AMD is continuing to release its new line of professional GPUs after the AMD Radeon Pro W7500 and AMD Radeon Pro W7600 cards. Today, we have the new AMD Radeon Pro W7700 that brings 16GB of ECC memory support to the new line. There is, however, one item missing from this GPU release.
AMD Radeon Pro W7700 16GB ECC GPU Launched
AMD has a new sub-$1000 GPu in the AMD Radeon Pro W7700. This is only a 190W GPU which is fairly easy for systems to integrate. AMD focuses on AV1 encode and decode, topping even Apple’s M3 integrated media IP. The company also features its 96 AI accelerators but does not talk about AI performance.
This is AMD’s midrange card. Moving up to the Radeon Pro W7800 is a 2.5x price uplift for about 20% more performance so we would expect the W7700 would be a higher volume part.
AMD’s competitive perspective is really interesting. Its closest competitor is the NVIDIA RTX 4000 SFF 20GB Low Profile Double-Width Workstation GPU but also cites the A4000 and A4500.
Perhaps one of the strongest comparisons is in 3D content creation.
Something to keep in mind is that NVIDIA is pushing its AI capabilities very hard in its professional cards. NVIDIA’s presentations are increasingly about how emerging AI tools perform.
Still, let us take a look at the card.
AMD Radeon Pro W7700 16GB ECC GPU Pictures
Opening the card we can see specs like the 16GB of ECC memory onboard and the PCIe Gen4 interface. This is one of the shocking views where we would have expected to see an AI reference. Given how fast even mainstram tools like Photoshop have been adding AI tools, that is a big topic at the moment.
The card itself is a dual-width full-height card.
Perhaps the one feature we really would have liked to have seen is a backplate. At $999 this should be a standard feature helping to, at minimum, protect the card.
On the rear, we get four full-size Displayport 2.1 ports.
Power is provided by an 8-pin power connector. This is located at the rear of the card, which is standard on professional GPUs. This is easier to route cables to than top-mounted consumer solutions.
Overall, aside from the lack of backplate, this is a really interesting mid-range professional GPU for AMD.
Final Words
There are a few interesting pieces here. For example, this is available in Q4 2023, but it feels like it would be a great product to launch the same day as the new Threadripper WX 7000 series.
The one area that it would have felt more slideware would have been warranted is in the AI realm. AMD had two slides dedicated to the benefits of DisplayPort 2.1 in its briefing deck. This was the AI slide.
We keep bringing it up because if we were buying a GPU today, we would want to know how it works compared to NVIDIA GPUs for all of the new AI tools and features coming out for creative apps. Perhaps the two things we wish we had in this release would be a backplate and a bigger emphasis on AI tools.
Still, having a newer generation professional GPU in the sub $1000 price range with 16GB of ECC memory is a great addition to the AMD lineup.
Expect we will have more on the new cards soon on STH.
