The mid-range workstation graphics card, the AMD Radeon PRO W6600, just recently introduced along with the Radeon PRO W6800, is now available.
The new GPU unveiled in June is available from leading retailers with a SEP of 649 USD.
Radeon PRO W6600
The Radeon PRO W6600 is engineered for ultra-high performance workflows and is built using the AMD RDNA 2 architecture. RDNA 2 boasts real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology designed to rival and exceed NVIDIA’s RTX technology.
The new AMD Radeon PRO W6600 is a mid-range workstation card ideal for CAD and 3D workflows, featuring 8GB of GDDR6 memory and hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology, plus PCIe 4.0 for the most accelerated data transfer.
“AMD RDNA 2 was designed from the ground up to deliver world-class performance for a wide range of applications and workloads,” said 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. The AMD Radeon PRO W6000 series gives professionals a powerful new tool in their arsenal to accelerate projects and bring creative visions to life.”
Key features of the Radeon PRO W6600 include:
- Award-winning AMD RDNA 2 Architecture — Built on the advanced 7nm manufacturing process, AMD RDNA 2 architecture introduces an array of advanced features elevating professional graphics to new levels of performance and efficiency.
- Enhanced Compute Units with real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing — Enhanced Compute Units (CU) with Ray Accelerators offer up to 46 percent faster rendering than Radeon PRO graphics cards based on previous-generation architectures in SOLIDWORKS Visualize 20212. Support for Variable Rate Shading (VRS) delivers real-time photorealistic viewports and rendering.
- AMD Infinity Cache — Up to 128MB of last-level data cache integrated on the GPU die is designed to reduce latency and power consumption, enabling the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 to deliver the highest RDNA workstation GPU performance to date.
- Smart Access Memory — Unlocks higher performance for key professional workloads by giving AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series Desktop Processors or select AMD Ryzen 3000 series Desktop Processors access to the entire high-speed GDDR6 graphics memory.
- AMD Radeon PRO Viewport Boost — Designed for today’s professional workloads and compatible software to help viewport frames-per-second performance increase with project file sizes.
- Certification for leading professional applications — AMD continues to work with leading professional software application vendors to help ensure AMD Radeon PRO graphics cards are built for demanding 24/7 environments and tested to meet exceptional standards, delivering the stability and reliability required by workstation professionals. The list of certified applications can be found here.
AMD says that in terms of a generational improvement, AMD RDNA 2 architecture is about 179 percent faster than the AMD RNDA architecture. This significantly closed the gap between AMD and its chief rival NVIDIA in terms of performance. To learn more about both new AMD Radeon PRO W6000 series GPUs read our earlier report here.
Availability
The Radeon PRO W6600 is expected to be available soon on AMD.com in North America and began shipping this past Wednesday from B&H and Exxact in North America, Elmtec in the United Kingdom, and Tarox, Wortmann, and Schneider-Digital in Germany.
Architosh Analysis and Commentary
The mid-range version of AMD’s new Radeon PRO W6000 series card is an exciting entry into the market for the price. This 7nm card boasts over 11 billion transistors and has over 28 Ray Accelerators (the term used to describe the hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology inherent in AMD RDNA 2 architecture. With 10.4 TF (32-bit) compute performance the card is both “VR-ready” and capable of powering real-time ray tracing workflows becoming much more common in both AEC and MCAD industries.
Real-time ray tracing is storming the field of renderers in AEC and other visualization markets. In architecture, interactive real-time renders like Enscape, Twinmotion, Lumion, and others are democratizing the rendering process for a larger swath of architects. Such tools are penetrating BIM design workflows enabling designers and architects near-immediate feedback on design iterations. This particular mid-range GPU is priced in the sweet spot for a large range of AEC professionals who work with mixed workflows between CAD, BIM, and visualization. These kinds of pros need maximum single-core CPU speeds for their CAD and BIM workflows but are increasingly needing faster ray tracing capability.