AMD Introduces FirePro A300 & A320 APUs: Trinity for Graphics Workstations

Anandtech ^ | 8/7/2012 1:28:00 AM | Anand Lal Shimpi

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

At its Financial Analyst Day earlier this year, AMD laid out its vision for the future of the company. For the most part the strategy sounded a lot like what AMD was supposed to be doing all along, now with a strong commitment behind it. One major theme of the new AMD was agility. As a company much smaller than Intel, AMD should be able to move a lot quicker as a result. Unfortunately, in many cases that simply wasn't the case. The new executive team at AMD pledged to restore and leverage that lost agility, partially by releasing products targeted to specific geographic markets and verticals where they could be very competitive. Rather than just fight the big battle with Intel across a broad market, the new AMD will focus on areas where Intel either isn't present or is at a disadvantage and use its agility to quickly launch products to compete there.

One of the first examples of AMD's quick acting is in today's announcement of a new FirePro series of APUs. On the desktop and in mobile we have Trinity based APUs. The FirePro APUs are aimed at workstations that need professional quality graphics drivers but are fine with entry level GPU performance.

At a high level the FirePro APU makes sense. Just as processor graphics may eventually be good enough for many consumers, the same can be said about workstation users. Perhaps today is a bit too early for that crossover, but you have to start somewhere.

Going up against Intel in a market that does value graphics performance meets the agile AMD requirement, although it remains to be seen how much of a burden slower scalar x86 performance is in these workstation applications.

AMD's motivation behind doing a FirePro APU is simple: workstation/enterprise products can be sold at a premium compared to similarly sized desktop/notebook parts. Take the same Trinity die, pair it with FirePro drivers you've already built for the big discrete GPUs, and you can sell the combination for a little more money with very little additional investment. Anything AMD can do at this point to increase revenue derived from existing designs is a much needed effort. 

There are two FirePro APUs being announced today, the A300 and A320:

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

****************************This is an EXCERPT*****************************

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Much larger chip package...see the Youtube:

AMD FirePro A300 Series APU for entry-level workstations

And we have this :

SAPPHIRE PGS releases FirePro A300 workstation

**************************EXCERPT************************************

SAPPHIRE PGS (Professional Graphics Solution) has announced their FirePro Professional Platform combining the new AMD FirePro A300 APU with a SAPPHIRE PGS A3 M-series motherboard.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Special ping.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

tHE OFFICIAL amd WEBSITE:

AMD FirePro™ A300 Series Accelerated Processor

[MasterGunner01]

Silly question: Why does AMD name computer stuff [A300 and A320 APUs] after Airbus Industrie airplanes? An APU, as far as I'm concerned, is an Auxiliary Power Unit that provides electric power on the ground when the engines are shutdown.

[krb]

Thanks, Ernest. I asked on the AMD forum about getting an APU with GCN, and here’s what they told me:

http://devgurus.amd.com/message/1283571#1283571

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well in the old Main Frame world....Computer rooms with raised floors and super air conditioning....Auxiliary power unites were outside...where the air blows free.

But there were some computers that had additional processing units on the motherboard....all of that goes back before Air Bus was born!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well, with that answer we know it is not here yet.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Just to muddy the water a bit:

The future of AMD’s Fusion APUs: Kaveri will fully share memory between CPU and GPU

[MasterGunner01]

An Eckert and Mauchly UNIVAC? That is pretty stone age [1950].