AMD Releases CAD-Focused, FirePro W4300 Workstation Graphics Card
Just in time for the kickoff of Autodesk University in Las Vegas, AMD has lifted the veil on a new FirePro workstation card catered to the CAD market. Called the FirePro W4300, this card is effectively a replacement for the W5100 released last year, and starts at a lower price point ($379 vs. $549). It's also the first current FirePro to introduce a new naming scheme (X3XX), so this could be a hint to things that further lineup updates are soon in store.
Like the FirePro W5100, the W4300 is based on AMD's Bonaire GPU core. It packs 768 cores under its hood, and with its 930MHz clock speed, it can peak at 1.4 TFLOPs single-precision. There's 4GB of GDDR5 onboard, with effective throughput of 96GB/s. AMD also notes that this card supports FreeSync technology, which can greatly reduce screen tearing in 3D applications.
The W4300 has its sights set on NVIDIA's Quadro K1200, a GPU that came out earlier this year, and one that AMD says it can easily beat. In fact, the W4300 could prove faster than even the Quadro K2200 in some select scenarios as well.
In case it's not obvious enough in the above image, the FirePro W4300 is a low-profile card, allowing users to take advantage of a great-performing CAD card in a modestly-sized PC. If you need to repurpose the card for use in a bigger system, AMD will be including a second, regular-sized bracket in the box. Further, because this is a card that draws no more than 50W, it doesn't require a power connector.
As mentioned above, the SRP of this card is $379, although it's highly likely that market values will be much lower, even around the $300 mark. As for when the card will hit the market, it should be very soon, but AMD provided no hard date.
