AMD and Adobe Show OpenCL Support for next version of Adobe Premiere Pro
Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | April 5, 2013 - 11:48 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: premiere pro, opencl, firepro, amd, Adobe
As we prepare for the NAB show (National Association of Broadcasters) this week, AMD and Adobe have released a fairly substantial news release concerning the future of Premiere Pro, Adobe's flagship professional video editing suite.
Earlier today Adobe revealed some of its next generation professional video and audio products, including the next version of Adobe® Premiere Pro. Basically Adobe is giving users a sneak peek at the new features coming to the next versions of its software. And we’ve decided to give you a sneak peek too, providing a look at how the next version of Premiere Pro performs when accelerated by AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics and OpenCL™ versus Nvidia Quadro workstation graphics and CUDA.
This will be the first time that OpenCL is used as the primary rendering engine for Premiere and is something that AMD has been hoping to see for many years. Previous versions of the software integrated support for NVIDIA's CUDA GPGPU programming models and the revolution of the Mercury Playback Engine was truly industry changing for video production. However, because it was using CUDA, AMD users were left out of these performance improvements in favor of the proprietary NVIDIA software solution.
Adobe's next version of Premiere Pro (though we aren't told when that will be released) switches from CUDA to OpenCL and the performance of the AMD GCN architecture is being shown off by AMD today.
Using 4K TIFF 24-bit sequence content, Microsoft Windows® 7 64-bit, Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40 GHZ and 12GB system memory, AMD compared several FirePro graphics cards (using OpenCL) against NVIDIA Quadro options (using CUDA). Idealy we would like to see some OpenCL NVIDIA benchmarks as well, but I assume we'll have to wait to test that here at PC Perspective.
AMD also claims that by utilizing OpenCL rather than CUDA, the AMD FirePro GPUs are running at a lower utilization, opening up more graphics processing power for other applications and development work.
While this performance testing is conducted on a pre-release version of the next Adobe Premiere Pro, we’re really pleased with the results. As with all of the professional applications we support, we’ll continue to make driver optimizations for Adobe Premiere Pro that can only help to improve the overall user experience and application performance. So if you’re considering a GPU upgrade as part of your transition to the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro, definitely consider taking a look at AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics cards.
You can continue on to read the full press release from AMD and Adobe on the collaboration or check out the complete blog post posted on AMD.com.
Factory Overclocked ASUS GTX 660 Ti Dragon Pictured
Subject: Graphics Cards | April 3, 2013 - 11:24 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 660 Ti, 660 ti
Two new photos recently popped up on Cowcotland, showing off an unreleased "Dragon Edition" GTX 660 Ti graphics card from ASUS. The new card boasts some impressive factory overclocks on both the GPU and memory as well as a beefy heatsink and a new blue and black color scheme.
The ASUS GTX 660 Ti Dragon will feature a custom cooler with two fans and an aluminum heastink. The back of the card includes a metal backplate to secure the cooler and help dissipate a bit of heat itself. However, there is also a cutout in the backplate to allow for (likely) additional power management circuitry. The card also features the company's power phase technology, NVIDIA's 660 Ti GK-104 GPU, and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The graphics core is reportedly clocked at 1150MHz (no word on whether that is the base or boost figure) while the memory is overclocked to 6100MHz. For comparison, the reference GTX 660 Ti clocks are 915MHz base, 980MHz boost, and 6,000MHz memory. The new card will support DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI video outputs.
There is no word on pricing or availability, but the Dragon looks like it will be one of the fastest GTX 660 Ti cards available when (if?) it publicly released!
ASUS Finalizes Mini-ITX System Friendly GTX 670 DirectCU Mini Graphics Card
Subject: Graphics Cards | April 3, 2013 - 10:14 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nvidia, mini-itx, gtx 670, GK104, directcu mini, asus
ASUS has finalized the design for its Kepler-based DirectCU Mini graphics card. The new card combines NVIDIA's GTX 670 GPU and reference PCB with ASUS' own power management technology and a new, much smaller, air cooler. The new ASUS cooler has allowed the company to offer a card that is a mere 17cm long. Compared to traditional GTX 670 graphics cards with coolers at approximately 24cm, the DirectCU Mini is noticeably smaller.
The DirectCU Mini features a GTX 670 GPU clocked at 928MHz base and 1,006MHz boost. It also has 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. The card requires a single 8-pin PCI-E power connector. Video outputs include two DVI, one DisplayPort, and a single HDMI port. The ASUS cooler includes a copper vapor chamber and a single CoolTech fan. According to ASUS, the DirectCU Mini is up to 20% cooler and slightly quieter than previous GTX 670 cards despite the smaller form factor.
This new card will be a great addition to Mini-ITX-based systems where saving space anyway possible is key. It is nice to know that gamers will soon have the option of powering a small form factor LAN box with a GPU as fast as the GTX 670. Even better, water cooling enthusiasts will be happy to know that the card still uses a reference PCB, meaning it is compatible with existing water blocks made for the current crop of GTX 670 cards.
Pricing and availability have not been announced, but the small form factor-friendly GPU is now official and should be coming sometime soon.
Read more about the GTX 670 and Mini-ITX at PC Perspective.
PCPer Live! Bioshock Infinite Game Stream - Win Games and Graphics Cards from AMD!
Subject: Graphics Cards | April 2, 2013 - 07:50 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, tahiti, radeon, never settle reloaded, live, crysis, bioshock infinite, amd
UPDATE: If you missed the live stream...sorry, better luck next time! However, you can still view the on-demand version below to see the Bioshock Infinite game play!
On April 2nd on the PC Perspective Live! page we will be streaming some game action of Bioshock Infinite. Easily the most well received and reviewed game of the year, I am probably more excited to play this game than other we have stream to date!
We will be teaming up with AMD once again to provide a fun and exciting PCPer Game Stream that includes game demonstrations and of course, prizes and game keys for those that watch the event LIVE!
Bioshock Infinite Game Stream
5pm PT / 8pm ET - April 2nd
PC Perspective Live! Page
Warning: this one will DEFINITELY have mature language and content!!
The stream will be sponsored by AMD and its Never Settle Reloaded game bundles which we previously told you about. Depending on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series GPU that you buy, you could get some amazing free games including:
-
Radeon HD 7900 Series
- FREE Crysis 3
- FREE Bioshock Infinite
-
Radeon HD 7800 Series
- FREE Bioshock Infinite
- FREE Tomb Raider
-
Radeon HD 7900 CrossFire Set
- FREE Crysis 3
- FREE Bioshock Infinite
- FREE Tomb Raider
- FREE Far Cry 3
- FREE Hitman: Absolution
- FREE Sleeping Dogs
AMD's Robert Hallock (@Thracks on twitter) will be joining us via Skype to talk about the game's technology, performance considerations as well as helping me with some co-op gaming!
Of course, just to sweeten the deal a bit we have some prizes lined up for those of you that participate in our Bioshock Infinite Game Stream:
- 1 x Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC 2GB card
- 1 x MSI Radeon HD 7870 2GB card
- 3 x Combo codes for both Tomb Raider AND Bioshock Infinite
Pretty nice, huh? All you have to do to win is be present on the PC Perspective Live! Page during the event as we will announce both the content/sweepstakes method AND the winners!
Stop in on April 2nd for some PC gaming fun!!
What to Look For, Test Setup
Because of the complexity and sheer amount of data we have gathered using our Frame Rating performance methodology, we are breaking it up into several articles that each feature different GPU comparisons. Here is the schedule:
- 3/27: Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
- 3/27: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 680 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 3/30: AMD Radeon HD 7990 vs GeForce GTX 690 vs GeForce GTX Titan
- 4/2: Radeon HD 7950 vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/5: Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 660 (Single and Dual GPU)
We are back again with another edition of our continued reveal of data from the capture-based Frame Rating GPU performance methods. In this third segment we are moving on down the product stack to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti and the AMD Radeon HD 7950 - both cards that fall into a similar price range.
I have gotten many questions about why we are using the cards in each comparison and the answer is pretty straight forward: pricing. In our first article we looked at the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and the GeForce GTX 680 while in the second we compared the Radeon HD 7990 (HD 7970s in CrossFire), the GeForce GTX 690 and the GeForce GTX Titan. This time around we have the GeForce GTX 660 Ti ($289 on Newegg.com) and the Radeon HD 7950 ($299 on Newegg.com) but we did not include the GeForce GTX 670 because it sits much higher at $359 or so. I know some of you are going to be disappointed that it isn't in here, but I promise we'll see it again in a future piece!
If you are just joining this article series today, you have missed a lot! If nothing else you should read our initial full release article that details everything about the Frame Rating methodology and why we are making this change to begin with. In short, we are moving away from using FRAPS for average frame rates or even frame times and instead are using a secondary hardware capture system to record all the frames of our game play as they would be displayed to the gamer, then doing post-process analyzation on that recorded file to measure real world performance.
Because FRAPS measures frame times at a different point in the game pipeline (closer to the game engine) its results can vary dramatically from what is presented to the end user on their display. Frame Rating solves that problem by recording video through a dual-link DVI capture card that emulates a monitor to the testing system and by simply applying a unique overlay color on each produced frame from the game, we can gather a new kind of information that tells a very unique story.
The capture card that makes all of this work possible.
I don't want to spend too much time on this part of the story here as I already wrote a solid 16,000 words on the topic in our first article and I think you'll really find the results fascinating. So, please check out my first article on the topic if you have any questions before diving into these results today!
| Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E |
| Motherboard | ASUS P9X79 Deluxe |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 16GB |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD |
| Sound Card | On-board |
| Graphics Card |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB |
| Graphics Drivers |
AMD: 13.2 beta 7 NVIDIA: 314.07 beta |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX1200i |
| Operating System | Windows 8 Pro x64 |
On to the results!
Continue reading our review of the GTX 660 Ti and HD 7950 using Frame Rating!!
NVIDIA releases the GeForce GT 700M family
NVIDIA revolutionized gaming on the desktop with the release of its 600-series Kepler-based graphics cards in March 2012. With the release of the GeForce GT 700M series, Kepler enters the mobile arena to power laptops, ultrabooks, and all-in-one systems.
Today, NVIDIA introduces four new members to its mobile line: the GeForce GT 750M, the GeForce GT 740M, the GeForce GT 735M, and the GeForce GT 720M. These four new mobile graphics processors join the previously-released members of the GeForce GT 700m series: the GeForce GT 730M and the GeForce GT 710M. With the exception of the Fermi-based GeForce GT 720M, all of the newly-released mobile cores are based on NVIDIA's 28nm Kepler architecture.
Notebooks based on the GeForce GT 700M series will offer in-built support for the following new technologies:
Automatic Battery Savings through NVIDIA Optimus Technology
Automatic Game Configuration through the GeForce Experience
Automatic Performance Optimization through NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0
Continue reading our release coverage of the NVIDIA GTX 700M series!
GDC 2013: AMD Reveals Radeon Sky Specifications
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 31, 2013 - 03:06 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: GDC 13, sky 900, sky 700, sky 500, RapidFire, radeon sky, GCN, cloud gaming, amd
Earlier this week, AMD announced a new series of Radeon-branded cards–called Radeon Sky–aimed at the cloud gaming market. At the time, details on the cards was scarce apart from the fact that the cards would use latency-reduction "secret sauce" tech called RapidFire, and the highest-end model would be the Radeon Sky 900. Thankfully, gamers will not have to wait until AFDS after all, as AMD has posted additional information and specifications to its website. At this point, pricing and the underlying details of RapidFire are the only aspects still unknown.
According to the AMD site, the company will release three Radeon Sky cards later this year, called Sky 500, Sky 700, and Sky 900. All three cards are passively cooled with aluminum fin heatsinks and are based on AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. At the high end is the Sky 900, which is a dual Tahiti graphics card clocked at 825 MHz. The Sky 900 features 1,792 stream processors per GPU for a total of 3,584. The card further features 3GB of GDDR5 RAM per GPU on a 384-bit interface for a total GPU bandwidth of 480GB/s. AMD claims this dual slot card draws up to 300W while under load. In many respects the Sky 900 is the Radeon-equivalent to the company's professional FirePro S10,000 graphics card. It has similar hardware specifications (including the 5.91TFLOPS of single precision performance potential), but a higher TDP. It is also $3,599, though whether AMD will price the gaming-oriented Sky 900 similarly is unknown.
The Sky 700 steps down to a single-GPU graphics card. This card features a single Tahiti GPU clocked at 900 MHz with 1792 stream processors and 6GB of GDDR5. The graphics card memory uses a 384-bit memory interface for a total memory bandwidth of 264GB/s. Although also a dual slot card like the Sky 900, the cooler is smaller and it draws only 225W under load.
Finally, the Sky 500 represents the low end of the company's cloud gaming hardware lineup. It is the Radeon Sky equivalent to the company's consumer-grade Radeon HD 7870. The Sky 500 features a single Pitcairn GPU clocked at 950 MHz with 1280 stream processors, 4GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit memory bus, and a rated 150W power draw under load. It further features 154GB/s of memory bandwidth and is a single slot graphics card.
| Sky 900 | Sky 700 | Sky 500 | |
| GPU(s) | Dual Tahiti | Single Tahiti | Single Pitcairn |
| GPU Clockspeed | 825 MHz | 900 MHz | 950 MHz |
| Stream Processors | 3584 (1792 per GPU) | 1792 | 1280 |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR5 (3GB per GPU) | 6GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 384-bit | 384-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 480GB/s | 264GB/s | 154GB/s |
| TDP | 300W | 225W | 150W |
| Card Profile | dual-slot | dual-slot | single-slot |
Additionally, the Radeon Sky cards all employ a technology called RapidFire that allegedly reduces latency immensely. As Ryan mentioned on the latest PC Perspective Podcast, the Radeon Sky cards are able to stream up to six games. RapidFire is still a mystery, but the company has indicated that one aspect of RapidFire is the use of AMD's Video Encoding Engine (VCE) to encode the video stream on the GPU itself to reduce game latency. The Sky cards will output at 720p resolutions, and the Sky 700 can support either three games at 60 FPS or six games at 30 FPS.
In addition to working with cloud gaming companies Ubitus, G-Cluster, CiiNow, and Otoy, AMD has announced a partnership with VMWare and Citrix. AMD is reportedly working to allow VMWare ESX/ESXi and Citrix XenServer virtual machines to access the GPU hardware directly, which opens up the possibility of using Sky cards to run workstation applications or remote desktops with 3D support much like NVIDIA's VCA and GRID technology (which the company showed off at GTC last week). Personally, I think the Sky cards may be late to the party but is a step in the right direction. Even if cloud gaming doesn't take off, the cards could still be used to great success by enterprise customers if they are able to allow direct access to the full graphics card hardware from within virtual machines!
More information on the Radeon Sky cards can be found on the AMD website.
Summary Thus Far
Because of the complexity and sheer amount of data we have gathered using our Frame Rating performance methodology, we are breaking it up into several articles that each feature different GPU comparisons. Here is the schedule:
- 3/27: Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
- 3/27: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 680 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 3/30: AMD Radeon HD 7990 vs GeForce GTX 690 vs GeForce GTX Titan
- 4/2: Radeon HD 7950 vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/5: Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 660 (Single and Dual GPU)
Welcome to the second in our intial series of articles focusing on Frame Rating, our new graphics and GPU performance technology that drastically changes how the community looks at single and multi-GPU performance. In the article we are going to be focusing on a different set of graphics cards, the highest performing single card options on the market including the GeForce GTX 690 4GB dual-GK104 card, the GeForce GTX Titan 6GB GK110-based monster as well as the Radeon HD 7990, though in an emulated form. The HD 7990 was only recently officially announced by AMD at this years Game Developers Conference but the specifications of that hardware are going to closely match what we have here on the testbed today - a pair of retail Radeon HD 7970s in CrossFire.
Will the GTX Titan look as good in Frame Rating as it did upon its release?
If you are just joining this article series today, you have missed a lot! If nothing else you should read our initial full release article that details everything about the Frame Rating methodology and why we are making this change to begin with. In short, we are moving away from using FRAPS for average frame rates or even frame times and instead are using a secondary hardware capture system to record all the frames of our game play as they would be displayed to the gamer, then doing post-process analyzation on that recorded file to measure real world performance.
Because FRAPS measures frame times at a different point in the game pipeline (closer to the game engine) its results can vary dramatically from what is presented to the end user on their display. Frame Rating solves that problem by recording video through a dual-link DVI capture card that emulates a monitor to the testing system and by simply applying a unique overlay color on each produced frame from the game, we can gather a new kind of information that tells a very unique story.
The capture card that makes all of this work possible.
I don't want to spend too much time on this part of the story here as I already wrote a solid 16,000 words on the topic in our first article and I think you'll really find the results fascinating. So, please check out my first article on the topic if you have any questions before diving into these results today!
| Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E |
| Motherboard | ASUS P9X79 Deluxe |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 16GB |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD |
| Sound Card | On-board |
| Graphics Card |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB AMD Radeon HD 7970 CrossFire 3GB |
| Graphics Drivers |
AMD: 13.2 beta 7 NVIDIA: 314.07 beta (GTX 690) NVIDIA: 314.09 beta (GTX TITAN) |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX1200i |
| Operating System | Windows 8 Pro x64 |
On to the results!
Continue reading our review of the GTX Titan, GTX 690 and HD 7990 using Frame Rating!!
GDC 2013: AMD Announces Sky Graphics Cards to Accelerate Cloud Gaming
Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | March 27, 2013 - 08:16 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: sky graphics, sky 900, RapidFire, radeon sky, pc gaming, GDC, cloud gaming, ciinow, amd
AMD is making a new push into cloud gaming with a new series of Radeon graphics cards called Sky. The new cards feature a (mysterious) technology called "RapidFire" that allegedly provides "highly efficient and responsive game streaming" from servers to your various computing devices (tablets, PCs, Smart TVs) over the Internet. At this year's Games Developers Conference (GDC), the company announced that it is working with a number of existing cloud gaming companies to provide hardware and drivers to reduce latency.
AMD is working with Otoy, G-Cluster, Ubitus, and CiiNow. CiiNow in particular was heavily discussed by AMD, and can reportedly provide lower latency than cloud gaming competitor Gaikai. AMD Sky is, in many ways, similar in scope to NVIDIA's GRID technology which was announced last year and shown off at GTC last week. Obviously, that has given NVIDIA a head start, but it is difficult to say how AMD's technology will stack up as the company is not yet providing any specifics. Joystiq was able to obtain information on the high-end Radeon Sky graphics card, however (that's something at least...). The Sky 900 reportedly features 3,584 stream processors, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 480 GB/s of bandwidth. Further, AMD has indicated that the new Radeon Sky cards will be based on the company's Graphics Core Next architecture.
| Sky 900 | Radeon 7970 | |
| Stream Processors | 3,584 | 2,048 |
| Memory | 6GB | 3GB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 480GB/s | 264GB/s |
I think it is safe to assume that the Sky cards will be sold to other cloud gaming companies. They will not be consumer cards, and AMD is not going to get into the cloud gaming business itself. Beyond that, AMD's Sky cloud gaming initiative is still a mystery. Hopefully more details will filter out between now and the AMD Fusion Developer Summit this summer.
How Games Work
Because of the complexity and sheer amount of data we have gathered using our Frame Rating performance methodology, we are breaking it up into several articles that each feature different GPU comparisons. Here is the schedule:
- 3/27: Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
- 3/27: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 680 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 3/30: AMD Radeon HD 7990 vs GeForce GTX 690 vs GeForce GTX Titan
- 4/2: Radeon HD 7950 vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/5: Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 660 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/16: Frame Rating: Visual Effects of Vsync on Gaming Animation
Introduction
The process of testing games and graphics has been evolving even longer than I have been a part of the industry: 14+ years at this point. That transformation in benchmarking has been accelerating for the last 12 months. Typical benchmarks test some hardware against some software and look at the average frame rate which can be achieved. While access to frame time has been around for nearly the full life of FRAPS, it took an article from Scott Wasson at the Tech Report to really get the ball moving and investigate how each frame contributes to the actual user experience. I immediately began research into testing actual performance perceived by the user, including the "microstutter" reported by many in PC gaming, and pondered how we might be able to test for this criteria even more accurately.
The result of that research is being fully unveiled today in what we are calling Frame Rating – a completely new way of measuring and validating gaming performance.
The release of this story for me is like the final stop on a journey that has lasted nearly a complete calendar year. I began to release bits and pieces of this methodology starting on January 3rd with a video and short article that described our capture hardware and the benefits that directly capturing the output from a graphics card would bring to GPU evaluation. After returning from CES later in January, I posted another short video and article that showcased some of the captured video and stepping through a recorded file frame by frame to show readers how capture could help us detect and measure stutter and frame time variance.
Finally, during the launch of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan graphics card, I released the first results from our Frame Rating system and discussed how certain card combinations, in this case CrossFire against SLI, could drastically differ in perceived frame rates and performance while giving very similar average frame rates. This article got a lot more attention than the previous entries and that was expected – this method doesn’t attempt to dismiss other testing options but it is going to be pretty disruptive. I think the remainder of this article will prove that.
Today we are finally giving you all the details on Frame Rating; how we do it, what we learned and how you should interpret the results that we are providing. I warn you up front though that this is not an easy discussion and while I am doing my best to explain things completely, there are going to be more questions going forward and I want to see them all! There is still much to do regarding graphics performance testing, even after Frame Rating becomes more common. We feel that the continued dialogue with readers, game developers and hardware designers is necessary to get it right.
Below is our full video that features the Frame Rating process, some example results and some discussion on what it all means going forward. I encourage everyone to watch it but you will definitely need the written portion here to fully understand this transition in testing methods. Subscribe to your YouTube channel if you haven't already!
Continue reading our analysis of the new Frame Rating performance testing methodology!!
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