AMD Launches FirePro W4300

AMD Inc. says that its recently launched AMD FirePro W4300 graphics card was designed to provide CAD performance for both small form factor (SFF) and tower workstations. The FirePro W4300, adds the company, integrates a powerful GPU (graphics processing unit) with 4GB of GDDR5 GPU memory in a low-profile design.

The FirePro W4300 is optimized for the latest CAD applications, the company states, citing the FirePro graphics card line’s certifications with such applications as AutoCAD, CATIA, Inventor, NX, PTC Creo, SOLIDWORKS and others. AMD says on an SFF workstation equipped with the board, designers and engineers can work with large geometry-intense models efficiently as well as apply GPU-accelerated features, including Order Independent Transparency (OIT) technology for displaying transparency quickly. OIT technology is supported in such applications as PTC Creo and SOLIDWORKS.

The AMD FirePro W4300 is a half-height/half-length single-slot PCIe 3.0-compliant card based on AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. GCN, says AMD, optimizes GPU utilization and maximizes performance. The card features AMD PowerTune Technology, which performs real-time analysis of applications and, if an application is not making the most of the power available to the GPU, can improve the application’s performance by raising the GPU’s clock speed as much as 30% automatically.

The card also features compatibility with AMD’s Eyefinity multi-display technology, enabling the use of up to six high-resolution displays. The card has four DisplayPort 1.2a connections standard with support for up to six DisplayPort monitors via MST-enabled hub and AMD FreeSync technology, which enables GPU control of the display refresh rate for tear-free display updates. Maximum resolution is 4096x2160.

The AMD FirePro W4300 card supports DirectGMA (Direct Graphics Memory Access) technology. DirectGMA reduces CPU utilization and avoids redundant transfers over the PCIe interface, resulting in high-throughput, low-latency data transfers, according to AMD. Additionally, the card provides GeometryBoost technology, which, according to the company, allows the GPU to process geometry data at a rate of twice per clock cycle, resulting in a doubling in the rate of primitive and vertex processing.

Other features include 1.43 TFLOPS peak single precision floating-point performance, a 128-bit memory interface, power management capabilities and support for OpenCL 1.2 (OpenCL 2.0 anticipated), DirectX and OpenGL API (application programming interface). Power consumption is less than 50W maximum.

AMD reports that its new low-profile AMD FirePro W4300 is its highest performing professional graphics card for CAD that fits both small form factor and full-size workstations. Image courtesy of AMD Inc.

“We designed the AMD FirePro W4300 specifically for CAD,” said Sean Burke, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD, in the FirePro W4300 launch announcement. “CAD users rely on AMD FirePro graphics cards to enable their application features to best visualize their designs, and now can continue to do so without having to compromise by using the latest energy efficient, small form factor workstations.”

The AMD FirePro W4300 graphics card supports Microsoft Windows 10, 8.1 and 7 operating systems as well as Linux (32- and 64-bit). For full details on the FirePro W4300 professional graphics card for CAD, visit AMD.

Download the data sheet for the AMD FirePro W4300 graphics card.

See why DE‘s editors selected the AMD FirePro W4300 graphics card as their Pick of the Week.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.