Editor's Pick: GPU Redesign Lowers Power Consumption, Speeds Rendering 

AMD makes available its W6000 line of advanced workstation GPUs for engineering, design and related professional applications. The line features RDNA 2 Architecture, which the company says is the key to these new GPUs being their fastest ever, while lowering power consumption and reducing latency. 

AMD says the three GPUs introduced to date are designed to power demanding engineering workloads and create ultra-high-resolution renderings. The three units are the Radeon PRO W6800, AMD's fastest-ever RDNA-based workstation GPU; the Radeon PRO W6600 GPU for mainstream CAD and similar applications; and Radeon PRO W6600M, designed for mobile workstations. 

“AMD RDNA 2 was designed from the ground up to deliver world-class performance for a wide range of applications and workloads,” says Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit at AMD. “Bringing this breakthrough architecture to our workstation graphics lineup allows users to tackle much larger datasets, dramatically reduce render times and speed processing of highly complex models and simulations.”

AMD says its RDNA 2 Architecture features Enhanced Compute Units with Ray Accelerators (for hardware raytracing), and runs 46% faster rendering than the previous generation of Radeon PRO GPUs. This technology update also introduces Infinity Cache, which provides up to 128MB of last-level data cache integrated onto the GPU die to reduce latency and power consumption, increasing bandwidth and reducing common system bottlenecks.

The W6000 line also features Smart Access Memory (SAM), which the company says unlocks higher performance for key professional workloads when used in combination with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 and select Ryzen 3000 series CPUs. 

Viewport Boost is a new feature that increases frames-per-second results in viewports for various applications; the company says this is especially helpful when working with large project files. 

AMD says it works closely with all the leading vendors of professional graphics applications, and is certified for use on a wide variety of CAD/CAM/CAE applications; a list of these applications is available here. 

These new AMD Radeon PRO GPUs are now available for direct purchase or as included with workstations from various vendors. 

More details on the AMD Radeon PRO GPUs can be found here. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.