AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 Announced As A Small Form Factor $199 USD Workstation Card

[bridgman]

And there are no high-end Polaris cards (no, the Pro Duo does not count).

This part I agree with...

That's the problem. Vega has some degree of Linux support, but not as MUCH as Polaris.
The more Polaris cards come out, the less support Vega gets.

... but I don't understand this part at all.

[skeevy420]

AMD did not produce this card "just for Linux". Look up the prices of professional cards - 80 bucks is really just a small change.

Yeah, but Phoronix is a Linux forum so I'm posting from a Linux perspective first and foremost.

I still think it costs too much for what it is. Let's just agree to disagree on that...because we're turning this into that Ubuntu thread...

[aht0]

I'm not saying they're not important for professionals, but, with Linux, 10-bit it isn't something we can really utilize yet. It'll also have the same scaling issues that 4K has and the 4GBs makes it more useful for lightweight work like text editing, adjusting color levels in photos (especially combined with the 10-bit part), video monitoring, viewing the final product, etc at 8K.

This card obviously has its niche uses or AMD wouldn't have made it, but, IMHO, $199 is just too much for a workstation-grade, low profile RX 560. I just think it should cost around $150 since most 4GB RX 560s are $120 or less outside of some rip-off "gaming" models that cost the same as an RX 570...you gotta be a moron to buy one of those...paying $30 or $40 more for a low profile, workstation version seems fair, $70 or $80 more doesn't.

AMD did not produce this card "just for Linux". Look up the prices of professional cards - 80 bucks is really just a small change.

[skeevy420]

10bit and 8K are pretty important to professionals too Can't really SEE what you are crying about. It costs 199$ not 1999$. Twice the RX it's die is based on but it's to be expected you pay premium for certified workstation cards. For such companies, that cash difference is pretty much pocket change. YOU don't have to pay for it.

I'm not saying they're not important for professionals, but, with Linux, 10-bit it isn't something we can really utilize yet. It'll also have the same scaling issues that 4K has and the 4GBs makes it more useful for lightweight work like text editing, adjusting color levels in photos (especially combined with the 10-bit part), video monitoring, viewing the final product, etc at 8K.

This card obviously has its niche uses or AMD wouldn't have made it, but, IMHO, $199 is just too much for a workstation-grade, low profile RX 560. I just think it should cost around $150 since most 4GB RX 560s are $120 or less outside of some rip-off "gaming" models that cost the same as an RX 570...you gotta be a moron to buy one of those...paying $30 or $40 more for a low profile, workstation version seems fair, $70 or $80 more doesn't.

[aht0]

10 bit color, 8K, and that it's a small form factor. This card is only "Pro" in name and you need a monitor setup that Linux doesn't support (yet) to fully utilize this GPU. IMHO, the SFF is the only real advantage this card actually has.

10bit and 8K are pretty important to professionals too Can't really SEE what you are crying about. It costs 199$ not 1999$. Twice the RX it's die is based on but it's to be expected you pay premium for certified workstation cards. For such companies, that cash difference is pretty much pocket change. YOU don't have to pay for it.

[tildearrow]

What's the problem with that? Polaris is a relatively modern architecture with good performance and excellent Linux support.

That's the problem. Vega has some degree of Linux support, but not as MUCH as Polaris.
The more Polaris cards come out, the less support Vega gets. And there are no high-end Polaris cards (no, the Pro Duo does not count).

[wizard69]

PCIe x8 (x4?) If that's the actual PCIe pins of the card (and not a mock-up), only 4GB ram, no ECC.

Basically, this is something for making a Bloomberg terminal, or if you need ISV-certification. Small form-factor and 50 W power draw are what it has going for it.

I have a hard time seeing this used for CAD, since I think you need way more than 4 GB of vram when dealing with modern CAD software, but perhaps I'm wrong.

It all depends upon how demanding your CAD work is. However it would be nice to build a CAD workstation, in a reasonably sized box. The gigantic desk side workstations of the past are not always needed these days. One can do credible CAD work on a laptop if it is decent and you are not in a hurry. At least in my case the goal is to run Open Source CAD software with reasonable performance. The machine I'd like to build is not likely to happen until the end of the year so maybe something better will exists by then.

By the way 4GB is a huge amount of RAM, think about the early days of AutoCAD and similar programs running on early Windows hardware. If you are doing 2D, PCB work or even solid modelling it is plenty of RAM even for non trivial jobs.

[AndyChow]

PCIe x8 (x4?) If that's the actual PCIe pins of the card (and not a mock-up), only 4GB ram, no ECC.

Basically, this is something for making a Bloomberg terminal, or if you need ISV-certification. Small form-factor and 50 W power draw are what it has going for it.

I have a hard time seeing this used for CAD, since I think you need way more than 4 GB of vram when dealing with modern CAD software, but perhaps I'm wrong.

[torsionbar28]

Great, another darn Polaris card.

What's the problem with that? Polaris is a relatively modern architecture with good performance and excellent Linux support. Had this been a GCN1/2 or even 3 card, I'd be disappointed, but GCN4 is perfect for something like this. The only place GCN4 runs out of steam, is at the high end, which this card is clearly not.

[skeevy420]

No you might not. It's "professional" card, meaning: not for games but for CAD/CAM. Gaming cards lack ECC vRAM and required floating point precision/computational capability for such purposes.
It's all about using proper tool for a particular job. CAD/CAM requires precision from microns to kilometers, gaming cards generally fail at providing such (games never require anything like this) and if not (rare exceptions), lack of error correction means, errors creeping in won't be corrected.
In real world it might manifest in some bridge collapsing or building falling apart due to error in structural calculations.

Yeah, you may learn CAD/CAM using gaming card, just mess around and familiarize yourself with the programs. For serious work, forget it.

But the card in discussion here is somewhere around the power of an RX 560 or RX 550 depending on if one is looking at the desktop or mobile version, does not have ECC ram which negates most of your entire argument, does not compute as fast (the RX 570 is ~2x faster in single precision and ~3x faster in double precision) which negates the rest of your argument, and the only things it beats the 570 in, and what you failed to defend, is number of display ports, 10 bit color, 8K, and that it's a small form factor. This card is only "Pro" in name and you need a monitor setup that Linux doesn't support (yet) to fully utilize this GPU. IMHO, the SFF is the only real advantage this card actually has.

It's nothing more than a low profile RX 560 in a workstation configuration in regards to the display ports. There's nothing wrong with that, but calling it a "Pro" card seems a bit of a stretch when the mid-range model of their mid-range line from two years ago, that's also $20-$50 cheaper, runs circles around it. If this GPU was in the $150-$130 range or had ECC memory like one would assume a "Pro" card would have I wouldn't be anywhere near as critical about it as I am now, but at $200 there really isn't enough bang for the buck with this card unless one desperately needs a small form factor from AMD.

bridgman Have y'all considered creating multiple lines of workstation cards? Like Radeon WS for the lower-end cards, Radeon WX for the mid-range ones, and Radeon Pro WX for the best ones. People like aht0 are just assuming that this card has ECC (so did I until I looked up its specs) simply because it's a Pro WX.

These cards would have been named WS 565 SFF and WS 555 SFF (desktop and mobile) under my naming scheme. Workstation Configuration, 565/555 shows it's slightly better than a 560/550, and SFF lets one know that it's a Small Form Factor...I thought about LP for low profile, but that could be mistaken for low power...