So the ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series  is the first and only fully-compliant DirectX 11 graphics processor in the market. I get that. It is going to be ‘the thing’ that every game player worth their fragging-rights needs this holiday, if not before.  I get that too. It is going to run the best and most exciting games ever with sexy stuff like tesselation. I even get that.

What I also get is – it’s about so much more than playing games.

The “more” is around something called DirectCompute. In many ways it’s the feature that my favorite applications are going to benefit from more than any other so I thought it would be worth spending a blog on.

DirectCompute is a component of the DirectX11 API to be released with Windows 7. It is fundamentally designed to enable GPU compute and enables applications to take advantage of the massively parallel computing power of the GPU.

What does DirectCompute mean for users? Simple: you have two great processors in your PC – one CPU and one GPU. And your system can use both to solve problems. For some workloads, like GPU-accelerated video transcoding and rendering, this combination can really speed up your throughput.

So as you begin compiling your holiday wish list, keep your eye out for systems with this astounding GPU compute capability. But here’s my caveat emptor. When you look at specifications of GPUs, it is important to note there are different levels of support provided for DirectCompute.

One level, which AMD terms DirectCompute 10, runs on the legacy path of the DirectX 11 API to support previous generation of DirectX 10/10.1 GPUs. If offered a system with this feature, just say no.  You should demand what we at AMD call Direct Compute 11. This is the only version designed to unlock the full feature set of DirectX 11 and, as I mentioned previously, the only architecture that is fundamentally designed to enable GPU compute. 

For developers, DirectCompute 11 represents a paradigm shift for GPU compute development. It will now be much more straightforward for developers to code using this architecture. No longer will they have to do contortions and jump through hoops to code what they want to. DirectCompute enables new algorithms that were not possible previously. Some examples of these advanced techniques are order independent transparency, ray tracing, better shadows, and depths of field. If you are interested in more details, you can read this white paper. DirectCompute is a de-facto  industry standard for developers of GPU-compute applications and as such, it should not be confused with  proprietary APIs  (and by “proprietary” I mean supported by only one supplier’s hardware).  

These are some of the reasons why at AMD, we are excited about the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series graphics products. It’s not only the first and only GPUs in the market with full DirectX 11 support it is the only one to unlock the full feature set of Windows 7 and DirectCompute 11.We are proud of this technology leadership. We believe this industry standard will accelerate industry adoption of GPU compute applications running on Windows7 and add a new dimension to the end user’s computing experience.

Nigel Dessau is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.