AMD sets ATI Radeon owners on the fast track

Tony Austin
Sunday, 16 November 2008 15:25

Opinion and Analysis

AMD has announced that it plans to release a free ATI Catalyst driver update that instantly unlocks new ATI Stream acceleration capabilities already built into millions of Radeon graphics cards, offloading tasks from the CPU so as to accelerate system performance.

It has been a busy time at AMD recently. On 7^th October 2008 AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi announced their intention to create a new global enterprise, The Foundry Company, aiming to address the growing global demand for independent, leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing.

The Foundry Company intends to proceed with a planned capacity expansion in Dresden, Germany and to begin construction on a new state-of-the-art facility in New York state. Industry analysts see this as a very good move for AMD, as does its technology development partner IBM.

In the new announcement, AMD said that in December plans to release for download a free ATI Catalyst driver update that instantly unlocks new ATI Stream acceleration capabilities already built into millions of ATI Radeon graphics cards.

ATI Stream is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPU), working in concert with the system’s central processor (CPU), to accelerate applications beyond just graphics.

 

“GPUs make applications run better,” said Patricia Harrell, director of AMD’s stream computing group.   By means of parallel processing, this results in better balanced platforms capable of running demanding computing tasks faster than ever.

ATI Stream-enabled software titles for entertainment, gaming and productivity are being released or are under development by a growing list of independent software vendors (ISVs) including ArcSoft and CyberLink.

To give users immediate benefit from ATI Stream, AMD also plans to release in December a free downloadable version of its ATI Avivo Video Converter utility. This application enables transcoding of HD video up to 17 times faster1 than with the CPU alone, in tests performed using an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card.

“ATI Stream is one of the best examples of the power of Fusion, and today’s announcement is the first major step in taking this important new technology mainstream,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “For the millions of people that have already purchased an ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics card, this is one more way we’re saying thank you and helping them get more out of their investment. For those who haven’t yet, it’s one more reason for them to go online right now and buy one.”

Fusion is AMD's branding for its next-generation microprocessor design strategy, following upon its merger in 2006 with graphics processor maker ATI Technologies, aiming for AMD graphics processors to work in concert with CPUs to deliver balanced platforms to enable increased performance, energy-efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

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