AMD Launches First-Ever AMD FirePro APU

[grimpr]

Its Trinity with Firepro drivers or something more tweaked?

"Today AMD launched the AMD FirePro A300 Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for entry-level and mainstream desktop workstations. Featuring AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology, the new AMD FirePro A300 Series APUs are designed for users who demand a high-performance computing platform to power their computer-aided design, and media and entertainment (M&E) workflows. The new AMD FirePro A300 Series APUs combine industry-certified performance and reliability for professional applications with world-class 24-hour customer support, delivering highly-tuned performance and robust feature support across a range of professional applications and tools."

http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-firepro-apu-2012aug7.aspx
http://www.techpowerup.com/170070/AMD-Launches-First-Ever-AMD-FirePro-APU.html

 

[happysmiles]

well I do like the sound of that

 

[ShadowVVL]

nice,only issue is they will probably cost a ton.If they are not much more in price then llano they will be a hit.

 

[Chiropteran]

ECC memory support?

 

[ShadowVVL]

Well this is no fun, it seems these are OEM only.

quoted from link:

AMD hasn't released any pricing information as the A300/A320 won't be available in the channel. The FirePro APUs are OEM only and are primarily targeted at markets like India where low cost, professional graphics workstations are apparently in high demand.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6139/...0-a320-apus-trinity-for-graphics-workstations

 

[Blitzvogel]

I figured this would happen sooner or later. Now I'd like to see AMD go with a dual module but much higher stream processor count, like over 1500.

 

[Cerb]

ECC memory support?

That's what I was going to ask! Will FM2 bring back ECC support? TBH, nobody I've done any work for who does CAD has needed more performance than AMD or NVidia IGP since ~2006, and generally benefit more from faster drives and more RAM than ever-faster CPUs. Conroe level CPU performance w/ smooth, responsive, and certified AMD drivers would be nice for keeping the budget in check, provided it were to have ECC, to be feature-competitive with i3 and Xeon CPUs.

I figured this would happen sooner or later. Now I'd like to see AMD go with a dual module but much higher stream processor count, like over 1500.

I wouldn't expect too much more until DDR4 starts coming around.

 

[piesquared]

Performance and feature charts













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Ouch, intel's offering is getting crushed.

 

[ShadowVVL]

Ouch, intel's offering is getting crushed.

yes but those benches are from amd and are fake.

 

[piesquared]

yes but those benches are from amd and are fake. /sarcasm

yep, that'll be the fall back line alright.

 

[Red Hawk]

Well of course an AMD APU is going to stomp all over Intel's iGPU. The question then is if it's worth the CPU performance tradeoff, and if the AMD APU is a good cost effective alternative compared to a Intel CPU combined with an Nvidia GPU.

Anyways, this is a step in the direction AMD needs to go with their APUs in the professional world. I hope it's successful for them.

 

[piesquared]

For the workflows listed above, the A3xx CPU performance is clearly more than adequate. There is no tradeoff, or the A320 wouldn't be dominating by 800% in some cases.

 

[Cerb]

yes but those benches are from amd and are fake.

Doubt it. For what's being tested, they look about right to me. They are graphics hardware and driver bound, an area where AMD still has some degree of superiority, and it's a superiority can be felt in using some programs, not merely a paper one (software vendor certs don't hurt, though!). CPU-bound tests obviously won't be on AMD's side, so they aren't in their slides.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Classic manipulated AMD charts.

Lets see if someone is willing to pay overprice for a weak APU because they call it FirePro. Its an entire new market segment they have to create.

 

[inf64]

In the workloads that are supporting the iGPU Radeon cores,intel is (unfortunately for some) dominated.

 

[AtenRa]

Classic manipulated AMD charts.

Lets see if someone is willing to pay overprice for a weak APU because they call it FirePro. Its an entire new market segment they have to create.

Every company manipulates benchmarks to promote there own products. AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and more show the best there products can do by choosing the benchmarks they suite there marketing needs. That doesnt mean that those benchmark charts are not legitimate, they just usually only show one side of the coin.

 

[Cerb]

Classic manipulated AMD charts.

Of course. Who doesn't do that?

Lets see if someone is willing to pay overprice for a weak APU because they call it FirePro. Its an entire new market segment they have to create.

Is a Core i or AMD A-series and a Quadro or FirePro card cheaper? The price needs to be set so that the answer to that is, "no." Anywhere from $250-400 would be reasonable, IMO, and they might even be able to command more for mobile parts. They only have to create the market w.r.t. hardware makers.

It's less about the hardware performance than the closed-system vertical market software needs, which usually include certified GPUs and drivers.

 

[sm625]

This reminds me of another idea I had where AMD has seriously not failed to disappoint. Say you want to upgrade your old pentium 4 PC. So you buy a PCI "video" card. And on that pci card is one of these APUs, along with 2 DIMM slots, a 6 pin power connector, 2 SATA ports, along with a usb and 2 video ports out the back! In other words, a whole new PC! You spend like $99 for this one card and you get basically a whole new computer (memory not included, or maybe it could be...). You can even remove the old P4 and RAM from their sockets to save power. 5 years ago this is what I thought ATI and AMD would bring.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Of course. Who doesn't do that?
Is a Core i or AMD A-series and a Quadro or FirePro card cheaper? The price needs to be set so that the answer to that is, "no." Anywhere from $250-400 would be reasonable, IMO, and they might even be able to command more for mobile parts. They only have to create the market w.r.t. hardware makers.

It's less about the hardware performance than the closed-system vertical market software needs, which usually include certified GPUs and drivers.

Quadro and FirePro cards starts at ~100$. So a FirePro APU cant be worth much. Specially not with its very weak CPU. Thats why it simply looks like regular APUs plus a driver allow and try gain a few extra bucks. But considering the price of the software you usually use for these Quadro/FirePro cases. It starts to get awfully wierd fast.

I would guess 150-200$ maybe.

 

[Cerb]

Quadro and FirePro cards starts at ~100$. So a FirePro APU cant be worth much. Specially not with its very weak CPU. Thats why it simply looks like regular APUs plus a driver allow and try gain a few extra bucks.

Well, yeah. That's also basically what Quadro and FirePro video cards are, too, just without the CPU. It's a racket. If they can compete against the oddball i3 CPUs and low-end Xeons (total machine cost and useful features, not performance), I don't see why they'd need to stay at $150 (not that a few models that cheap or cheaper would be unwelcome!). They can't go straight against Intel on CPU performance. They've got to go against Intel in terms of hardware vendor cost and value. What HP or Dell will offer for a given price matters every bit as much as how much of a fire-breather you might like to have.

IoW, hundreds of dollars less, with all the right logos and certs, can and will matter more than how much performance the CPU has. There are people that keep needing more and faster cores, but there is also a growing number that couldn't care less about that. Even with all the neat features that get added to the software, designing of load-bearing structures and most machines is no more complicated than it was several years ago, low-quality previews work great 99% of the time, and quality renders can still take long enough to have going during lunch, or even over night, as video has become more popular to do for showing off stuff. A factor of 2+ performance difference either way can be unnoticeable.

For those users that either don't care about that, or are penny-pinchers, AMD has limited time to act, before Intel decides to improve their driver performance and compatibility (they can do it, and at some point, they will, I'm sure; it's probably just not important enough to them, yet).

But considering the price of the software you usually use for these Quadro/FirePro cases. It starts to get awfully wierd fast.

But it's not all one big bundle. It's separate orders, usually (workstations from the big vendor, software from the licensed trainer/distributor/scalper), and the hardware costs do matter...honestly more than I think is worth worrying about, but then again, I'm not doing their books.

I'm not going to say there's any reason every commodity CPU couldn't be a workstation CPU. Same for GPUs. Throw in ECC RAM and quality OpenGL drivers, and you're done, for 99% of users around sea level. Windows and Linux already have good enough x86 MCA support for most anything else to be glossed over, today. However, due to history (big RISC/Unix workstations, FI, costing $$$), and that the customers are locked in to a small number of software vendors, who are free to have software that isn't nearly as compatible as it should be, the market carries with it costs that are not reflective of actual needs, but of the ability for a few companies to wrangle their customers into bearing those costs.

 

[Blitzvogel]

That's what I was going to ask! Will FM2 bring back ECC support? TBH, nobody I've done any work for who does CAD has needed more performance than AMD or NVidia IGP since ~2006, and generally benefit more from faster drives and more RAM than ever-faster CPUs. Conroe level CPU performance w/ smooth, responsive, and certified AMD drivers would be nice for keeping the budget in check, provided it were to have ECC, to be feature-competitive with i3 and Xeon CPUs.

I wouldn't expect too much more until DDR4 starts coming around.

Or they could modify the memory controller to support a large, wide GDDR5 bus, and instantly they would have a decent part for a console ready to go too.

 

[Cerb]

Or they could modify the memory controller to support a large, wide GDDR5 bus, and instantly they would have a decent part for a console ready to go too.

Maybe, but how will that help PCs? With GDDR5 latency, it won't. DDR4 should bring nearly that kind of bandwidth, without too much of a sacrifice in terms of latency.