The newly announced AMD FirePro V3900 workstation graphics card is powered by a new Turks GPU, with 1GB of DDR3 memory, 480 stream processors and support for up to 5 display devices using AMD Eyefinity and DisplayPort 1.2. It is designed to deliver the performance, reliability and compatibility of a high end graphics card at an entry level price point.
Like its higher end counterparts, the V4900, V5900 and V7900, the entry-level FirePro V3900 has been tested and certified with many leading DCC and CAD applications including AutoCAD, UGS NX, PTC Creo, SolidWorks and 3ds Max. to ensure compatibility, stability, and optimal performance. It of course offers full support for OpenGL 4.2, OpenCL 1.1 and DirectX 11.
Raw compute performance as measured in single-precision GFlops is 20 percent higher than the V3800 it replaces. AMD has run some comparison benchmarks comparing the V3900 to the V3800 and the Nvidia Quadro 400. See below.
With an MSRP of $119 this is an amazing deal for entry level workstation users.
It is a wothwhile introduction to what OpenCL and general-purpose computing across both CPUs and GPUs. In addition to the technology, it discusses why use an open standards / non-proprietary approach and the rapid growth rate of OpenCL.
Finally it describes some of the applications that will take immediate advantage of OpenCL including numerical computation and high-end visualization in CAD/CAM/CAE or real-time visualization/presentation, real-time video processing, and physics simulations in DCC/ Media & Entertainment.
This white paper from AMD and featured on DesignWorld, is a great introduction for anyone who is in CAD / CAE, DCC, Scientific Visualization, or Medical Imaging but doesn’t really completely understand all of the buzzwords or specs-and-feed language typically espoused by the 3D graphic card vendors. It’s basically a from top to bottom explanation of how 3D graphics work, what makes up a graphics card, what OpenCL, OpenGL and DirectX do, and how to combine GPUs to do even more. It then goes on to give real examples of how various industries benefit from GPU acceleration. Finally it described some of the FirePro advantages (notably ability to handle huge datasets, Eyefinity, reliability, and support).
The winner of the Cubicle Toy Design Contest sponsored by AMD FirePro Graphics, Dell and Desktop Engineering is Mark Norwood. He will receive a Dell Precision Workstation with professional AMD FirePro graphics.
Of the three finalists, Jason Cox managed to convey his remote-controlled mouse in solid form, along with exploded views showing how internal subcomponents would fit together. Ray Kelly’s detailed bottle cap blaster SolidWorks assembly gave you a clear idea how the internal mechanism would work. Mark Norwood’s water-spraying Sherman tank renderings and transparent views show how he planned to fit the water-carrying tube inside the tank’s shell.
In the end, the sheer amount of CAD and visualization efforts that went into the project, along with a fully assembled physical prototype, tipped the scale in Mark Norwood’s favor.
The AMD Fusion12 Developer Summit runs June 11-14, 2012 in Bellevue, Washington. At the summit you'll learn how to better leverage heterogeneous computing to advance your projects, see the latest advancements in OpenCL, C++ AMP, and Heterogeneous System Architectures.
Top 10 Reasons to Attend the Summit.
10Ten tracks reflecting the topic areas you care about. Tracks include heterogeneous computing, cloud computing, gaming and consumer graphics, and more.
9Keynotes packed with insights and never-before-seen demonstrations. Witness senior leaders from across the industry share what's next, now.
8OpenCL tips and information from some of the industry's best. Learn how to leverage OpenCL to help unleash the full potential of your developments faster and more efficiently than ever.
7Training you'll put into practice the day you return to work. More than 90 sessions packed with deep, content-rich data. Plus, pre-conference tutorials and hands-on labs.
6Unmatched access to AMD technologists. AMD technologists present keynotes, teach training sessions and are ready to talk technology at the social events. Working at AMD would be the only other way to get this level of access.
5Learn what the industry is doing. Come see the major players at AFDS. They present keynotes and lead technical sessions. Attending AFDS helps you better understand the marketplace and where the ecosystem is putting their resources so you stay competitive.
4Your next partnership could start here. With more than 1,200 technologists expected to attend, there's no shortage of opportunities for you to strengthen current partnerships, refresh old ones, and start collaborating with future partners.
3First to know. First to market. Attending AFDS gives you details on AMD's product roadmap. Your chance to lead the market begins here.
2Venture capitalists will be participating. If you've got the next big thing, AFDS is your chance to meet some of the venture capitalists that help start-ups start, and keep small companies growing.
1This is the center of the heterogeneous computing universe. If you're ready to use heterogeneous computing to redefine what your projects can do, to reset what you think technology will be like a decade from now, and reshape what consumers expect in every device they own, the technology and technologists you seek are at AFDS.
The finalist for the Cubicle Toy Design Contest sponsored by AMD FirePro Graphics, Dell and Desktop Enginneering were announced. The contest was for creative engineers to create a cubicle toy that would be guaranteed to inspire, amuse, amaze, or annoy your coworkers. The winner receives a Dell Precision Workstation with professional AMD FirePro graphics.
The designs are in, the judges have deliberated and the finalists for DE’s Design Challenge are ...
Mark Norwood for his water-spraying Sherman tank.
Jason Cox for his remote-controlled PC mouse.
Ray Kelley for his bottlecap blaster.
Next week, Jason, Mark, and Ray’s final designs will be posted to DE Facebook fan page so readers and fans can help select the winner by voting on their favorites.
A complete unboxing and setup video for the FirePro V7900 video card with an example of driving 3 displays using Eyefinity. These little Newegg videos are actually the next best thing to actually unboxing and handling one of the cards. (Also see the videos for the FirePro V4900 and FirePro V5900.)
You can see the the packaging, the included CrossFire X connector, 3D connector, 4 active DisplayPort-DVI adaptors (for older displays) and the actual card including the 4 DisplayPorts. It also discusses the PowerTune and GeometryBoost tech, as well as the Catalyst Control center software.
SolidWorks World 2012 is coming up Feb 12-15, 2012 in San Diego. The AMD FirePro team will again have a strong presence reflecting the long-standing collaboration and optimization with SolidWorks/Dassualt Systemes.
On display in Booth #207, AMD FirePro engineers will present demos of FirePro graphic cards for entry to high-end users, mobile workstations, Eyefinity and 3DVIA Composer.
In Break Out Session #4080 on Tuesday, February 14, 10:30 AM, Oliver Zegdoun will present: “Tuning Your Workstation to Get the Best Out of SolidWorks”
The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp (SPEC) is seeking help to develop a new workstation performance benchmark.
The Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (SPEC/GWPG) is seeking applications, algorithms and workloads that measures the performance of workstations running CAE (Computer Aided Engineering), digital media and entertainment, finance, health sciences and energy. The tests should be scalable (i.e. support multi-core processors), preferably solve large problems, support multiple architectures and be freely available to the public.
AMD today announced the AMD Radeon HD 7970. Why this is particularly interesting to the professional CAD/DCC community is because of the new SIMD-based Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture first detailed at the 2011 Fusion Developer Summit. Basically GCN enables the card to act both as a a graphics workhorse and a computing (e.g. OpenCL, C++ AMP, DirectCompute) workhorse for the processing of non-3D workloads such as video rendering, photo editing, code cracking, physics FX and scientific calculations.
The 28nm process means the new cards are faster than their 32 nanometer predecessor equivalents, without consuming significantly more power, or generating more heat (even though the number of stream processors increased from 1536 to 2048 and clock speed increased from 880MHz to 925MHz).
Also of note is Eyefinity 2.0 which adds support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation, brand new display configurations and an expanded and more immersive field of view. This allows users with 2560x1600 monitors in an AMD Eyefinity 5x1 landscape configuration to achieve a horizontal resolution of 12,800 pixels, driving more than 20 million pixels of screen real estate.
Take aways from my perspective: GPGPU computing is now mainstream. High-performance with low power consumption is mainstream. 3+ display Eyefinity and stereo 3D are mainstream. And lastly, this makes me excited about the next generations of FirePro graphics cards.
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.
