The new AMD FirePro V5900
Today AMD unveils two new workstation GPUs aimed squarely at the mid- and high-end DCC and workstation market: the FirePro V5900 and V7900. The ATI moniker is fully dead, as these are branded AMD parts.
Not that it matters much—the entire ATI team responsible for previous FirePro cards is still in place, and they’ve been hard at work on these computational monsters.
The new AMD FirePro V7900
The two new GPUs are based on the Cayman GL architecture. The V5900 has 512 stream processors while the V7900 has 1280 stream processors. Each card has 2gb of GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit memory interface. The V5900 can push 1200 MTriangles/s and the V7900 an impressive 1450 MTriangles/s.
Here’s where things get cool, though: Each card is a single slot solution, and each supports Eyefinity. The V5900 sips power daintily at a mere 75W and the V7900 tops out at 150W. This is possible because of some frankly incredible advancements in power technology which we’ll get to in a moment. The V5900 has two DisplayPort 1.2 ports and 1 dual-link DVI and can run three displays with Eyefinity, while the V7900 has four DisplayPort 1.2 ports and can push four displays. This generation of FirePro are the first workstation GPUs to support the new DisplayPort 1.2 spec, as well.
The list price of the V5900 is $599 and the V7900 comes in at $999.
The V5900 replaces the V5800 as their mid-range workstation GPU and the V7900 replaces the V7800. Here’s how the 2011 FirePro lineup stacks up:
New Tech
The V5900 and V7900 represent a big leap for FirePro in terms of raw performance, but more exciting is the flexibility and productivity enhancements made possible by the low-power design and Eyefinity support. Over the next few weeks we’ll be going in-depth into dissecting these exciting technologies, but for now, let’s put a name to them: First up we have PowerTune, which at first seems mundane, but once you find out exactly how they developed this power technology and what it makes possible, you’ll change your opinion just as quickly as I did. Second, we have a new anti-aliasing mode called EQAA or Enhanced Quality AntiAliasing. Third, we have a technology that basically revolutionizes the way workstation GPUs process data called GeometryBoost. On a side note, GeometryBoost was literally named by Icrontic. Bobby “UPSLynx” Miller and Eli “Pragtastic” Robbins were discussing it one night over beers and they came up with the name. Since Bobby also happens to be the Product Marketing Manager for FirePro graphics, well… boom, headshot.
Geometry Boost can be summarized thusly, in a RealTalk™ quote from FirePro Product Marketing Manager Bobby Miller. The exchange went something like this:
Brian: Bobby, give me a one-sentence summary of GeometryBoost.
Bobby: Do you want the official AMD definition written by yours truly? Short version: GeometryBoost technology provides extremely fast geometry performance and ensures smooth handling of complex models.
Brian: No, I want the RealTalk™ version
Bobby: How about this: GeometryBoost employs dual graphics engines which process two primitives per clock cycle, allowing much faster processing of complex geometry.
Let’s get that further simplified: According to Miller, GeometryBoost technology means smoother handling of large models and geometry thanks to the graphics card being able to draw two geometric objects per clock cycle. Two is like, twice as many as one, which is what other cards can draw per clock cycle.
GeometryBoost is revolutionary, no doubt, but there are still more exciting developments in FirePro world.
Next up we have EQAA, which is a new form of anti-aliasing. This doesn’t have a great deal of uses for DCC professionals, but for digital signage and other display-sensitive tasks, EQAA promises to improve anti-aliasing performance and aesthetics with a lower impact than other forms of AA. From the marketing materials:
EQAA is a new anti-aliasing option available on the latest series of AMD FirePro™professional graphics cards.This technique offers advanced smoothing of aliased edges without requiring additional video
memory, and with a minimal performance cost. It offers enhanced quality over standard Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) modes by doubling the number of coverage samples per pixel, while keeping the same number of color/depth/stencil samples.
Cool, cool.
Now we get to my personal favorite, PowerTune. Friends, I’m not exaggerating when I say that at first glance, PowerTune seems to be alien technology. Wait, let’s go back a bit. At first glance, PowerTune seems very boring. “Oh,” they say, “What’s the big deal? The card gets hot and it clocks down. Yawn.”. They say that, I’ve seen it. Hell, I said it. Then Eric Demers, who is the CTO of Graphics for AMD, got up in front of a room full of journalists and wowed us with what’s really going on here.
PowerTune is not analog technology. That is to say, it doesn’t employ something as simple as a thermometer and a signal that says “Hey, it’s hot, turn that thing down.” That’s amateur hour, and it’s a very basic technology that gives extremely coarse control over temperatures to keep the card within TDP (Thermal Design Power. Here’s an awesome primer on TDP if you don’t know what it means).
PowerTune changes the entire game. These GPUs were put into a laboratory and in a process which I can only describe as utterly thrilling, were thermally mapped out in a variety of real-world usage scenarios. Scripted tests like “What parts of the GPU die get hotter during spinning a model in the viewport on 3DS Max?” and “What happens while we’re rendering MPEG-4 video?” and “Where’s the heat during OpenCL computations?” were run over and over again. The data was collected and parsed, and a digital map of the heat signature of the GPU was created. Next, they built logic into a microcontroller that recognizes what the GPU is currently doing, and what it’s likely about to do, and is able to prepare in advance for what the heat output is going to look like in the future. This way, it can intelligently clock down various components in real time in order to keep the card within it’s already absurdly low TDP of 75W (V5900) or 150W (V7900). This is precisely why these cards are able to be single-slot models. In fact, the V5900 doesn’t even require an external PSU cable. It’s freaking bus powered!
PowerTune is so awesome, I’m going to write an in-depth article about it soon. For now, suffice to say that it is something revolutionary, that the competition does not possess, and is a significant factor in the vast improvements that these cards represent over previous iterations.
Productivity Enhancement
These cards will essentially enable an entirely new workflow for certain people. Eyefinity is extremely awesome for consumers and gamers, sure… but the workstation market is who is really going to benefit from this technology.
Once you see a workflow with three or four monitors, you cannot unsee it. You cannot imagine going back to a single- or even dual-monitor setup. Content creation is done in suites now—from Adobe CS to a Catia workflow, professionals use a multitude of apps at once in the content creation process. Having each app in its own display makes everything flow much faster and more efficiently, which translates into time saved and thus, money saved. You can get multi-monitor workflows with NVIDIA as well, but… well,
Yeah, it kind of speaks for itself...
The benchmarks
Because of the unique nature and usage scenarios of these workstation GPUs, we are not going to break down dozens of different benchmarks and give you Crysis numbers and all of that—it’s ultimately pointless, and people who are the target market for this class of hardware don’t really need to know how they perform in 3DMark at any rate. Our test system was an AMD Phenom X4 965 at 3.4ghz and 4gb of RAM on Windows 7 64-bit. We’ll do a follow-up article with the charts and graphs that the more pedantic among you expect, along with some interesting comparisons to other products, but in the meantime, I will summarize it with this: In SpecViewperf 11, the V7900 is about neck-and-neck with the $4000 NVIDIA Quadro 6000, and in some tests exceeded the legendary Q6000. This is a bull in a china shop, this card. If you’re interested in Linux benchmarks for the V5900 and V7900, our friends at Phoronix have you covered in that area. If you are interested in synthetic benchmark numbers, PC Perspective has them.
For now, considering the performance, new technologies, incredible advancements in power usage, and very compelling price, I have no doubts at all about presenting AMD our coveted Golden Fedora award for this groundbreaking release. This generation of cards is a very, very serious game changer for a great many people in a lot of different industries, and if you are at all serious about DCC, signage, science, imaging, oil & gas exploration, and other workstation GPU tasks, you absolutely must take a long and hard look at these cards, because they may vastly improve your work.
Disclaimer: AMD flew me out to Sunnyvale to show me these cards, bought dinner for me, and I’ll be honest, I had some drinks and lulz with Bobby Miller. They also sent us a V5900 and V7900 for review. Of course, you know this stuff doesn’t color our reviews. This shit is legit. Alien technology, seriously.
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