Announcement:AMD Triples the Performance of ATI Embedded Graphics Chips

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Source: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...131332,00.html



Quote:



AMD Triples the Performance of ATI Embedded Graphics Chips



− Single-chip solution offers high definition video playback and blazing fast 3D graphics for arcade, casino and digital signage embedded markets −



SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- June 1, 2009 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced the ATI Radeon™ E4690 (OpenCL ready) graphics processor unit (GPU) designed to enable a whole level of new reality for embedded graphics applications with more than triple1 the 3D graphics performance of prior AMD embedded products. Arcade system manufacturers will appreciate the long term support and lower cost of placing the GPU chip directly on the motherboard instead of a separate add-in graphics card. This product will enable digital signage manufacturers to decode and play multiple high-definition videos in hardware, offloading all the decoding from the CPU2. Casino system manufacturers will be amazed by triple the graphics performance to help attract players while increasing overall entertainment value with incredibly realistic 3D graphics, plus two-monitor support3.
  • The ATI Radeon E4690 GPU is packed with the latest graphics features, including support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 and OpenGL 3.0.

  • The second-generation AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0) includes hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC-1 high-definition (HD) video as well as MPEG-2, enabling multiple HD video streams and freeing the CPU for other tasks.

  • The ATI Radeon E4690 is designed to simplify board design and speed time-to-market by incorporating 512 MB of 700 MHz GDDR3 graphics memory on chip.

  • The ATI Radeon E4690 comes with AMD’s commitment of 5 years of planned supply availability4. Technical support is provided by a dedicated team of application engineering experts.

“The ATI Radeon E4690 sets a new bar for embedded graphics performance,” said Richard Jaenicke, director of embedded graphics at AMD. “Blazingly fast graphics and HD video capabilities enhance the appeal of applications − such as arcade, casino, digital signage and more. With the industry’s only embedded graphics chip that offers DirectX 10.1 and UVD 2.0 support, the ATI Radeon E4690 enables competitive advantages for AMD’s embedded customers.”



“The ATI Radeon E4690 is the perfect solution for the digital signage market,” said Dwight Looi, product manager at iBASE Technology, Inc. “The ATI Radeon E4690 combines phenomenal graphics performance, full hardware HD video decode acceleration and 512MB of very fast GDDR3 memory into a compact 35 mm package, which enables us to offer a high-end digital signage solution in a previously impossible, booked-sized system.”



“With the on-chip memory and responsive technical support from AMD, we were able to bring our Condor 2000 product, featuring ATI Radeon E4690, to market in just six weeks from the time we received the design documents,” said Selwyn Henriques, president of Tech Source, Inc. “Based on the product specifications, TechSource expects the resulting product to significantly outperform existing products in the industry.”



Supporting ResourcesAbout AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.



Copyright 2009, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.



1 Performance is based on the comparison of ATI Radeon E4600 to ATI Radeon E2400 using 3Dmark06 tests run in the similar system configuration: MSI K9A2 Platinum (790FX, SB600), AMD Athlon X2 7850 (2.8 GHz), 2 GB DDR2 800MHz 5-5-5-12, Video Driver: 8.612 RC1 (Catalyst 9.5), Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1 Note graphics components of 3DMark06 are insensitive to system configuration when there is sufficient frame-buffer size.

2 With Unified Video Decoder 2, ATI Radeon E4690 offloads 100% of the ‘decode’ function for video playback. See notes for ATI Radeon HD 4000 series (http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd4600/index.html) and Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2)

3 Monitor support is dependant upon display output configuration and motherboard design from manufacturer.

4 Product and support availability subject to change without notice.



Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Source:http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...131332,00.html



    So will this play Crysis?
  • Reply 2 of 8
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    So will this play Crysis?



    I'd like Apple to have choice for us to choose from when it comes even to embedded chipsets for laptops.



    Hell, I'd like to see these inside the new Tablet for Apple. They even specifically cite a 35mm chip for book-size computers.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    I'd like Apple to have choice for us to choose from when it comes even to embedded chipsets for laptops.



    Hell, I'd like to see these inside the new Tablet for Apple. They even specifically cite a 35mm chip for book-size computers.



    I certainly want more and better choices for GPU as well. I'm not a big gamer and with OpenCL and more I don't have to worry about games to take advantage of GPU speed
  • Reply 4 of 8
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    It's intended for the embedded market, which is digital signage and casino machines. There must be a reason they don't mention and compare it to integrated graphics solutions for general purpose computers if it was fit for that purpose.



    They haven't had such a great time with Intel maintaining a firm lead over their CPU products across the board and Nvidia's cards beating them quite well as well as working better across a broad range of applications even down to the mobile market.



    The chipset consumes 25W when achieving a 3DMark 06 score of 2669 and has 320 stream processors. The 9600M GT has 32 SPs and gets double that at 23W consumption.



    The chips seem to be designed for different purposes. For low power use in a tablet, Apple would be better off with Nvidia Tegra or just the 9400M. The 9400M is suitable for the MBA and uses 12W tops, plus it ramps down the clock to save power. The AMD chip ramps down too but it uses twice the power of the 9400M when achieving the same performance.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    It's intended for the embedded market, which is digital signage and casino machines. There must be a reason they don't mention and compare it to integrated graphics solutions for general purpose computers if it was fit for that purpose.



    They haven't had such a great time with Intel maintaining a firm lead over their CPU products across the board and Nvidia's cards beating them quite well as well as working better across a broad range of applications even down to the mobile market.



    The chipset consumes 25W when achieving a 3DMark 06 score of 2669 and has 320 stream processors. The 9600M GT has 32 SPs and gets double that at 23W consumption.



    The chips seem to be designed for different purposes. For low power use in a tablet, Apple would be better off with Nvidia Tegra or just the 9400M. The 9400M is suitable for the MBA and uses 12W tops, plus it ramps down the clock to save power. The AMD chip ramps down too but it uses twice the power of the 9400M when achieving the same performance.



    http://www.amd.com/us-en/Connectivit..._16009,00.html



    The 9400M is not designed for OpenCL. AMD is moving to OpenCL and phasing out their proprietary solution. Nvidia is driving CUDA and using OpenCL as another option.



    The power range of 8W to 25W isn't a problem. The 9400M isn't an OpenCL ready solution. Apple would most likely not put in a 512MB peak chip for the Tablet. They only have that for the Macbook Pro. If Apple used it in a Tablet they would control the chipset power range.



    http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...400m_g_us.html



    The specs aren't even comparable. Nvidia is trying to do too much with ethernet, usb and sata on their chipset.



    This is focused on being a dedicated GPGPU solution for the embedded markets.



    It even supports dual DisplayPort 1.1a.



    I could easily see this being thrown in the next AppleTV system.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    futurepastnowfuturepastnow Posts: 1,772member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    It's intended for the embedded market, which is digital signage and casino machines. There must be a reason they don't mention and compare it to integrated graphics solutions for general purpose computers if it was fit for that purpose.



    They haven't had such a great time with Intel maintaining a firm lead over their CPU products across the board and Nvidia's cards beating them quite well as well as working better across a broad range of applications even down to the mobile market.



    The chipset consumes 25W when achieving a 3DMark 06 score of 2669 and has 320 stream processors. The 9600M GT has 32 SPs and gets double that at 23W consumption.



    The chips seem to be designed for different purposes. For low power use in a tablet, Apple would be better off with Nvidia Tegra or just the 9400M. The 9400M is suitable for the MBA and uses 12W tops, plus it ramps down the clock to save power. The AMD chip ramps down too but it uses twice the power of the 9400M when achieving the same performance.



    This isn't an integrated graphics chip. It's a discrete GPU with the video memory and other stuff crammed onto the same package as the GPU. So it's designed to be small, and low power. And yes, by embedded they mean things like high-definition video signs and arcade games and such.



    Also, ATI and Nvidia count "stream processors" differently, so you can't compare them like that. As a very general rule of thumb, multiply the Nvidia number by five to get something close to what ATI counts.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    The 9400M is not designed for OpenCL.



    The 9400M isn't an OpenCL ready solution.



    All CUDA-enabled GPUs from the 8-series and up are OpenCL compatible. Apple would never have used them if that wasn't the case.



    Nvidia have worked closely with Apple to help develop this standard:



    http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_opencl.html

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsGODM9sGoc



    http://news.developer.nvidia.com/200...nd-linux-.html



    "NVIDIA?s OpenCL 1.0 drivers will support all GPU?s based on the CUDA architecture"



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    The specs aren't even comparable. Nvidia is trying to do too much with ethernet, usb and sata on their chipset.



    Surely it's the results that matter at the end of the day. Weighing up performance per watt, GPU temperatures, costs, driver support, Nvidia must have been the better option or every single new Mac would have an ATI chip bundled by default. They don't, they all have an Nvidia chip and the cheapest Mac with an ATI GPU is $2000.



    Given that Apple developed the language and are aware of hardware roadmaps long before the public, their choices speak for themselves. This GPU can't really go into the lowest end products as it uses too much power, it can't go into mid-range products like the MBP because it's not fast enough and Nvidia have a dual chip solution 9400M + 9600M GT and it has no place in models that have the GT120 and Radeon 4850 as options because it's far less powerful.



    For ATV perhaps but I think Ion is a better fit and it's easier for Apple to ensure the quality of the drivers.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    I have to agree with an earlier poster I could totally see this going into a new Apple TV. Especially if the video decode is as good as is suggested. In fact I could see Apple going all AMD in a future Apple TV. I can also see them going with an ARM SoC so what do I know.



    Notable too, the part includes Video RAM as such the power figures are skewed a bit to the high side. This really represents a one chip solution for systems where you don't want to spend a lot of time designing the motherboard. As noted the embedded world. Apple TV is very much an embedded device.



    The other option is to stuff these onto server boards. It would be a one chip solution that gives servers a nice boost in video capability. Of course many do not think servers need good video hardware and they would be right in many cases. But not all 1U boxes are sued in traditional ways, this would better support non traditional use of 1U hardware.





    Dave
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