Continuing today’s spate of professional graphics announcements, along with AMD’s refresh of their FirePro lineup NVIDIA is announcing that they are undertaking their own refresh of their Quadro lineup. Being announced today and shippin…
Kicking off a busy day for professional graphics, AMD is first up to announce that they will be launching a quartet of new FirePro cards. As part of the company’s gradual FirePro refresh that began with the W9100 in April and followed by W8100 in June, today AMD is gearing up to refresh the rest of their FirePro lineup with new products for the mid-range and low-end segments of the pro graphics market.
Being announced today are the FirePro W7100, W5100, W4100, and W2100. These parts are based on a range of AMD GPUs – including Tonga, a new GPU that has yet to show up in any other AMD products – and are designed to the sub-$2500 market segment that the current W8100 tops out at. With a handful of exceptions, the bulk of these upgrades are straightforward, focused on making AMD’s entire FirePro lineup 4K capable, improving performance across the board, and doubling the amount of VRAM compared to the past generation to allow for larger data sets to be used.
| AMD FirePro W Series Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD FirePro W7100 | AMD FirePro W5100 | AMD FirePro W4100 | AMD FirePro W2100 | |||
| Stream Processors | 1792 | 768 | 512 | 320 | ||
| ROPs | ? | 16 | 16 | 8 | ||
| Core Clock | ? | 930MHz | 630MHz | 630MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 5GHz GDDR5 | 6GHz GDDR5 | 5.5GHz GDDR5 | 1.8GHz DDR3 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | ||
| VRAM | 8GB | 4GB | 4GB | 2GB | ||
| Double Precision | ? | 1/16 | 1/16 | 1/16 | ||
| TDP | 150W | 75W | 50W | 26W | ||
| GPU | Tonga | Bonaire | Cape Verde | Oland | ||
| Architecture | GCN 1.1? | GCN 1.1 | GCN 1.0 | GCN 1.0 | ||
| Display Outputs | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | ||
Starting at the top, from a technical perspective the W7100 is the most interesting of the new FirePro cards. Whereas the previous-generation W7000 was based on a second-tier version of AMD’s venerable Tahiti GPU, the W7100 gets a brand new GPU entirely, one that we haven’t seen before. Named Tonga, this new GPU is a smaller, lower performance part that slots in under the Hawaii GPU used in the W9100 and W8100. However while AMD is announcing the W7100 today they are not disclosing any additional information on Tonga, so while we can draw some basic conclusions from W7100’s specifications a complete breakdown of this new GPU will have to wait for another day.
From a specification point of view AMD is not disclosing the GPU clockspeed or offering any floating point throughput performance numbers, but we do know that W7100 will feature 1792 stream processors. Coupled with that is 8GB of GDDR5 clocked at 5GHz sitting on a 256-bit memory bus.
The W7100 is designed to be a significant step up compared to the outgoing W7000. Along with the doubling W7000’s memory from 4GB to 8GB, the Tonga GPU in W7100 inherits Hawaii’s wider geometry front-end, allowing W7100 to process 4 triangles/clock versus W7000’s 2 tris/clock. Overall compute/rendering performance should also greatly be increased due to the much larger number of stream processors (1792 vs. 1280), but without clockspeeds we can’t say for sure.
Like the W7000 before it, the W7100 is equipped with 4 full size DisplayPorts, allowing for a relatively large number of monitors to be used with the card. And because it gets AMD’s newest GCN display controller, W7100 is particularly well suited for 4K displays, being able to drive 3 4K@60Hz displays or 4 4K displays if some operate at 30Hz.
In AMD’s product stack the W7100 is designed be a budget alternative to the W9100 and W8100, offering reduced performance but at a much lower cost. AMD is primarily targeting the engineering and media markets with the W7100, as its compute performance and 8GB of VRAM should be enough for most engineering workloads, or alternatively its VRAM capacity and ability to drive 4 4K displays makes it a good fit for 4K video manipulation.
The second card being introduced today is the W5100. This part is based on AMD’s Bonaire GPU, a GCN 1.1 GPU that has been in AMD’s portfolio for over a year now but has not made it into a FirePro part until now. W5100 replaces the outgoing W5000, which was a heavily cut-down Pitcairn part.
In terms of specifications, the W5100 utilizes a slightly cut-down version of Bonaire with 768 SPs active. It is clocked at approximately 910MHz, which puts its compute performance at 1.4 TFLOPS for single precision. Feeding W5100 is 4GB of VRAM attached to a 128-bit memory bus and clocked at 6GHz.
Compared to the outgoing W5000 the W5100 gains the usual VRAM capacity upgrades that the rest of the Wx100 cards have seen, while the other specifications are a mixed bag on paper. Compute performance is only slightly improved – from 1.28 TFLOPS to 1.4 TFLOPS – and memory bandwidth has actually gone regressed slightly from 102GB/sec. Consequently the biggest upgrade will be found in memory bound scenarios, otherwise the W5100’s greatest improvements would be from its GCN 1.1 lineage.
Speaking of which, with 4 full size DisplayPorts the W5100 has the same 4K display driving capabilities as the W7100. However with lower performance and half the VRAM, it’s decidedly a mid-range card and AMD treats it as such. This means it’s targeted towards lower power usage scenarios where the high compute performance and 8GB+ VRAM capacities of the W7100 and higher aren’t needed.
The third of today’s new FirePro cards is the W4100. Based on AMD’s older Cape Verde GPU, this is not the first time that Cape Verde has appeared in a FirePro product. But it is the first time that it has appeared in a workstation part, its previous appearance being the display wall niche W600. At the same time the W4100 doesn’t have a true analogue in AMD’s previous generation FirePro stack, which stopped at the W5000, so the W4100 marks a newer, lower priced and lower performance tier for FirePro.
With just 512 SPs active the W4100 tops out at only 50W power consumption, reflecting the fact that it is targeted towards lower power use cases. AMD has paired the card with 2GB of VRAM, and based on Cape Verde’s capabilities we expect that this is on a 128-bit bus. AMD has not provided any more technical details on the card, but it goes without saying that this is not a card meant to be a performance powerhouse.
AMD’s target market for this is lightweight 2D and 3D workloads such as finance and entry level CAD. The 4 mini-DisplayPorts allow the card to directly drive up to 4 displays, though because this is a GCN 1.0 GPU it doesn’t have the same flexibility of the W5100.
The final FirePro card being introduced today is the FirePro W2100, which is AMD’s new entry-level FirePro card. Like the W4100 it had no true analogue in AMD’s older product stack, but functionally it replaces the old Turks based V4900, a card which AMD kept around even after the launch of GCN to serve as their entry level FirePro product.
W2100 is based on AMD’s Oland GPU, which marks the first time that this existing AMD GPU has appeared in a FirePro product. W2100 uses a cut down version of Oland with 320 SPs active and attached to 2GB of memory on a 128-bit bus. Oland is a very limited functionality GPU, and while it’s more than suitable for basic imaging it should be noted that it doesn’t have a video decoder.
At a TDP of just 26W, the W2100 is AMD’s lowest power, lowest performance card. Functionally it’s a cheaper alternative to the W4100 for users who don’t need to drive 4 displays, with W2100 featuring just 2 DisplayPorts. The targeted market is otherwise similar, with a focus on lightweight 2D and 3D workloads over 1-2 monitors.
Meanwhile along with today’s product announcements AMD is also announcing that they will be bringing their low-level Mantle API over to the FirePro family. The nature of the pro graphics market means that it will likely be some time before we see Mantle put in meaningful use here since the API is still under development, but once AMD gets the API locked down they believe that Mantle can offer many of the same benefits for professional graphics workloads as it can gaming. The greatly reduced draw call overhead should be a boon here for many 3D workloads, and Mantle’s ability to more easily transition between compute and graphics workloads would map well towards engineering tasks that want to do both at the same time.
Wrapping things up, AMD has not revealed final pricing for these cards at this time, though we expect pricing to follow the previous generation W series cards. Meanwhile the W2100, W4100, and W5100 will be available next month. Otherwise no doubt owing to its use of the new Tonga GPU, W7100 will be farther out, with availability expected in Q4 of this year.
Kicking off a busy day for professional graphics, AMD is first up to announce that they will be launching a quartet of new FirePro cards. As part of the company’s gradual FirePro refresh that began with the W9100 in April and followed by W8100 in June, today AMD is gearing up to refresh the rest of their FirePro lineup with new products for the mid-range and low-end segments of the pro graphics market.
Being announced today are the FirePro W7100, W5100, W4100, and W2100. These parts are based on a range of AMD GPUs – including Tonga, a new GPU that has yet to show up in any other AMD products – and are designed to the sub-$2500 market segment that the current W8100 tops out at. With a handful of exceptions, the bulk of these upgrades are straightforward, focused on making AMD’s entire FirePro lineup 4K capable, improving performance across the board, and doubling the amount of VRAM compared to the past generation to allow for larger data sets to be used.
| AMD FirePro W Series Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD FirePro W7100 | AMD FirePro W5100 | AMD FirePro W4100 | AMD FirePro W2100 | |||
| Stream Processors | 1792 | 768 | 512 | 320 | ||
| ROPs | ? | 16 | 16 | 8 | ||
| Core Clock | ? | 930MHz | 630MHz | 630MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 5GHz GDDR5 | 6GHz GDDR5 | 5.5GHz GDDR5 | 1.8GHz DDR3 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | ||
| VRAM | 8GB | 4GB | 4GB | 2GB | ||
| Double Precision | ? | 1/16 | 1/16 | 1/16 | ||
| TDP | 150W | 75W | 50W | 26W | ||
| GPU | Tonga | Bonaire | Cape Verde | Oland | ||
| Architecture | GCN 1.1? | GCN 1.1 | GCN 1.0 | GCN 1.0 | ||
| Display Outputs | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | ||
Starting at the top, from a technical perspective the W7100 is the most interesting of the new FirePro cards. Whereas the previous-generation W7000 was based on a second-tier version of AMD’s venerable Tahiti GPU, the W7100 gets a brand new GPU entirely, one that we haven’t seen before. Named Tonga, this new GPU is a smaller, lower performance part that slots in under the Hawaii GPU used in the W9100 and W8100. However while AMD is announcing the W7100 today they are not disclosing any additional information on Tonga, so while we can draw some basic conclusions from W7100’s specifications a complete breakdown of this new GPU will have to wait for another day.
From a specification point of view AMD is not disclosing the GPU clockspeed or offering any floating point throughput performance numbers, but we do know that W7100 will feature 1792 stream processors. Coupled with that is 8GB of GDDR5 clocked at 5GHz sitting on a 256-bit memory bus.
The W7100 is designed to be a significant step up compared to the outgoing W7000. Along with the doubling W7000’s memory from 4GB to 8GB, the Tonga GPU in W7100 inherits Hawaii’s wider geometry front-end, allowing W7100 to process 4 triangles/clock versus W7000’s 2 tris/clock. Overall compute/rendering performance should also greatly be increased due to the much larger number of stream processors (1792 vs. 1280), but without clockspeeds we can’t say for sure.
Like the W7000 before it, the W7100 is equipped with 4 full size DisplayPorts, allowing for a relatively large number of monitors to be used with the card. And because it gets AMD’s newest GCN display controller, W7100 is particularly well suited for 4K displays, being able to drive 3 4K@60Hz displays or 4 4K displays if some operate at 30Hz.
In AMD’s product stack the W7100 is designed be a budget alternative to the W9100 and W8100, offering reduced performance but at a much lower cost. AMD is primarily targeting the engineering and media markets with the W7100, as its compute performance and 8GB of VRAM should be enough for most engineering workloads, or alternatively its VRAM capacity and ability to drive 4 4K displays makes it a good fit for 4K video manipulation.
The second card being introduced today is the W5100. This part is based on AMD’s Bonaire GPU, a GCN 1.1 GPU that has been in AMD’s portfolio for over a year now but has not made it into a FirePro part until now. W5100 replaces the outgoing W5000, which was a heavily cut-down Pitcairn part.
In terms of specifications, the W5100 utilizes a slightly cut-down version of Bonaire with 768 SPs active. It is clocked at approximately 910MHz, which puts its compute performance at 1.4 TFLOPS for single precision. Feeding W5100 is 4GB of VRAM attached to a 128-bit memory bus and clocked at 6GHz.
Compared to the outgoing W5000 the W5100 gains the usual VRAM capacity upgrades that the rest of the Wx100 cards have seen, while the other specifications are a mixed bag on paper. Compute performance is only slightly improved – from 1.28 TFLOPS to 1.4 TFLOPS – and memory bandwidth has actually gone regressed slightly from 102GB/sec. Consequently the biggest upgrade will be found in memory bound scenarios, otherwise the W5100’s greatest improvements would be from its GCN 1.1 lineage.
Speaking of which, with 4 full size DisplayPorts the W5100 has the same 4K display driving capabilities as the W7100. However with lower performance and half the VRAM, it’s decidedly a mid-range card and AMD treats it as such. This means it’s targeted towards lower power usage scenarios where the high compute performance and 8GB+ VRAM capacities of the W7100 and higher aren’t needed.
The third of today’s new FirePro cards is the W4100. Based on AMD’s older Cape Verde GPU, this is not the first time that Cape Verde has appeared in a FirePro product. But it is the first time that it has appeared in a workstation part, its previous appearance being the display wall niche W600. At the same time the W4100 doesn’t have a true analogue in AMD’s previous generation FirePro stack, which stopped at the W5000, so the W4100 marks a newer, lower priced and lower performance tier for FirePro.
With just 512 SPs active the W4100 tops out at only 50W power consumption, reflecting the fact that it is targeted towards lower power use cases. AMD has paired the card with 2GB of VRAM, and based on Cape Verde’s capabilities we expect that this is on a 128-bit bus. AMD has not provided any more technical details on the card, but it goes without saying that this is not a card meant to be a performance powerhouse.
AMD’s target market for this is lightweight 2D and 3D workloads such as finance and entry level CAD. The 4 mini-DisplayPorts allow the card to directly drive up to 4 displays, though because this is a GCN 1.0 GPU it doesn’t have the same flexibility of the W5100.
The final FirePro card being introduced today is the FirePro W2100, which is AMD’s new entry-level FirePro card. Like the W4100 it had no true analogue in AMD’s older product stack, but functionally it replaces the old Turks based V4900, a card which AMD kept around even after the launch of GCN to serve as their entry level FirePro product.
W2100 is based on AMD’s Oland GPU, which marks the first time that this existing AMD GPU has appeared in a FirePro product. W2100 uses a cut down version of Oland with 320 SPs active and attached to 2GB of memory on a 128-bit bus. Oland is a very limited functionality GPU, and while it’s more than suitable for basic imaging it should be noted that it doesn’t have a video decoder.
At a TDP of just 26W, the W2100 is AMD’s lowest power, lowest performance card. Functionally it’s a cheaper alternative to the W4100 for users who don’t need to drive 4 displays, with W2100 featuring just 2 DisplayPorts. The targeted market is otherwise similar, with a focus on lightweight 2D and 3D workloads over 1-2 monitors.
Meanwhile along with today’s product announcements AMD is also announcing that they will be bringing their low-level Mantle API over to the FirePro family. The nature of the pro graphics market means that it will likely be some time before we see Mantle put in meaningful use here since the API is still under development, but once AMD gets the API locked down they believe that Mantle can offer many of the same benefits for professional graphics workloads as it can gaming. The greatly reduced draw call overhead should be a boon here for many 3D workloads, and Mantle’s ability to more easily transition between compute and graphics workloads would map well towards engineering tasks that want to do both at the same time.
Wrapping things up, AMD has not revealed final pricing for these cards at this time, though we expect pricing to follow the previous generation W series cards. Meanwhile the W2100, W4100, and W5100 will be available next month. Otherwise no doubt owing to its use of the new Tonga GPU, W7100 will be farther out, with availability expected in Q4 of this year.
It has been five years since we did a benchmark of the various web browsers and their effect on battery life, and a lot has changed. Our testing then included Opera 9 & 10, Chrome 2, Firefox 3.5.2, Safari 4, and IE8. Just looking at those version numbers is nostalgic. Not only have the browsers gone through many revisions since then, but computer hardware and the Windows operating system are very different. While there has been a lot of talk, there hasn’t been a lot of data comparing browser battery usage. Today we’re going to put the latest browsers to the test and deliver some concrete numbers.
Intel has slowly been feeding us information about their upcoming Broadwell processors for a couple years now, with the first real details kicking off almost a year ago at IDF 2013. Since then, the only other noteworthy piece of information came back in March when it was revealed that socketed Broadwell CPUs with unlocked multipliers will be available with Iris Pro Graphics. Today, Intel is ready to begin providing additional information, and it starts with the Broadwell-Y processor, which Intel is now referring to as an SoC (System On Chip). We have an in-depth article on the subject, but for Short Bytes we want to focus on the bottom line: what does this mean for end users?
The big news for Broadwell is that it will be the first 14nm processor available to the public, following on the success of Intel’s 22nm process technology. Shrinking the process technology from 22nm to 14nm can mean a lot of things, but the primary benefit this time appears to be smaller chip sizes and lower power requirements. The first parts will belong to the Core M family of products, a new line catering specifically to low power, high mobility form factors (typically tablets and hybrid devices). With Core M, Intel has their sights set on the fanless computing market with sub-9mm thick designs, and they have focused on reducing power requirements in order to meet the needs of this market. This brings us to Broadwell-Y, the lowest power version of Broadwell and the successor to Haswell-Y and the codename behind the new Core M.
The reality of Intel’s Y-series of processors is that they haven’t been used all that much to date. Only a handful of devices used Haswell-Y (and even fewer used Ivy Bridge-Y), mostly consisting of 2-in-1 devices that can function as both a laptop and a tablet. For example, the base model Surface Pro 3 uses a Core i3-4020Y, and Dell’s XPS 11 and certain Venue Pro 11 tablets also use Y-series parts; Acer, HP, Sony, and Toshiba also have some detachable hybrid devices with the extreme low power processors. Unfortunately, pricing on the Y-series is generally much higher than competiting solutions (i.e. ARM-based SoCs), and there have been criticisms of Intel’s higher power requirements and lower overall battery life as well.
Core M thus serves marketing needs as well as technical requirements: it replaces the Core i3/i5/i7 Y-series parts and gives Intel a brand they can market directly at premium tablets/hybrids. And in another move likely driven by marketing, Core M will be the launch part for Intel’s new 14nm process technology. Transitions between process technology usually come every 2-3 years, so the 14nm change is a big deal and launching with their extreme low power part makes a statement. The key message of Broadwell is clear: getting into lower power devices and improving battery life is a critical target. To that end, Broadwell-Y probably won’t be going into any smartphones, but getting into more premium tablets and delivering better performance with at least competitive battery life relative to other SoCs is a primary goal.
Compared to the Haswell-Y parts, Intel has made some significant advances in performance as well as power use, which we’ve covered elsewhere. The cumulative effect of the improvements Intel is bringing is that Broadwell-Y has a greater than 2X reduction in TDP (Thermal Design Power) compared to Haswell-Y. It also has a 50% smaller and 30% thinner package and uses 60% lower idle power. Intel points out that Broadwell-Y is set to deliver more than a 2X improvement in performance per Watt over Haswell-Y, though that’s a bit more of a nebulous statement (see below). Many of the improvements come thanks to Intel’s increased focus on driving down power requirements. Where previous Intel processors targeted laptops and desktops as the primary use case and then refined and adjusted the designs to get into lower power envelopes, with Broadwell Intel is putting the Y-series requirements center stage. The term for this is “co-optimization” of the design process, and these co-optimizations for Broadwell-Y are what allows Intel to talk about “2x improvements”. But you need to remember what is being compared: Haswell-Y and Broadwell-Y.
Broadwell parts in general will certainly be faster/better than the current Haswell parts – Intel doesn’t typically “go backwards” on processor updates – but you shouldn’t expect twice the performance at the same power. Instead, Broadwell-Y should offer better performance than Haswell-Y using much less power, but if you reduce total power use by 2X you could increase performance by 5% and still claim a doubling of performance per Watt. And that’s basically what Intel is doing here. Intel estimates the core Broadwell architecture to be around 5% faster than Haswell at the same clocks; specifically, IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) are up ~5% on average. Similarly, changes and improvements to the graphics portion of the processor should deliver more performance at a lower power draw. Add in slightly higher clock speeds and you get a faster part than last generation that uses less power. These are all good improvements, but ultimately it comes down to the final user experience and the cost.
Everywhere you go, people are increasingly using tablets and smartphones for many of their daily computing needs, and being left out of that market is the road to irrelevance. Core M (Broadwell-Y) is Intel’s latest push to make inroads into these extremely low power markets, and on paper it looks like Intel has a competitive part. It’s now up to the device vendors to deliver compelling products, as fundamentally the choice of processor is only one element of an electronics device. Being the first company to deliver 14nm parts certainly gives Intel an edge over the competition, but high quality Android and iOS tablets sell for $300-$500, so there’s not a lot of room for a $100+ processor – which is why Intel has their Atom processors (due for the 14nm treatment with Braswell, if you’re wondering).
Core M is going after the premium tablet/hybird market, with benefits including full Windows 8 support, but will it be enough? If you’re interested in such a device and you don’t already own the Haswell-Y version, Core M products should deliver slimmer and lighter devices with improved battery life and better performance. Don’t expect a 10″ Core M tablet to deliver the same battery life as a 7″ Android/iOS device (at least, not without a larger battery), since the display and other components contribute a lot to power use and Windows 8 has traditionally been far less battery friendly than Android; still, Core M tablets may finally match or perhaps even exceed the battery life of similarly sized iOS/Android tablets. The first retail products with Core M should be shipping before the end of the year, so we’ll find out later this year and early next how well Broadwell-Y is able to meet its lofty goals. And we’ll also find out how much the Core M products cost.