The AMD renaissance
New AMD products with massive amounts of processing cores are lowering the cost of powerful desktop 3D rendering
We test two powerful workstations
“THE RADEON PRO W5700 IS THE FIRST PROFESSIONAL-GRADE AMD GRAPHICS CARD TO USE ITS REENGINEERED RDNA ARCHITECTURE”
The biggest current story in PC hardware is the recent flurry of AMD Ryzen and Threadripper processors. The new third-generation chips allow for a dramatic increase in the total number of cores being squeezed into processors intended for both mainstream computers and high-end workstations.
An increase in the number of processor cores will lead to considerable performance benefits in rendering software. It means working with more detail, higher resolution and better frame rates.
It’s such a turning point for 3D, and this month we’ve decided to take a closer look at the current state of PC workstations.
AMD VS THE WORLD
Unlike rivals Intel and Nvidia, AMD is the only PC component vendor to have considerable market share in both CPUS and (discrete) graphics cards, after its 2007 acquisition of Canadian graphics manufacturer ATI. But following this expansion, AMD then trailed its rivals in both areas for over a decade, maintaining a portfolio of competitive cost-effective alternatives, but never a clear performance winner.
With Dr Lisa Su now calling the shots at AMD, an all-new processor architecture called Zen, and a few other technical tricks, this course has been firmly reversed.
The first generation of Ryzen processors launched at the end of 2017 and notably brought eight processor cores to mainstream computing for the first time. But now that AMD has a more efficient process behind its third-generation processors, it has considerably widened the gap over Intel.
Its new chips run at a considerably lower TDP (thermal design power) which reduces cooling requirements, and uses smaller 7nm transistors that provide the headroom to increase core counts beyond anything its competitor can manage in the same product bracket.
In graphics cards, AMD is moving at a slightly different pace, but all the signs now point to a big shake-up in this area too. The Radeon Pro W5700 is the first professionalgrade AMD graphics card to use its re-engineered RDNA architecture, and it now also brings more efficient process technology to graphic cards too.
We’ve already reviewed a workstation with the 16-core mainstream AMD Ryzen 3950X processor, and found its superb all-round performance makes it our current top recommendation for any 3D workstation.
This month, we’re reviewing more new hardware from AMD, thanks to a loan from Scan Computers. We’re looking at a very high-end workstation, featuring AMD’S brand-new Threadripper 3970X processor, which (amazingly) has a whole 32 CPU cores squeezed into a single chip.
And we’re getting our first taste of AMD’S reboot of its graphics card line-up. The new Radeon Pro W5700 is aiming right at Nvidia’s Quadro RTX 4000, and has arrived in a more affordable workstation paired up with an Intel processor, looking to also break new records for AMD in GPU performance too.
As well as reviewing both workstations, we are also going to briefly look at Intel’s current processor line-up, discuss what this means for the 3D industry, and explore what PC rendering hardware from Intel, AMD and Nvidia might look like in the future too. These new products are already having a huge impact on the whole PC market, and with the limitless computing demands of 3D software, we’re all set to benefit.