AMD updates remote graphics for VDI with FirePro R5000 adapter

FirePro R5000 provides acceleration to drive up to four remote screens for professional users

AMD has unveiled a new GPU product designed to deliver high-performance graphics in remote display applications, such as virtual desktop environments or financial trading, where the workstation is often located remotely.

Set to ship in March, the FirePro R5000 is a PCI Express 3.0 graphics adapter designed to slot into either a workstation or a server hosting virtual workstation instances, and serve up the display to a remote user as well as accelerating the graphics.

The FirePro combines AMD's "Pitcairn" Graphics Core Next GPU technology with 2GB of memory and a Teradici PC-over-IP (PCoIP) chip. The PCoIP chip compresses and encrypts the display output for transmission across an IP connection to a remote endpoint in the hands of the user.

This could be a PC or tablet using a software client to display the output, or a dedicated terminal such as Wyse Technology's P25 and P45 "zero client" devices.

PCoIP is also the display protocol supported by VMware's View, which was given an overhaul last week as part of VMware's Horizon Suite.

Compared with AMD's previous generation, the FirePro RG220 and RG220A, the new FirePro R5000 has much more powerful graphics and a newer Teradici chip, the Tera 2240, which can squeeze more video bandwidth across the IP network connection.

The upshot is that the FirePro R5000 can drive up to four displays on the remote endpoint, each supporting a resolution of up to 1920x1200 pixels, or alternatively support just two remote screens at up to 2560x1600.

It also has two DisplayPort outputs, which can provide a local clone of any of the remote displays, to help IT staff to diagnose and troubleshoot any problems.

"This is definitely geared towards supporting users who require a lot of displays," said Mohamed Jivraj, product manager for AMD Graphics.

"It really is a solution for enabling a full workstation experience all over IP. So it's not just about graphics, it's also about audio and multimedia," he added.

AMD updates remote graphics for VDI with FirePro R5000 adapter

FirePro R5000 provides acceleration to drive up to four remote screens for professional users

Graphics performance is said to be comparable to AMD's FirePro W5000 mid-range workstation graphics card, making the R5000 suitable for entry-level CAD and engineering, as well as financial trade floors.

AMD was keen to compare the FirePro R5000 favourably against some Matrox professional graphics cards such as the Extio F2208 and F2408, which use a point-to-point KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) extension technology to provide a remote display.

However, it kept quiet about comparing it against technology from rival Nvidia, which launched its VGX platform for accelerating graphics in the cloud last year.

AMD's FirePro is restricted to a one-to-one relationship, meaning it is tied to accelerating the graphics output from a single physical or virtual workstation, while Nvidia's platform enables the GPU resources to be sliced up so it can accelerate the graphics for multiple virtual machines.

However, AMD said that up to eight R5000 cards can be fitted into a single host system, theoretically allowing for a single user to have up to 32 remote displays. A separate endpoint device would be still required to handle the output from each individual R5000 card.

"With Windows, all the adapter cards in single workstation can be structured so their output is one large desktop," Jivraj said.

Pricing for the new FirePro R5000 will be disclosed when the device ships, AMD said