— AMD advances the field of VFX with Vancouver Film School collaboration and unveils powerful new workstation technologies for creative professionals, including new plugin support for Radeon™ ProRender —

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SIGGRAPH — AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced a high-performance addition to the Radeon™ Pro WX workstation graphics lineup with the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card, delivering the world’s best workstation graphics performance for under $1,000ⁱ  for real-time visualization, virtual reality (VR)  and photorealistic rendering. AMD also unveiled major updates to Radeon™ ProRender and a new alliance with the Vancouver Film School, enabling the next-generation of creators to realize their VFX visions through the power of Radeon™ Pro graphics.

The new turbocharged AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card allows professionals to effortlessly accelerate design and rendering. It is the ideal graphics card for design and manufacturing, media and entertainment, and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) workloads at all stages of product development.

“Professionals can fully unleash their creativity with the ‘Vega’ architectureⁱⁱ at the heart of the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card,” said Ogi Brkic, General Manager of Radeon Pro, AMD. “This powerful new workstation graphics card empowers creators to improve collaboration among remote teams with VR, create exciting new cinematic experiences and visualize their creations with ease, all at an incredible price point.”

Based on the advanced “Vega” GPU architecture with the 14nm FinFET process, the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card offers the performance required to drive increasingly large and complex models through the entire design visualization pipeline. With planned certifications for many of today’s most popular applications – including Adobe^® CC, Dassault Systemes^® SOLIDWORKS^®, Autodesk^® 3ds Max^®, Revit^®, among others – the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card is ideal for workloads such as real-time visualization, physically-based rendering and VR.

Advanced Feature Set

The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card is equipped with advanced features and technologies geared towards professionals, including:

• High Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC): The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card’s state-of-the-art memory system removes the capacity limitations of traditional GPU memory, letting creators and designers work with much larger, more detailed models and assets in real time.
• Enhanced Pixel Engine: The “Vega” GPU architecture’s enhanced pixel engine lets creators build more complex worlds without worrying about GPU limitations, increasing efficiency by batching related work into the GPU’s local cache to process them simultaneously. New “shade once” technology ensures only pixels visible in the final scene are shaded.
• Error Correcting Code (ECC) Memoryⁱⁱⁱ: Helps guarantee the accuracy of computations by correcting any single or double-bit error resulting from naturally occurring background radiation.

The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card also features a dedicated AMD Secure Processor^iv, which carves out a virtual “secure world” in the GPU. IP-sensitive tasks are run on the AMD Secure Processor, protecting the processing and storage of sensitive data and trusted applications. It also secures the integrity and confidentiality of key resources, such as the user interface and service provider assets.  

The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card will be available for pre-order at Newegg on August 13, with on-shelf availability expected in early September and an SEP of $999 USD. Radeon Pro WX Series graphics cards come equipped with the Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise Driver – according to QA Consultants, the “most stable driver in the industry”^v – as well as a three-year limited warranty and optional seven-year limited warranty on retail versions. For more information on the latest Radeon Pro™ Software for Enterprise 18.Q3, please visit here.

Radeon™ ProRender
AMD also introduced new plug-ins for Radeon™ ProRender, AMD’s high-performance physically-based rendering engine that enables CAD designers and 3D artists to create renders quickly and easily. Users now have free access to new plug-ins for:

• PTC Creo: Enables designers and engineers to quickly and easily create incredibly rendered visualizations of their products and is available now in beta.
• Pixar USD viewport: For developers building a USD Hydra viewport for their application, the new USD plug-in available on GitHub adds path-traced rendering for accurate viewport previews.

New features and updates have also been added to existing plug-ins, including support for Autodesk^® 3ds Max 2019, camera motion blur and many more.

Supporting the next generation of creators at Vancouver Film School
AMD also announced a new alliance with The Vancouver Film School (VFS) to open a brand-new tech innovation lab and hub for Vancouver’s professional VFX community. Powered by Radeon™ Pro and Ryzen™ technologies, the AMD Creators Lab will inspire the creative tech community and advance the field of VFX, video game design, and virtual and augmented reality development. 

Built in the heart of the VFS downtown campus and adjacent to the city’s digital production and developer hub, the lab will offer an open working space for students, artists and computer graphics professionals to discover and create using the latest industry-leading technology. The AMD Creators Lab features powerful AMD-based workstations, delivering outstanding performance to shorten load and rendering times, empowering students and professionals to pursue their wildest visions and create without technological restraints.

Showcasing the future of graphics technologies at SIGGRAPH
Along with today’s Radeon™ Pro announcements, at SIGGRAPH AMD will also highlight the 2nd gen AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ desktop processors, designed for professional content creators, developers, gamers and hardware enthusiasts. AMD will showcase the 2nd gen AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ desktop processors alongside a range of advanced technology demonstrations on the SIGGRAPH show floor at Booth #1101, including:

• AI Rendering: Machine learning with AMD’s ROCm and Radeon™ Pro WX Series GPUs can slash rendering times without sacrificing quality.
• Real-time, Viewport Raytracing: Next-generation application viewport technology brings real-time ray-tracing quality directly into the editing windows of DCC and CAD applications.
• Cloud ProRender: AMD Radeon™ ProRender users can expand their rendering capacity and horsepower by rendering in the cloud.
• PIX on Windows from Microsoft^®: PIX is a performance tuning and debugging tool for developers for analyzing DirectX^® 12 games on Windows.

In addition, Blackmagic Design will showcase its new high-performance eGPU at Booth #1417, featuring a built-in AMD Radeon™ Pro 580 graphics card. Designed in collaboration with Apple and made for the Apple^® MacBook Pro^®, Blackmagic eGPU is optimized for professional video and graphics, such as those used in DaVinci Resolve software, 3D gaming and VR packages.

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about AMD Radeon™ Pro here.
• Learn more about AMD Radeon™ ProRender here.
• Become a fan of  Radeon on Facebook
• Follow AMD on Twitter  @AMD 
• Follow Radeon™ graphics on  Twitter

About AMD
For more than 45 years, AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies - the building blocks for gaming, immersive platforms and the datacenter. Hundreds of millions of consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses and cutting-edge scientific research facilities around the world rely on AMD technology daily to improve how they live, work and play. AMD employees around the world are focused on building great products that push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, FreeSync, Radeon, Ryzen and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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ⁱ Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of August 1^st, 2018, on a test system comprising of Intel E5-1650 v3, 16GB DDR4 system memory, Samsung 850 PRO 512GB SSD, Windows® 10 Enterprise 64-bit, Radeon™ Pro WX 8200, NVIDIA Quadro P4000, NVIDIA Quadro P5000.  List price on newegg.com as of August 3^rd, 2018, P4000 = $849.97. P5000 = $1885. Expected SEP of $999 for the WX 8200.  AMD graphics driver 18.20-180713a, NVIDIA graphics driver 391.74. Class is defined as professional graphics cards with etail pricing under $1,000.  Performance based on the following benchmark results.  Benchmark Application: VRMark, Cyan Room. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 6979. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 6351. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 4550. Performance Differential: 6979/6351 = 9.9% performance than the P5000. Performance Differential: 6979/4550= 53.38% better performance on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. Benchmark Application: Foundry Nuke 11, Denoise and Motion Blur Benchmark. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 29 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 36 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 40 seconds. Performance Differential: 1-29/36 = 19.4% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P5000. Performance Differential: 1-29/40 = 27.5% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. Benchmark Application: Adobe Premiere Pro. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 752 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 897 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 1825 seconds. Performance Differential: 1-752/897 = 16% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P5000. Performance Differential: 1-752/1825 = 58.79% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. Benchmark Application: Autodesk Maya 2017. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 7.92. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 7.64. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 7.55. Performance Differential: 7.92/7.64= 3.6% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P5000. Performance Differential: 7.92/7.55= 4.9% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. Benchmark Application: Radeon™ ProRender. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 39 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 48 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 58 seconds. Performance Differential: 1-39/48 = 18.75% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P5000. Performance Differential: 1-39/58 = 32.76% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. Benchmark application: Blender Cycles 2.7.9 – “Pavillon Barcelone” Scene. AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 score: 405 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P5000 score: 506 seconds. NVIDIA Quadro P4000 score: 584 seconds. Performance Differential: 1-405/506 = 20% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P5000. Performance Differential: 1-405/584 = 30.6% better score on Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 than on NVIDIA P4000. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers.

ⁱⁱ The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, and is subject to change without notice. Timelines, roadmaps, and/or product release dates shown in this Press Release are plans only and subject to change. “Vega” is a codename for AMD architecture, and is not a product name. GD-122.

ⁱⁱⁱ ECC support is limited to the HBM2 memory and ECC protection is not provided for internal GPU structures.

^iv AMD Secure Processor (formerly “Platform Security Processor” or “PSP”) is a dedicated processor that features ARM TrustZone^® technology, along with a software-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) designed to enable third-party trusted applications. AMD Secure Processor is a hardware-based technology which enables secure boot up from BIOS level into the TEE. Trusted third-party applications are able to leverage industry-standard APIs to take advantage of the TEE’s secure execution environment. Not all applications utilize the TEE’s security features. AMD Secure Processor is currently only available on select AMD A-Series and AMD E-Series APUs. GD-72

^v According to a QA Consultants report, commissioned by AMD.