Editor's Pick: Engineering GPU with World-First Specs 

Dear DE Reader, 

Some non-negotiables exist in the world of engineering hardware. One is a fit-for-purpose GPU (graphics processing unit)—engineers can’t rely on consumer-class graphics performance. Fortunately we have a competitive GPU ecosystem driving progress, allowing us to expect consistent, regular performance gains on visual acuity, rendering speed and power consumption. Our Editor’s Pick of the Week is a new GPU raising the bar for performance per clock unit and performance per watt, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700. 

The Radeon Pro W5700 is the first professional PC workstation graphics card designed for 3D designers and engineers using 7nm technology. To put it simply, more density in the core processor means more work per clock cycle and less energy consumed. A 7nm chip has been an industry goal for a while, and AMD sought to be first out of the gate. 

Another industry first for the Radeon Pro W5700 is the combination of GDDR6 memory and PCIe 4.0 bandwidth. Together, these make it possible to work fast with larger datasets. If you already create photorealistic product renderings or virtual reality environments for design review, this GPU will do it faster.

AMD says the combination of 7nm process technology and its RDNA architecture provides up to 18% better system efficiency than competitive models.  

One more industry first for the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 is the addition of a USB-C connector, to support the growing selection of USB-C based monitors and head-mounted displays (HMD).

There’s more to love about the new AMD Radeon Pro W5700, from its redesigned geometry engine to its multitasking software bundle and wide range of industry certifications. Be sure to check out our Product Brief for the complete story. 

Thanks for reading, we’ll be back next week with another Editor’s Pick of the Week. 

—The DE Editors