If you are interested in the latest AMD FirePro line, I just came across http://www.fireprographics.com/. The site has a wealth of information about the FirePro V4900, FirePro V5900 and FirePro V7900.
There are some truly interesting case studies for CAD and DCC, as well as videos comparing performance, and full comparative specs.
Even if you aren’t in the market for a new or replacement graphics card, the resources on this page are interesting to check out just to see how AMD is radically transforming their marketing and presentation. They’ve always had great cards. Now they are actually letting users know about them.
At this years SC11 Nov 14-18, Super Micro Computer will show off their new HPC server based on 16-core AMD Opteron 6200 processors. Supermicro’s A+ HPC exhibit will include the 4U/Tower server supporting dual AMD Opteron 6200 processors, up to 256GB of memory, and up to three AMD FirePro GPUs.
In addition to their own booth #2918, Supermicro will also be showing in the AMD booth #823 where you can enter to win a Supermicro H8DGi-F motherboard.
Everything else aside, the new FirePro V4900 achieves an immediate 20% compute and texture advantage over the V4800 at the same clocks. The V4900 comes with 1GB of 128-bit GDDR5 RAM and supports DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.2, and OpenCL. It also supports Eyefinity with 1 DVI port and 2 full size DisplayPorts which means the V4900 can be used to drive up to 6 displays when paired with MST hubs. Like all FirePro cards, the drivers are certified for specific professional applications and the board comes with a 3 yr 24/7 warranty. At $189 the V4900 doesn’t have any direct competition - it’s more than $200 cheaper than the Quadro 2000 and competitive with the Quadro 600.
ZDNet reviewer Dawson gives his take on HP’s EliteBook 8460w mobile workstation.
“Weighing in around 5 pounds with the extended life battery (which, by the way, is giving me around 8 hours of battery life under normal use), the 8460w has a bright, clear screen with an antiglare finish running at 1600×900. My test model topped out at about $2700, which isn’t cheap by any means, but is actually right in line with a comparably equipped MacBook Pro. In fact, the price of the HP could be shaved to $2450 by just removing the Blu-Ray burner. It would still include a 2.3GHz second-gen Core i7 quad core processor, AMD FirePro graphics (with support for up to 4 monitors), 3 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB power/2.0 port, and a USB/eSATA port…. Being a workstation, it also features various ISV certifications and HP has added a variety of security and power management software”
While not specific to FirePro graphics, these new Bulldozer-based servers and desktop systems promise to drive new levels of high performance graphics through OpenCL and tighter integration with the GPUs.
Two videos worth catching:
Bulldozer promo
Competitive performance for AMD FX processors (also see press release)
Post #3 in the 4-part series on remote graphics for CAD, talks about remote graphics solutions that include hardware accelerated encryption and high-speed transmission PCoIP technologies like the FirePro RG220 Remote Graphics card.
For high performance CAD this is a 1:1 solutions (one thin client mapped to one remote graphics card). The big gain for companies where intellectual property is critical, is security. With remote graphics and PCoIP, the data resides on the server and graphics card and never is at risk for theft (inadvertent or intentional) from the local machine. For engineering companies who do projects for government or large defense manufacturers, remote graphics give high performance, but eliminates many security issues.
The post also talks about remote management and gives and example from an Oil & Gas company using the soluiton
Post #2 in the 4-part series on remote graphics for CAD, talks about how any firm with users working on 2D AutoCAD DWG drawings or medium-complexity 3D projects will be able to support four users on thin clients with a single FirePro RG220 Remote Graphics card (offers hardware-accelerated PCoIP compression) and at least one quad-core CPU server running the Parallels Workstation Extreme 4.0 hypervisor.
By implementing a remote graphics solution that is capable of supporting more than one user on zero clients, that’s fewer workstations and graphic cards a company has to buy and support.
The newly announced AMD Radeon E6460 entry-level embedded graphics processor supports up to four independent output displays using Eyefinity and offers HDMI 1.4 stereoscopic video and DisplayPort 1.2.
Targeted at casino gaming, digital signage, instrumentation and industrial control systems, the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU sets a new bar for features and performance in an entry-level embedded GPU with broadly scalable graphics and multimedia performance, and a planned 5 years of supply availablitly (hence the longevity in the press release title).
At IBC 2011 AMD announced the FirePro SDI-Link for system integrators and ISVs to design fully featured SDI- and GPU-based solutions with ultra-low latency between AMD professional graphics cards and industry-standard third party SDI input/output cards (e.g. AJA, Bluefish444, Blackmagic Design, DELTACAST, DVS and Matrox).
SDI - Serial Digital Interface - is the primary digital format connection standard in the professional broadcast industry for uncompressed digital video for live feed productions (such as a live TV show), as well as for editing and monitoring video at the highest possible quality. It carries everything (video, audio, and time code) over one cable, with a bandwidth of nearly 1.5 gigabits per second (i.e. you're getting raw HD output before any compression is applied.)
Using the SDI-Link technology and the new FirePro V7900 SDI card, you get incredibly low-latency, high throughput GPU acceleration of real-time video and broadcast FX pipelines. The uncompressed digital video streams come in over an industry-standard SDI input card. The data is transferred to the GPU for real-time OpenGL/DX11/OpenCL processing (visual effects, color grading, encoding, editorial, graphics etc). Then again with virtually zero latency the processed video is passed back to the SDI card for output.
The four key components of the FirePro SDI-Link solution are:
AMD DirectGMA technology (PCI‐Express ‘peer‐to‐peer' transfers that completely bypasses any need to traverse the host's main memory or utilize the CPU)
Support from 3rd-party SDI I/O vendors
The SDI-Link SDK for ISVs to develop custom solutions for end-users
Supported FirePro video cards beginning with the V7900 SDI
Below is a quick overview from Bluefish444 of how they are using their SDI I/O PCI card with their new Lightspeed driver for the AMD FirePro SDI-link running Virtual Spectator software for real-time graphics on uncompressed video
FireUser.com is a community resource for CAD, visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies and news with a focus on the AMD FirePro workstation graphics line.
