AMD Radeon Pro Duo Announcement @ [H]

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FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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AMD Radeon Pro Duo Announcement - AMD is taking the veil off of the "World's Fastest Graphics Card" today known as the AMD Radeon Pro Duo. This $1,499 video card seems to have a rather different focus. We will share with you all the specifications on and pictures of the AMD Radeon R9 Pro Duo. We will talk about what this dual-Fiji GPU video card may have to offer.
 
This thing sounds like a limited edition card. Well mGPU seems like the way they are going to handle VR. And this is the perfect testing platform for a developer to see if their title scales across multiple GPUs.
 
cageymaru said:
This thing sounds like a limited edition card. Well mGPU seems like the way they are going to handle VR. And this is the perfect testing platform for a developer to see if their title scales across multiple GPUs.
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mGPU may end up working due to how DX12 handles it, which I believe puts less burden on a developer for support. Of course, there's theory and then there's fact, and we just don't have enough DX12 games to test yet.
 
cageymaru said:
This thing sounds like a limited edition card. Well mGPU seems like the way they are going to handle VR. And this is the perfect testing platform for a developer to see if their title scales across multiple GPUs.
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Haha, yeah, we know how well multi-GPU support has been lately. If anything, maybe VR will force these lazy game devs to get their shit together in terms of CF and SLI.
 
Kyle, I hope that your relations with AMD will improve soon, as I can't stand nVidias business tactics. But I do think you personally are in the right.
 
Another amazing AMD product "launch" complete with sensational "claims"!

I'll be anxiously waiting for the [H] review with real world performance results to get published soon! Oh, wait...
 
Does Xfire still mirror the frame buffer from each card in the other card? That would make the effective useable memory on each card 2GB, which could really hinder performance.
 
Great card for those who find it useful. If I were doing an unlimited build it'd be considered.

That said, the lack of HDMI 2.0 has me wondering if it's a chip architecture level design issue?
The appropriate chips have been out for well enough time to be added in to a board releasing now. Makes no sense otherwise.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
mGPU may end up working due to how DX12 handles it, which I believe puts less burden on a developer for support. Of course, there's theory and then there's fact, and we just don't have enough DX12 games to test yet.
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The game developer still has to put that effort into making DX12 work well with multi-GPUs. It just doesn't magically happen versus DX11 because you have used the DX12 API. It has been very apparent that with the latest games we have tested using DX12 you cannot just slap DX12 on and expect things to get better. Same for multi-GPU, it just doesn't work that way. Time and effort and coding will still be required to utilize those benefits DX12 can provide in a multi-GPU environment.
 
Yes and depending on the type of renderer the work can be a lot. Its a similar situation (similar not same) for SLI and X-fire. Some renderers just won't work with them because of the way they process data.
 
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Meh.
AMD needs to get over themselves and sample out their stuff for review.
That and multi-GPU support has been pretty crappy across the board lately.
I'll spend my 1500 dollars on something else thank you.

Always have to be skeptical of anything you can't back up in the real world.

That Maingear set-up is real pretty though.
 
jfreund said:
Does Xfire still mirror the frame buffer from each card in the other card? That would make the effective useable memory on each card 2GB, which could really hinder performance.
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Yes, framebuffer is still mirrored as AFR is in use, CrossFire and SLI technology have not evolved much. And the framebuffer is 4GB per GPU.

Now, that said, IF a developer uses it Dynamic VRAM can be utilized on Fiji which will use system RAM as a sort of VRAM cache. However, to benefit from this the most direct and specific game optimization is required.
 
The reason AMD is not sampling the "World's Fastest Graphics Card" to video card reviewers, is told to us as such. Basically this video card is not for consumers according to AMD but rather only for "VR content developers." So once again AMD PR is trying to sheild sites such as HardOCP from getting access to this new video card, much like it did last time with the AMD Nano. At least this time they have a "reason" for not sampling the "World's Fastest Graphics Card" to video card reviewers.
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Shield is spelled wrong ;)

Pretty weak argument again. What is next born in an odd year instead of even ?

Talking about weak arguments :
Now we just have to wait on availability of this video card, but AMD has told us they do not intend to sample video card reviewers, because certainly we do not qualified individuals putting AMD marketing claims to the test.
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Could you reverse that saying that: We can not give you a review card because at AMD marketing we do not have qualified individuals ?
 
N4CR said:
Great card for those who find it useful. If I were doing an unlimited build it'd be considered.

That said, the lack of HDMI 2.0 has me wondering if it's a chip architecture level design issue?
The appropriate chips have been out for well enough time to be added in to a board releasing now. Makes no sense otherwise.
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Yes, interface is gpu level, has been for a while in modern gpus, started with TMDS being integrated on die.
 
If this card is for professionals, does it use Firepro drivers? or gaming drivers? To get good acceleration like in Maya you will need the FirePro drivers installed which supports professional software. If gaming drivers then why not give out to the bigger sites for game testing? It is an utterly beautiful card, looks so well crafted I would hate to use it :). But for me it is a rather big yawn as well. What drivers, what applications? AMD has not really explained that at all.
 
noko said:
If this card is for professionals, does it use Firepro drivers? or gaming drivers? To get good acceleration like in Maya you will need the FirePro drivers installed which supports professional software. If gaming drivers then why not give out to the bigger sites for game testing? It is an utterly beautiful card, looks so well crafted I would hate to use it :). But for me it is a rather big yawn as well. What drivers, what applications? AMD has not really explained that at all.
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It can use both, reference - Screenshots | [H]ard|OCP
 
Zion Halcyon said:
I wish AMD would get away from making enemies of hardware sites. It won't help them in the long run.
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They are going to need more than just friendly hardware sites to make it in the long run...

Oh and only pictures supplied by AMD, and slides provided by AMD.

When some real actual performance numbers and comparisons are released, I'd be interested. AMD has popped my hype bubble way too many times.
 
Brent_Justice said:
The game developer still has to put that effort into making DX12 work well with multi-GPUs. It just doesn't magically happen versus DX11 because you have used the DX12 API. It has been very apparent that with the latest games we have tested using DX12 you cannot just slap DX12 on and expect things to get better. Same for multi-GPU, it just doesn't work that way. Time and effort and coding will still be required to utilize those benefits DX12 can provide in a multi-GPU environment.
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Good to know. I was under the impression that DX12 has the capacity to automatically send loads to different GPUs as part of its makeup. There was a name for it, but it escapes me at the moment.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Good to know. I was under the impression that DX12 has the capacity to automatically send loads to different GPUs as part of its makeup. There was a name for it, but it escapes me at the moment.
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explicit multi-adapter ?
 
Implicit multi adapter is the automatic one, explicit is the one that developers have to manually create.

Easy enough to follow, forward rendering engines will mostly use Implicit multi adapters, deferred rendering engines and hybrid engines are explicit, in many circumstances, explicit will not give any more benefits over SLi and crossfire.
 
razor1 said:
Implicit multi adapter is the automatic one, explicit is the one that developers have to manually create.
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well that definitely makes sense, just never heard the term implicit multi-adapter before

can you link documentation ? can't find anything about how it actually works, implicit i mean
 
Multi-Adapter (Windows)

Describes support in D3D12 for multi-engine adapter systems, covering scenarios where applications explicitly target multiple GPU adapters, and scenarios where drivers implicitly use multiple GPU adapters on behalf of an application.
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This is what Raja was stating about it might take a few days (think he stated 3 days) or might take months to get a game to scale well on multigpu set ups.
 
I've bought both AMD and Nvidia cards. I'll buy the best brand that works for me. I will *never* buy a card with included liquid cooling. I live temps of hell in the summer. No need to be adding to that.
 
In the first sentence of the last paragraph of the conclusion it looks like you are missing the word "want".

"...because certainly we do not want qualified individuals..."

Good article though. I talked to AMD at PAX East over the weekend and they gave no hints that something like this was coming.
 
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Bad timing. Bad price. Bad amount of RAM/$. Bad PR tactics, and if it's really a professional card, maybe they should have used the Fire Pro nomenclature, or a separate branding. Like "Radeon VR Pro" or something to tell the market what the hell this thing is. It's a sexy card, of course, but so much is just wrong that it kind of makes no sense.
 
mentok1982 said:
In the first sentence of the last paragraph of the conclusion it looks like you are missing the word "want".

"...because certainly we do not want qualified individuals..."

Good article thought. I talked to AMD at PAX East over the weekend and they gave no hints that something like this was coming.
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Well, if you talked to them, what did they say? Generally speaking? Anything interesting?
 
Probably the best engineered and looking card I've seen yet. But this "enthusiast" half-pro branding ,weather it be Titan or this new Pro branding is just silly IMO. Either release it as a consumer card, or professional content creation card.

That being said, with AMD giving access to both Crimson and, more importantly IMO, FirePro drivers for $1,500 is basically giving it away on the professional side for this amount of performance.

Just label and market this card as a FirePro card at a never before seen Professional Price/Performance ratio with positive marketing and avoid this type of situation.

I swear their marketing people are complete imbeciles.
 
Yakk said:
Probably the best engineered and looking card I've seen yet. But this "enthusiast" half-pro branding ,weather it be Titan or this new Pro branding is just silly IMO. Either release it as a consumer card, or professional content creation card.

That being said, with AMD giving access to both Crimson and, more importantly IMO, FirePro drivers for $1,500 is basically giving it away on the professional side for this amount of performance.

Just label and market this card as a FirePro card at a never before seen Professional Price/Performance ratio with positive marketing and avoid this type of situation.

I swear their marketing people are complete imbeciles.
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Well multi card setups don't work well with 3d modelling applications, I think this is also what they are targeting, actual traditional 3d modelling companies to change the way they program their renderers, not just game developers.
 
razor1 said:
Well multi card setups don't work well with 3d modelling applications, I think this is also what they are targeting, actual traditional 3d modelling companies to change the way they program their renderers, not just game developers.
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I was referring to the Professional market as a whole, not just game studios. If this card, let's say, is to target a specific branch of the Professional market then maybe create a "FirePRO VR" brand for instance if that is your target clientele.

Point is, it's up to the marketing department to create an amicable environment to sell their product, and IMHO AMD had an awesome opportunity and failed.. Failed hard.

Doesn't mean they won't sell everything they can make at this this price, but it really looks like they lost mindshare and that's completely the fault of their marketing people, again.
 
ah ok. I don't know, usually these type of cards market themselves for the professional market, they know what they need, and its pretty exact. They will get a Quadro or FireGl pro for specific needs of the software they are using.
 
This looks like AMD's version of the GTX Titan -- a "prosumer" card. At least the Titan got reviews, though (paper launches /facepalm) ... this is geared more towards the "professional market". AMD's marketing arm has GOT to get their act together ...
 
Bottom line, if this was truly meant for the professional developer market, it should have carried FirePro branding IMO. I seriously see this as AMD PR's attempt to get around actually having the card reviewed by professional reviewers. Like with Nano which AMD would not sample HardOCP either, we will buy one and review it.
 
RazorWind said:
Why do they want to avoid sites like HardOCP reviewing this? Are they just worried that the verdict is going to be "Meh, buy two 980Tis and a keg of beer instead?" Or is just they're not on amicable terms with [H] in particular for some reason?
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Considering that AMD sampled NO CARDS to professional reviewing site, I would suggest your thoughts on "amicable terms with [H]" is a red herring. To answer your question though, you would have to ask AMD as the only reason it gave us was that the card (which carries Radeon branding) is meant for VR developers...the same Radeon card billed as "World's Fastest Graphics Card,"....and I KNOW that one that reads HardOCP has any interest in seeing that statement qualified. :rolleyes:
 
RazorWind said:
Why do they want to avoid sites like HardOCP reviewing this? Are they just worried that the verdict is going to be "Meh, buy two 980Tis and a keg of beer instead?" Or is just they're not on amicable terms with [H] in particular for some reason?

Given that the sort of person who buys this product will almost certainly run some benchmarks and post the results on the internet, that doesn't seem like a very smart attitude. People are eventually going to figure out how it performs, and either crow than spending $1500 was worth it, or kvetch that it was overpriced.
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If I had to guess, they probably view review sites as catering to the top end only of the enthusiast market, and therefore since they do not have something that will hold up on the very top end possibly, they don't want it reviewed, else they want to get a few full priced sales in before the price drops post reviews.
 
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