At AMD we are fully committed to continuously improving hardware and application performance for computer aided design (CAD), digital content creation (DCC), medical imaging professionals and others. To achieve this goal we continuously release new drivers offering improved application performance and pursue ISV certifications for our entire family of ATI FirePro™ professional graphics solutions. At SIGGRAPH 2010 this week we announced updates on both and following is a brief overview of what’s new.

In the coming days, we plan to release beta driver version 8.76.2 for download, offering significant performance gains over previous drivers[i] on AMD’s latest generation ATI FirePro graphics hardware. Highlights include:

• More than 50% increase in performance for ATI FirePro V8800 on the 3ds Max subset of the SPECviewperf® 10 benchmark, as well as a 40% gain on the Catia subset, a 20% gain on the Pro E subset and more than 20% gain on the overall composite[ii].
• Across the board performance increases for the entire family of current ATI FirePro graphics on the Lightwave subset of the new SPECviewperf® 11 benchmark, with the entry-level ATI FirePro V3800 achieving up to 62% performance gain and the ultra-high ATI FirePro V8800 achieving up to 81% gain, compared to the previous driver[iii].
• Across the board performance increases for the entire family of current ATI FirePro graphics on the SolidWorks subset of SPECviewperf® 11, with the entry-level ATI FirePro V3800 achieving up to 43% performance gain and the ultra high-end ATI FirePro V8800 achieving a 63% gain compared to the previous driver[iv].

Such considerable performance improvements across industry leading applications offer increased value for both existing and new ATI FirePro users.

With regard to ISV certifications,[v] ATI FirePro graphics have been certified on more than 90 professional applications. We launched our next-generation ATI FirePro professional graphics solutions in April 2010, including ATI FirePro V3800, V4800, V5800, V7800, V8800 and M7820, and in less than four months these new products have already been certified on 47 applications professional users work with. Application certification for ATI FirePro hardware by leading publishers assures professionals that these applications will perform reliably. The 47 certifications achieved include:

• ANSYS Fluent, Ansys 12 and Workbench 12
• Autodesk
  • 3ds Max 2011, Inventor 2011, Maya 2011, Showcase 2011 and Softimage 2011
  • AutoCAD 2011, AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD 2009, and seven other AutoCAD applications
• Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks 2010, SolidWorks 2009 and SolidWorks 2008
• Luxology Modo
• PTC Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0 and Pro/ENGINEER Mechanica 5.0
• Side Effects Houdini
• SIEMENS PLM Software Solid Edge ST2, NX 6 and NX7 and Team Center Visualization 2007

For more information on the latest ISV certifications for ATI FirePro graphics, please click here.

A rigorous certification process and regular driver updates helps ensure ATI FirePro professional graphics provide the right combination of application performance, reliability and feature support for today’s professional need. As an ATI FirePro user or professional considering ATI FirePro graphics, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. Please use the comments section below.

Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics at AMD
Her postings are her 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

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[i] Testing compared ATI FirePro™ graphics driver version 8.76.2 vs. version 8.702 and version 8.723.6.

[ii] Based on SPECViewperf® 10 benchmark scores as tested by AMD performance labs for Dassault Systèmes CATIA, Autodesk® 3ds Max® and PTC® Pro ENGINEER®, using ATI FirePro™ V8800. Testing compared ATI FirePro™ graphics driver version 8.76.2 vs. version 8.702. Testing performed with the following configuration: HP Z400, Intel® Xeon® quad-core 1xW3570 @ 3.2 GHz, 4GB DDR3 memory, Microsoft® Windows® XP 32-bit SP3.

[iii] Based on SPECViewperf® 11 benchmark scores as tested by AMD performance labs for using NewTek LightWave 3D® on ATI FirePro™ V3800, V4800, V5800, V7800 and V8800. Testing compared ATI FirePro™ graphics driver version 8.76.2 vs. version 8.723.6. Testing performed with the following configuration: HP Z400, Intel® Xeon® quad-core 1xW3570 @ 3.2 GHz, 4GB DDR3 memory, Microsoft® Windows® 7 64-bit.

[iv] Based on SPECViewperf® 11 benchmark scores as tested by AMD performance labs for using Dassault Systémes SolidWorks on ATI FirePro™ V3800, V4800, V5800, V7800 and V8800. Testing compared ATI FirePro™ graphics driver version 8.76.2 vs. version 8.723.6. Testing performed with the following configuration: HP Z400, Intel® Xeon® quad-core 1xW3570 @ 3.2 GHz, 4GB DDR3 memory, Microsoft® Windows® 7 64-bit.

[v] Please note ATI FirePro professional graphics hardware requires various drivers to be installed when running ISV certified applications. Please visit the AMD ATI FirePro™ and ATI FireGL™ Certified Applications page to identify and download drivers.