATI Hybrid Graphics feature allows users to combine a Radeon HD 3400 GPU with a compatible AMD 7-Series chipset.

On the home theater front, the cards accomodate full 1080p high-definition video viewing via AMD’s proprietary unified video decoder (UVD) technology. They also include built-in support for six channel audio transmission through HDMI.

"With the ATI Radeon HD 3400 and ATI Radeon HD 3600 series, AMD is delivering outstanding graphics performance to the mainstream," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president, AMD Graphics Products Group. "AMD is leading the industry by delivering top-to-bottom DirectX 10.1 support with modular graphics capabilities for easy upgradeability. It’s part of our commitment to deliver The Ultimate Visual Experience to more users than ever before."

The cards are already incorporated into a number of OEM mainstream and entry-level PCs scheduled to be shipped in 2008.