AMD Announces FirePro V4900 Professional Graphics Card

[btarunr]

AMD today launched the AMD FirePro V4900, which delivers unequaled performance for Digital Content Creation (DCC) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) professionals at an entry-level price point. By leveraging AMD's most advanced graphics technology, including AMD Eyefinity technology, the AMD FirePro V4900 significantly improves application performance and drives efficiency in the workplace. In fact, the AMD FirePro V4900 more than doubled the performance of competitive offerings in many CAD and DCC application tests.

"The AMD FirePro V4900 stands in a league of its own and redefines entry-level professional graphics card capabilities," says Sandeep Gupte, general manager of Professional Graphics, AMD. "The AMD FirePro V4900 leverages AMD's most advanced graphics technology, which not only enhances user experience and boosts performance of professional applications, but also features AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology that supports up to six displays, increasing user productivity."



The AMD FirePro V4900 is designed to exceed the needs of graphics professionals. The GPU's 1GB of 128-bit GDDR5 RAM drives memory bandwidth of 64 GB/s, allowing rapid data access, while Microsoft DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL support empowers users to render and manipulate models using the broadest range of tools and applications. Enhanced AMD Eyefinity and DisplayPort 1.2 technology enables six-screen multi-display set ups, which deliver higher resolutions and increased productivity when working with multiple applications, while reducing the complexity and cost of a typical multi-monitor set up. Through AMD's productive relationship with workstation solution providers, the AMD FirePro V4900 will be available in a range of industry-leading systems from HP and others.

"HP workstation customers operate at the highest levels in every industry -- they demand solutions that deliver optimum performance and the latest technologies," says Jeff Wood, vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Commercial Solutions, HP. "By integrating the AMD FirePro V4900 into its workstations, HP is providing customers with a powerful graphics solution -- at an affordable price."

AMD FirePro products are tested and certified with many leading software applications to ensure compatibility, stability, and optimal performance. The AMD FirePro V4900 has received certification for a variety of applications including Abaqus/CAE 6.11, ANSYS 13.0, Autodesk 2012 3D design software solutions, Bentley System's Microstation V8i, BETA CAE Systems' ANSA and mETA, CEI's EnSight, and EnSight CFD. Additionally, the AMD FirePro V4900 received certification from COMSOL Multiphysics, Esri ArcGIS 9.3.1, and 10, Missler Software TopSolid 2012 CAD/CAM solutions, MSC Software, Patran and SimXpert 2011, Robert McNeel and Associates' Rhinoceros, SolidWorks Corp.'s SolidWorks 2011 and 2012 3D CAD software, SpaceClaim, Vision Numeric 3DESIGN and several solutions from Siemens PLM Software.

"Siemens PLM Software works closely with AMD to ensure its product lifecycle management software meets the needs of its professional users," says Bill Boswell, senior director, Partner Strategy, Siemens PLM Software. "The AMD FirePro V4900 delivers outstanding performance with value, while AMD's industry-leading product support makes certain our users receive the attention they need when they need it. Through our partnership with AMD, Siemens PLM helps our customers make smarter decisions and better products."

The AMD FirePro V4900 will be available in select Dell and Fujitsu systems and HP workstations. As of November 1, 2011 it will be sold for $189 USD MSRP at select online resellers.

For more information, visit the product page.

[LAN_deRf_HA]

What's up with that heatsink? Looks like a spiral design with very finely packed fins. Can't recall seeing a design like that before. Wonder how it will perform short term and long term. I say long term cause I'm sure it's going to seize up and crap out from dust at some point. Every dead card I've ever come across had a tiny fan and a carpet of lint on the sink.

[Jarman]

A lot of hype there about what looks like a 5450

[m4gicfour]

Originally Posted by Jarman

A lot of hype there about what looks like a 5450

This is the main thing the hype's about. The card and drivers are certified to work with professional applications, without any showstopping bugs. Gaming hardware is generally more powerful because it comes out sooner (no need to go through costly and lengthy certifications). Where drivers are concerned, on the gaming side they optimize for performance, period. That can introduce bugs, and break some things, causing downtime for an enterprise customer, until an undefined future date when the regressions are fixed. Downtime like that could bankrupt a small CAD firm, especially if they ran 100% AMD hardware (and hence any bug introduced would likely affect 100% of their output)

Originally Posted by btarunr

AMD FirePro products are tested and certified with many leading software applications to ensure compatibility, stability, and optimal performance. The AMD FirePro V4900 has received certification for a variety of applications including Abaqus/CAE 6.11, ANSYS 13.0, Autodesk 2012 3D design software solutions, Bentley System's Microstation V8i, BETA CAE Systems' ANSA and mETA, CEI's EnSight, and EnSight CFD. Additionally, the AMD FirePro V4900 received certification from COMSOL Multiphysics, Esri ArcGIS 9.3.1, and 10, Missler Software TopSolid 2012 CAD/CAM solutions, MSC Software, Patran and SimXpert 2011, Robert McNeel and Associates' Rhinoceros, SolidWorks Corp.'s SolidWorks 2011 and 2012 3D CAD software, SpaceClaim, Vision Numeric 3DESIGN and several solutions from Siemens PLM Software.

[Sasqui]

^Indeed, the workstation cards in the past have been 1-offs of the gaming cards. The additional cost is justified (mostly) by special driver development for particular professional applications.

Back in the day of the ATI 9800 Non-Pro, there was a set of fuses on the GPU die. Shorting one turned the card into a 9800 Pro (or XT?) model, shorting another turned the card into a $1500 FireGL!!!

That said, I wonder what is the "real" hardware we're looking at here.

[Edgarstrong]

Is this what they use for creating CGI in movies?

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Edgarstrong

Is this what they use for creating CGI in movies?

They use rendering "farms" (large computing clusters) that render the movie frame-by-frame. Bits and pieces of those frames are created on machines with more powerful FirePro/Quadro GPUs than this.

This is more suited for CAD, engineering, wireframe stuff.

[Edgarstrong]

Originally Posted by btarunr

They use rendering "farms" (large computing clusters) that render the movie frame-by-frame. Bits and pieces of those frames are created on machines with more powerful FirePro/Quadro GPUs than this.

This is more suited for CAD, engineering, wireframe stuff.

Thanks for clarification

I can imagine (well, actually I can't) how much those systems cost.

[Jarman]

u couldnt render postman pat with that card lol.

Here's a q. If autocad utilises opengl, why can't you use a normal gpu to render the drawings??? I'm guessing money is the main reason, but i'm open to suggestions

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by Jarman

u couldnt render postman pat with that card lol.

Here's a q. If autocad utilises opengl, why can't you use a normal gpu to render the drawings??? I'm guessing money is the main reason, but i'm open to suggestions

You can, but may not get all the features. Ex: anti-aliased wireframe models (I don't know if that's still true).

And just like when drivers are optimized to benefit a game(s), routines in the pro drivers are opt'd for AutoCad, Maya, etc.

[burtram]

Back in the day, I had a FireGL card based off the 9800 chip, that was faster in Cinema4d and a number of other 3d apps than my x800xl was. These pro cards are quite worth their price, if you really need that extra performance in those applications.

[WarraWarra]

He's maybe thinking about OpenCL not OpenGL.

Check out the nokia webcl.xpi for firefox 7 and intel opencl driver + your gpu opencl driver then run peacekeeper and see the difference.

They should be able to use DrQueue and do a proper render of their cad on both distributed gpu's and cpu's.

Surely someone can take this driver and a normal 6990 then modify the .inf to add the 6990 prod id + ven id and you have a stable driver. You just need 1 stable driver and some creativity to get your hardware working, same for other firegl cards.

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

not a bad offering.