Next-gen Microsoft Surface uses AMD Athlon II X2 embedded processor & Radeon HD6700M

At CES, in addition to showing off Kinect, Microsoft also showed off their next generation multi-touch Surface platform on the Samsung SUR40. This new version was powered by the AMD Athlon II X2 embedded processor and Radeon HD 6700M graphic to deliver high performance with low power requirements.  See the video below or check out the press release.

MainConcept releases OpenCL-based H.264/AVC encoder SDK optimized for FirePro

MainConcept’s new encoding SDK dramatically improves H.264/AVC HD video encoding times by efficiently harnessing OpenCL and is optimized for the FirePro graphic line. The OpenCL H.264/AVC Encoder SDK contains a high-level Windows library as well as a DirectShow filter for easy integration into a variety of creative, broadcast, and professional applications.

What is an APU?

Monday AMD announced it’s first Fusion APU-based systems.  What exactly is an APU?  For AMD’s this new line of processors means - in a single die design -  multi-core CPU (x86) technology, a powerful DirectX®11-capable discrete-level graphics and parallel processing engine, a dedicated high-definition video acceleration block, and a high-speed bus that speeds data across the differing types of processor cores within the design.

Demo of 5 portrait HD monitors using Eyefinity technology for gaming - Wow!

It’s not a demo using DCC or CAD software, but it is a great example of setting up Eyefinity across 5 HD portrait displays.  It is pretty easy to translate this and imagine its use in professional 3D and CA work.

Impressive demo that makes it clear how this kind of display real-estate driven by a single video card, can really matter.

AMD Radeon HD 6900 series for enthusiastic DX11 and OpenGL gamers

A lot of reviews out today on the new AMD Radeon HD 6900 series.  The official press release spells out the technical features including a new VLIW4 shader architecture, asynchronous dispatch (important for OpenCL and DirectCompute), dual tessellation units, up to 2GB memory, PowerTune thermal limits, and of course, Eyefinity .  For gaming enthusiasts, these cards offer great performance but where they really dominate over the competition is the price/performance ratio.

From PC Perspective:
“The Radeon HD 6970 2GB card offers the largest frame buffer for a single GPU solution (512MB more than the GTX 580) and with the architectural improvements brought about with the VLIW4 design, updated tessellation engines and AA enhancements, it is able to keep pace and beat the GTX 570 from NVIDIA in many places and nearly match the much more expensive GTX 580.  That puts the HD 6970 in a very competitive situation in terms of performance per dollar.”

Check out other reviews at:

- HardOCP.com
- HotHardware.com
- Anandtech.com
- ZDnet

SolidWorks blog interviews FirePro Senior Product Marketing Manager Bahman Dara

SolidWorks World 2011 is coming up Jan 23-26 and of course AMD will be there showing off the performance of the FirePro line (Partner Pavilion booth #606).

In advance of the event, the SolidWorks blog folks interviewed Bahman Dara, Senior Manager of Product Marketing for the FirePro workstation graphics line. The key points of that interview:

How can FirePro help make a SolidWorks user’s life easier?
- Improve productivity and reduce design cycles with cards that are engineered, tested and certified to ensure reliability, and exceptional 3D performance.
- AMD Eyefinity technology lets you run up to six monitors at full HD resolution, simultaneously on a single graphics card. Expand your view and multitask with ease.

Check out the Eyefinity video below which is featured in the blog post.

CG Channel reviews the current FirePro line top to bottom for DCC work

While there have been many reviews about the newest line of FirePro cards, this one on CG Channel is focused on the DCC market and looks at a wide range of benchmarks as well as real world and practical use scenarios. 

It falls into that rare camp of reviews that are actually an interesting read, and not just robotic readout of benchmarks.

What are some of the take aways:

• You will get addicted to having 3 or more displays that work together “you’ve got Max or Maya open one of the 30-inchers, Photoshop on the other, ZBrush or Mudbox running on the Cintiq, and your reference art or a web browser open on the 22-inch display!”
• The V8800 and V7800 are awesome for DCC performance (and even good for gaming!)
• The v5800 best balances performance, features and price. Great choice unless you have really huge models or superdense meshes.
• The V3800 would be a good entry-level AutoCAD or SolidWorks card as CAD projects tend to not use the high-resolution textures and complex pixel shaders that DCC app do.
• OpenCL apps are not really here, but when they come, these cards will suddenly take on additional new life.

AMD at AU 2010 - check out this Eyefinity multi-screen video

Great video capture from AutoDesk University 2010 showing off Eyefinity on FirePro video cards.  You see Eyefinity in games all of the time, but it is really amazing (to me) to see it running in professional applications.

Each of these video snippets shows a single graphics card driving anywhere between 3-6 displays, and one or more apps.

KeyShot 2 real-time raytracing + GI using FirePro acceleration at Autodesk U 2010

Autodesk Universitiy begins today and one of the publicized demos in the AMD booth #1201 is KeyShot 2.1 for interactive real-time ray tracing and global illumination.

I’ve written previously about the GPU acceleration in KeyShot 2.1 (also see Develop3D’s review). At Autodesk University, KeyShot now natively supports import of Autodesk AutoCAD, ALIAS, Inventor, and FBX file formats, on both Mac and PC.

PLM Market Place blog tours the Dassault European Customer Forum

The PLM Market Place blog is offering a tour of some of what was shown at the recent Dassault European Customer Forum.  Antoine Reymond, AMD Strategic Alliances Senior Manager, shows an immersive 3D oil platform using 3dvia across 6 displays, CATIA running on a Barco 4k display and a Fujitsu workstation displaying gigapixels of 3D data across 3 displays.