upFront ezine is an independent newsletter and great resource for anyone in the CAD industry. The latest issue is filled with news and interviews from SolidWorks World 2010 including an interview with AMD’s World Wide Senior Product Marketing Manager for Workstation Graphics, Bahman Dara. I’m going to repeat several of the Q&As here, but check out the newsletter for the full scoop.
“How do you distinguish yourselves from nVidia,” was my first question.
For one, AMD focuses on workstation and DCC graphics only. (DCC is digital content creation, those guys who create graphics for games and TV commercials.) For another, their graphics boards cost less than those from nVidia, when measured by performance per dollar. (nVidia skipped this show; in their place was retail proxy PNY.) AMD has just two product names: Radeon for consumers and FirePro for professionals. FirePro is divided into:
- FirePro V-series for CAD and DCC.
- FirePro Multi-View for multimonitor “text” users like financial traders.
And then both are available in desktop and notebook ("mobile") versions.
“And what about the future?” I wondered.
Mr Dara told me that AMD is working on remote graphics, using compression to deliver graphics from a central server through a cable to desktops via Ethernet or USB.
See the issue to learn more about the SolidWorks World keynotes, future plans for SolidWorks, as well more on AMD plans.
I go to presentations to learn about what the speaker has to say, but it never hurts that there are random drawings for cool prizes at the end . At SolidWorks World 2010, the AMD crew were giving out FirePro cards at several of the presentations. In the pics below the winners from the talks on “Creating Great Images Easily With RealView and PhotoView 360”, “SolidWorks Graphics Performance Analysis & Tuning”, and a winner just for showing up at the AMD booth at the right time of day!
A short video from first night at SolidWorks World 2010. It was an open cocktail evening and people came over to the AMD booth with the Eyefinity display and just had fun!
AMD has a strong presence at SolidWorks World 2010 (hence the timing of last week's news that the entire FirePro family is certified for SolidWorks 2010 running Windows 7).
The 3 Eyefinity screens look pretty amazing as you can see in the photos below from the AMD booth.
The research section at SolidWorks World has some pretty cool things showing.
Two things really stood out:
The Microsoft Surfaces touch table – more advanced than last year
The Infinite Z immersive virtual-holographic display. It offers interactive experience through direct interaction with virtual holographic models using a stylus and 3D glasses. This demo was really impressive - full color, full motion, 100% in space. Tony Stark's design lab in Ironman anyone?
The entire family of ATI FirePro professional graphics has been certified by Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp for SolidWorks 2010 on Microsoft Windows 7.1 SolidWorks software is optimized to work in tandem with ATI FirePro professional graphics and Windows 7 to deliver fast performance and advanced stability for professionals working with mechanical designs.
The webinar Optimizing Your Workstation for SolidWorks by Allen Bourgoyne, AMD graphics guru and SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization committee member, is now available on-demand. (hint: fast forward the first few minutes to get to the meat of the presentation)
Allen shares his tips for getting higher performance from your SolidWorks application. He covers how to analyze and tune your workstation, analyze and improve component performance, and identify software issues that can affect performance.
About a month ago I wrote about the AMD “Reset Your Preconceptions” program for SolidWorks. In a nutshell, prominent SolidWorks users are being sent a FirePro card to try out in their everyday working environment with the only condition being that they share their experience - be it good, bad, or indifferent. Anna’s SolidMuse blog is the third review to come out.
Summary from SolidMuse: “So what is the bottom line after spending a few weeks with the ATI FirePro’s? I liked the cards, they worked well with my system and are definitely on par with the offerings from Nvidia.”
Perhaps more relevant: “After returning the FirePro’s to ATI, I went out and purchased my own FirePro V8700 “.
Again I need to give an acknowledgement to the FirePro team for running this campaign. It is real world testing with real world users all without any marketing spin control. It is an unusual level of transparency for a hardware company.
For over a year now AMD's FireGL/FirePro team have been letting the professional 3D CAD and DCC users know that their new line of cards and drivers have undergone significant transformations with regard to quality, price and performance.
There are still some old preconceptions out there and the fight against past momentum continues. The FirePro team is taking the unusual step of working with a leading 3D CAD vendor - SolidWorks, and sending out workstations with FirePro accelerators to some of their more prominent users/bloggers. The users can evaluate the new cards in their own SolidWorks 2009 workflows relative to any other 3D graphics accelerators they have used.
No marketing spin, no "official" benchmarks to run, no pre-conditions for use. Just try out the card and use it in a way similar to how he or she would work normally. Then share their experience - be it good, bad, or indifferent.
The program will run for several months with 8 individuals in the SolidWorks community.
The first two SolidWorks gurus have already finished up their two weeks real-world use. You can read their evaluations here:
What I find compelling about this program is that the FirePro team is willing to put their cards on the line with real users in real workflows. They are also using this as an opportunity to actively gather feedback on any problems and improve further where necessary. Wish this kind of transparency was coming from every hardware company!
I will keep updating as I come across more posts from these SolidWorks users who are participating in this programs.
With the stated goal of assisting out-of-work engineers, both SolidWorks and Autodesk have announced programs to help engineers beef up their CAD skills.
The SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package provides a 90-day version of SolidWorks 3D CAD software, training materials a chance at certification, and job leads to any U.S. or Canadian resident seeking to develop, upgrade, or refresh 3D CAD skills that employers need.
The Autodesk Assistance Program offers 13 month access to student license of AutoCAD, Revit Architecture, Autodesk Inventor Professional, and AutoCAD Civil 3D, and includes online training and discounts on certification testing.
FireUser.com is a community resource for visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies, discuss support issues, as well as influence the features and direction of the FireGL and FirePro accelerator line.
The webinar Optimizing Your Workstation for SolidWorks by Allen Bourgoyne, AMD graphics guru and 
About a month ago I 
