New AMD FirePro Deliver Unprecedented Levels of Performance for Mac Pro

[btarunr]

AMD announced dual AMD FirePro professional graphics solutions (GPUs) deliver unprecedented levels of performance for the new Mac Pro. The AMD FirePro D300, D500 and D700 professional GPUs offer exceptional compute power and reliability for creativity and productivity in a wide range of applications. With industry-adopted OpenCL (Open Computing Language) support, Mac Pro users have the ability to seamlessly edit full-resolution 4K video and simultaneously render effects in the background, and still have enough performance to power up to three high-resolution 4K displays.

These new AMD FirePro GPUs are built on the strength of AMD's award-winning Graphics Core Next GPU design -- an architecture conceived from the ground up to intelligently manage rendering and compute workloads. The combination of AMD FirePro GPUs and OpenCL -- strongly supported by both Apple and AMD -- is designed to deliver massive compute and graphics performance in one compact solution.

"We are very proud to offer dual AMD FirePro professional graphics in the new Mac Pro to empower users with the power and performance they need for uncompromising creativity and productivity," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. "AMD prides itself on quality support and development for our professional graphics solutions. Backed by award winning graphics technology, we believe Mac Pro users will experience top notch results with AMD FirePro GPUs."
"We are very excited to see the performance that our DaVinci Resolve customers will get with the dual AMD FirePro GPUs featured in the new Mac Pro," said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. "The combination of the OpenCL acceleration of the AMD FirePro with the Mac Pro's revolution in pro desktop design and performance will be absolutely amazing for video and film professionals."

"We really enjoyed working with AMD to maximize MARI's performance on the new Mac Pro. We've seen some of the best performance out of the box from MARI with the dual FirePro GPUs in the Mac Pro," said Jack Greasley, MARI Product Manager at The Foundry.

The dual AMD FirePro GPU options for Mac Pro feature up to 6GB of VRAM and up to 2048 stream processors per GPU, matched with top configurations capable of up to 7 teraflops of computing power. OpenGL and OpenCL are optimized in OS X Mavericks to leverage the full computing power of the Mac Pro and dual GPUs.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[omnimodis78]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

 

[oiTREV]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

It's a press release

 

[john_]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

It says "Press Release". You have to go through techpowerup.com/ and not techpowerup.com/forums/ to see it.

 

[Jorge]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

If it says: PRESS RELEASE at the beginning of the story that typically means it's PR from the company. Many news sites edit the official PR or do additional research and write their own story.

This is good news for AMD and consumers as this is the beginning of utilization of AMDs new heterogeneous computing, which is a huge step forward for the industry. Intel is sure to try and copy with their own spin on why their copy is better. They always do.

 

[the54thvoid]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

You missed this bit....

 

[NeoXF]

OK btarunr, I have to ask: do you and your colleagues actually write any of these AMD "news" or does AMD give you the material to cut and paste on here? Not just exclusive to TechPowerUp, but every single time I see anything written about an AMD partnership or technology, they always sound like scripted marketing rather than news written by journalists. I don't remember it being this bad before.

Look up "PR"...

 

[omnimodis78]

Sorry, I came across this on the forums, not the main site....

 

[Sihastru]

This is good news for AMD and consumers as this is the beginning of utilization of AMDs new heterogeneous computing, which is a huge step forward for the industry. Intel is sure to try and copy with their own spin on why their copy is better. They always do.

Dude, you again? Dude, it's not the beginning of anything. Dude, it's not "heterogeneous", it has an Intel Xeon CPU. Dude, it's not a huge step for anyone, you can build a similar or a more powerful system for a lower price. It's just not going to look like a trash can with wires attached.

 

[RCoon]

Dude, you again? Dude, it's not the beginning of anything. Dude, it's not "heterogeneous", it has an Intel Xeon CPU. Dude, it's not a huge step for anyone, you can build a similar or a more powerful system for a lower price. It's just not going to look like a trash can with wires attached.

There's no sense in arguing with a guy that has more single minded fury than an incontinent honey badger. He replies to no man.
On topic, surprised the Macs can deal with the heat output of the new hawaii chips. Macs aren't the coolest of systems.

 

[john_]

Are these Hawaii chips?

 

[Brusfantomet]

Are these Hawaii chips?

nope, that is Tahiti. The renders they have been showing is using a GPU that is similar to Tahiti and not Hawaii.

 

[overpass]

Dude, you again? Dude, it's not the beginning of anything. Dude, it's not "heterogeneous", it has an Intel Xeon CPU. Dude, it's not a huge step for anyone, you can build a similar or a more powerful system for a lower price. It's just not going to look like a trash can with wires attached.

I am not an advocate for Apple, but it would be pretty difficult to build a similar system and stay within the price point that Apple has suggested. Many others on the web have brainstormed of a way to build a PC equivalent and they were at a loss where to actually begin. And within that compact form factor. That Xeon CPU alone costs more than $1200 from my cursory search on the web. Apple really has delivered on this iteration of Mac Pro.

 

[HumanSmoke]

If it says: PRESS RELEASE at the beginning of the story that typically means it's PR from the company.

Whereas if it says Jorge at the beginning of a post it's PR from the individual. And now, back to the boilerplate...

This is good news for AMD and consumers¹ as this is the beginning of utilization of AMDs new heterogeneous computing² , which is a huge step forward for the industry³ . Intel is sure to try and copy with their own spin on why their copy is better⁴. They always do⁵.

¹Big surprise- I would never have guessed
²Buzzwords used out of context. Classic PR move
³Hey, it's AMD it must be! Unless of course it's the same Grant Petty talking up Nvidia's Quadro from a few months back. So many huge steps that Grant might just as well be employed by the Ministry of Silly Walks.
⁴When was the last time Intel even acknowledged AMD as worthy of commenting upon?
⁵Ratio of AMD press releases to Intel ? 50:1 ? 100:1 ? Refer to note ¹ for the one-a-day PR cadence.

 

[TRWOV]

 

[NC37]

I am not an advocate for Apple, but it would be pretty difficult to build a similar system and stay within the price point that Apple has suggested. Many others on the web have brainstormed of a way to build a PC equivalent and they were at a loss where to actually begin. And within that compact form factor. That Xeon CPU alone costs more than $1200 from my cursory search on the web. Apple really has delivered on this iteration of Mac Pro.

It isn't that Apple has a value for the level of parts used...its that 95% of Mac users likely don't need Xeons. Even on the Pro side. That has always been the case with PowerMacs and Mac Pros.

One of the primary reasons they are bought is for the expansion capabilities. Laptops, Minis, and iMacs do not have PCIe slots or extra HDD bays. Pro users have their own choice parts that they have to be able to integrate into a machine. Can't do that with the others.

Offer them the same product with an i7 and they'll buy it over the Xeon. There would only be a few who would want the Xeon over i7. Apple used to do things like this. They offered more than one Tower line and guess which ones sold the most, typically the low-mid range models. The $2k+ models sat.

One of the largest outcries since the x86 switch is for the return of the "affordable" Mac tower. Apple just keeps giving their customers the finger because if they bring it back, they can't rape wallets as much. Sales of the Mini would take a hit and unless you've been living under a rock, you've noticed how the Mini continues to climb in price bit by bit. The $500 Mac which it introed as, is creeping closer to $1000 and I'm sure Apple is loving it. Specially since no one seems to care.

 

[remixedcat]

are any components glued on like the macbook pros?