Nvidia’s new 3D Vision Pro, one of the many new 3D technologies on show

The show floor opened Tuesday in Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH 2010, the 37th edition of the conference and exposition that sets the stage for where computer graphics technology is going to take us. And although a few splashy demos were on display, there was little in the way of concrete product introductions to set hearts racing for CAD/CAM/CAE professionals.

Siggraph is the place where we first hear about exciting developments that make their way into the CAD/CAM world: 3D graphics; solid modelling; real-time rendering and ray tracing; textures, shadows and image mapping; and graphics processing units (GPUs) as stand-ins or maybe even superior alternatives to central processing units (CPUs).

Over the years, the Siggraph exposition has migrated from a general computer graphics event that included CAD/CAM and workstation vendors to one geared to the entertainment business. It’s an atmosphere of hope and sometimes desperation, a bit like a sports camp: A few of the prospective technologies on display are potential breakthroughs, but many will never quite find a lucrative application.

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Nvidia’s new Quadro 5000 features 2.5GB GDDR5 memory

It’s been a long time coming, but today at Siggraph 2010 Nvidia unveiled its brand new family of Quadro professional graphics cards based on its Fermi architecture. There are currently three new cards in the range: the high-end Quadro 4000 (2GB GDDR5 memory) and Quadro 5000 (2.5GB GDDR5 memory) and the ultra high-end Quadro 6000 (6GB GDDR5 memory). These will replace the Quadro FX 3800, Quadro FX 4800 and Quadro FX 5800, Nvidia’s previous generation cards.

As is traditional for new Quadro launches, Nvidia starts at the high-end and works down so if you were wondering where the entry-level and mid-range cards are expect these to be announced later this year.

In terms of availability, Nvidia said that the Quadro 4000 and Quadro 5000 will ship in the August timeframe, whereas the Quadro 6000 will be not be out until September / October because of its high capacity memory modules not yet being available.

For those interested in the all important bottom line, the new Fermi Quadro cards don’t come cheap, with the Quadro 4000, 5000 and 6000 having an estimated RRP of £779, £1,709 and £3,579 respectively. In the case of the Quadro 4000 and 5000 this is largely down to both cards also having dedicated High Performance Computing (HPC) features in addition to their core use as a graphics card.

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For the last 24 hours I’ve been sat in a dark room playing with AMD’s brand new professional graphics card, the ATI FirePro V8800. Oh what an exciting life I lead!

The fact is it’s an exceptional 3D card and one that literally ripped through our SolidWorks 2010 graphics benchmark – making incredibly light work of manipulating our RealView model. It’s also got some interesting new technology called Eyefinity that supports multiple monitors and if, like me, you’re frustrated by ALT/TABBING your way through apps, could certainly do wonders for your productivity.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to test this feature out but hope to soon – contrary to popular belief we don’t have dozens of spare monitors lying around the DEVELOP3D office.

Over the next few months AMD is set to introduce other FirePro cards based on the same core technology and we’ll test these out as soon as we can get our hands on them. In addition, if the rumours are correct, some new Quadro FX cards from Nvidia are also due out soon, so we’ll hopefully add these into the mix for some sort of graphics card showdown.

If your workstation currently clunks away when rotating 3D models, and if you’ve got some spare cash, the next few months would be an excellent time to invest in some new 3D technology. And with the recent introduction of Intel’s new Xeon X5600 series six core processors, there’s a phenomenal amount of processing power to back it up if you can stretch to an all in one workstation.

For a full review of the ATI FirePro V8800, click here.

For years AMD (and before it ATI) has been happy to exist only in the mainstream professional graphics market, but now the company has taken the fight to Nvidia at the ultra high-end with the unveiling of three new technologies today. A new ultra high-end graphics card, professional support for its Crossfire multi-card technology and a new framelock solution for powerwalls were all announced, just in advance of SIGGRAPH.

First off AMD has unveiled a new 2GB graphics card, the FirePro V8750 ($1,800). Bigger (bandwidth), better (performance) and faster (memory) is the general marketing message, but the most significant benefits are only likely to be experienced in certain high-end applications running on high resolution displays. AMD quotes Siemens PLM NX and Autodesk 3ds Max as key examples.

As with previous ATI FirePro cards, the V8750 features native multi-card support so users can drive four displays by adding a second card in the same workstation. However, the big news for this release is this multi-card capability has been extended so all the processing power can be diverted to a single modeling window. The technology that makes this possible is called ATI CrossFire Pro and while similar ‘Crossfire’ technology has been available on AMD’s consumer boards for a while, this is the first time it has been made available in the professional sector. Of course, Nvidia was first to market some years ago with this type of multi-card technology and as with its Quadro SLI offering, ATI CrossFire Pro is unlikely to bring significant benefits to the majority of CAD applications, particularly for those where the CPU is the bottleneck. However, AMD claims a significant performance boost in certain CAD and DCC applications including NX, Ensight, Maya and Teamcenter.

ATI CrossFire Pro works by coupling two graphics cards together using an interconnect cable. Currently only available on the ATI FirePro V8750, support is planned for the company’s mid-range and above graphics cards including the ATI FirePro V5700, V7750, and V8700. When this happens it will be interesting to see how two mid-range V5700s stack up against a high-end V8750, for example, particularly as the V5700s will be the more cost effective solution.

While speed increases are a given for any new professional graphics technology, it’s the addition of the new ATI FirePro S400 Synchronisation Module ($799) that really takes AMD into uncharted territory. This turns the high-end ATI FirePro V8750 graphics card into a niche solution capable of driving powerwalls from multiple projectors.

Up to four graphics cards can be used in tandem to produce a single seamless ‘virtual canvas’ on which high resolution digital mockup and design review applications can be displayed. With this solution each card has it own workstation and projector with individual images stitched together using framelock, a technology which synchronises the display output of the graphics cards. This capability was originally brought to market by 3Dlabs through its Wildcat cards and more recently with Nvidia’s high end Quadro FX cards. However, according to AMD other synchronisation modules only support two graphics cards at a time.

It will certainly be very interesting to see what Nvidia has up it sleeves ready for announcement at SIGGRAPH, which is being held in New Orleans from the 3-7th August.

The next issue of DEVELOP3D is out for your enjoyment and we’ve got a wicked issue in store for you this month. Our cover story is about Marin Bikes and how they use Autodesk Inventor to develop their range of cycles. One thing struck us about this story, along with many others we run every month, is the passion behind the products, and the shear bloody enthusiasm people have for their job. As Jason Faircloth, Marin’s product manager and bike designer commented, “Working at Marin turns a hobby into an income producing job.”

Alongside the story, we’ve worked with the folks at Autodesk to give away a pretty sweet little deal. In return for some information and your thoughts on simulation and analysis, we’ll enter you into a competition to win the product on the cover – a pretty sweet Point Reyes Commuter bikes (worth a grand). If you haven’t registered for the magazine or PDF, visit here to reg up and enter. If you’ve already registered, then visit here and all you need do is enter the email address you registered with and enter the competition.*

Elsewhere we take a look at how Senz used SpaceClaim to help design a breakthrough product is a pretty static marketplace. How Hornby designs its Scalectrix cars based on real world data. Of course, no DEVELOP3D would be bunch of reviews for you. We take a look at what’s new in Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2.0, Inventor 2010, the new SpacePilot Pro, a bunch of new Graphics hardware from AMD and Nvidia.

I’m also delighted to announce the latest contributor to join the Team, Joe Moak from formlovesfunction.com who’s discussing assembly constraints design and how early decisions can influence manfacturability. Joe will be writing us his thoughts on a bi-monthly basis or more depending on how busy he is designing awesome stuff.

* Those inevitable Terms and conditions: This competition closes on 31st July 2009 and is only open to those over the age of 18. Entry into the competition and acceptance of the prize constitutes permission to use their name inside the magazine. The winners will be selected at random by X3DMedia Ltd. No purchase necessary. Only winners will be contacted personally.

HP’s AMD-based workstation, the xw9400, is to support six cores per CPU

#5: With all the hype surrounding HP’s new Xeon 5500-based Z Series workstations, I asked HP what this meant for its AMD-based workstations, specifically the xw9400. The response was that the xw9400 will still be able to differentiate itself from HP’s Intel-based machines as it will be able to support six cores per CPU later this this year.

This could be very interesting for those pushing the boundaries of CAE on the desktop, because despite the new Intel platform featuring a total of 16 cores by counting the 8 created with HyperThreading, most CAE applications can’t take advantge of this virtual core technology. As a result, the xw9400’s 12 cores will still be the maximum available from a mainstream workstation manufacturer.