Posts tagged with ATI FirePro
Working at the Speed of Thought
Posted by Janet Matsuda in 11:47 am
(4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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Courtesy of StudioGPU
For professionals working in 3D CAD, Digital Content Creation and Engineering, waiting for designs and images to render is standard operating procedure. While technology has vastly improved over the last several years, many professionals are still waiting several minutes or even hours for large and complex models to render — thankfully rendering overnight is becoming a thing of the past.
In addition, every time a change is made to the model you have to wait for it to render again. While render times are getting shorter, those minutes of waiting can really add up throughout the work week, impacting creativity and productivity.
Considering the human brain works faster than the fastest computer, working at 100 million MIPS (millions of instructions per second), having a computer that could work at the speed of thought would free up professionals to focus on their creation by enabling real-time workflows and rendering. Artists want their creativity to flow with no impediments. The computer should be a tool that responds with interactivity, and the user should not need to wait for the computer to catch up or interrupt their creative flow. While the concept may seem futuristic, there are companies out there making it a reality today.
StudioGPU, an AMD customer, is reinventing 3D visualization workflow by putting the power of real-time graphics processing and rendering on the desktop. Its MachStudio Pro software complements existing design, modeling and animation software by significantly reducing the time and cost to produce CG images. With MachStudio, users can render complex models, scenes and images incredibly quickly – in just a few seconds in many cases.
The benefits of real-time workflows and rendering are significant. Not only can professionals focus on creating, they can get more work done in a shorter period of time. Real-time rendering can also allow professional firms to show customers how proposed changes to a model will look/interact in real-time. And it can enable more accurate designs before moving onto full-scale production, which can help save time and money.
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.
Energy Efficiency: a little can go a long way
Posted by Guest Blogger in 12:13 pm
Companies are continuously on the hunt to find new ways to cut costs and save money, and reducing power consumption is proven to do both.
The Recovery Act of 2009 includes a number of measures to increase energy efficiency in the U.S., which many feel is the fastest and cheapest way to address the nation’s energy challenges – from homes to factories and offices. And while the government spends billions to build a better, bigger and smarter electric grid, there are a number of ways that companies and organizations can increase their energy efficiency in the short-term. Let’s consider the commercial airline industry for a moment.
When killing time at the airport before your flight, have you ever pondered the number of arrival and departure screens you’ve passed between the check-in counter, security and your flight gate? McCarron International Airport in Las Vegas, ranked 14th in the world for passenger traffic in 2007, with nearly 48 million passengers, boasts more than 750 flight information monitors.
Typically, flight information displays are powered by a computer equipped with a video card or a graphics card, which enables the system to power multiple monitors at once. Both the card and the computer consume energy and emit heat, as wells the display, and contribute to the airports carbon footprint. And in the heat of the summer in Las Vegas, all of these systems and the millions of passengers require the airport to crank up the AC.
So, theoretically at least, how can these airports save money and increase energy efficiency? Because older computers and graphics cards draw more power and emit more heat, buying smaller more energy efficient PCs and more powerful and energy efficient graphics cards will help reduce energy and cooling costs and reduce carbon emissions. The new ATI FirePro™ 2450 multi-view graphics card from AMD can power up to four monitors at one time, fits in newer and smaller form factor computers and only sips a cool 18 watts of power – the same amount of electricity as a CFC light bulb.
According to Wikipedia, as of June 2008, there were 49,024 airports in the world with the U.S. having more than any other country – more than 14,000. While not all of these airports are of the caliber of Las Vegas, Denver or Dallas/Fort Worth, each state has at least one large commercial airport. If McCarron alone has 750 displays, the number of displays in this country’s airports alone is mind-boggling. You have to wonder just how much energy is wasted each day.
The commercial airline industry is just one example of how multiple display technology touches your life. What about:
· 911 emergency data centers
· Trading floors of the stock and commodity exchanges – most analysts and traders have 2 to 4 displays on their desk
· Manufacturing assembly lines
· Power plants
· The electrical grid
· Television stations
The next time you are waiting for your flight, I encourage you to consider how much energy could be conserved if a fraction of airports, factories and businesses in the U.S. and the world at large implemented more energy efficient technologies. A little effort would definitely go a long way.
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.
Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics at AMD.