Editor’s Pick: AMD FirePro W4300

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

The problem with SFF (small form factor) workstations for many CAD mavens is that professional-level graphic cards often don’t fit inside them. Entry-level graphics are OK if your demands are modest. But if you design large 3D models and assemblies, fiddle with shading and so on, usually you have to make a tower-sized workstation fit your office décor. That should change soon, as today’s Pick of the Week reports.

AMD recently released the FirePro W4300, a low-profile graphics card for SFFs (or towers) that, it says, is designed specifically for CAD. It’s crammed with goodies that should make running applications like Inventor, PTC Creo or SOLIDWORKS on a SFF workstation shine.

The FirePro W4300 is built with AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, which, says AMD, optimizes GPU (graphics processing unit) use and maximizes performance, letting the system CPU focus on the things it does best. With the GCN architecture, the FirePro W4300 comes with a GPU and 4GB of GDDR5 GPU memory. GDDR5 stands for double data rate type five synchronous graphics random access memory, giving example to the handiness of acronyms.

Anyway, the point is that 4GB of GDDR5 memory means you can get into large design projects and know that your application should respond with alacrity instead of tearing up screen refreshes. And the FirePro W4300 has other neat technologies to speed up workflows.

For example, it has what AMD calls its AMD PowerTune Technology. This technology performs real-time analyses of your applications. If an application isn’t making the most of the GPU’s power, AMD PowerTune automatically raises the GPU‘s clock speed by up to 30%, which should improve the application’s performance.

Then, there’s GeometryBoost. Basically, this lets the GPU process geometry data at a rate of twice per clock cycle, doubling the rate of primitive and vertex processing. The FirePro W4300 also supports something called Direct Graphics Memory Access that reduces CPU use, avoids excess transfers and provides high-throughput, low-latency data transfers.

Multiple display support and a maximum resolution of 4096x2160 are among the additional notable details that you can read about in today’s write-up while system manufacturers gear up to offer the AMD FirePro W4300 in their SFF workstations. An aside for do it yourselfers, outfits like Newegg offer the FirePro W4300 at an attractive price. Hit today’s Pick of the Week link and download the spec sheet to learn more.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Learn about the AMD FirePro W4300 here.