Today AMD unveiled a new family of power-efficient graphics processors, Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics, available first in the all-new 15-inch MacBook Pro. Harnessing AMD's Polaris architecture, Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics are built on 14nm FinFET process technology, resulting in incredibly small transistors. To enable the thinnest graphics processor possible, AMD also employs a complex process known as 'die thinning' to reduce the thickness of each wafer of silicon used in the processor from 780 microns to just 380 microns, or slightly less than the thickness of four pieces of paper. Operating in a power envelope under 35W, the Radeon Pro 450, 455, and 460 Series graphics processors deliver energy efficiency and cool, quiet operation.

The Radeon Pro 400 series graphics allows the new MacBook Pro is capable to execute up to 1.8 trillion calculations per second. AMD has managed to deliver up to 80% more performance over the prior generation of its graphics processors.In addition, the professional mobile graphics processor sips energy by running inside a 35W power envelope.

Here is what AMD has relvealed so far about the specs of the new GPUS:

• Radeon Pro 460:
  • 1.86 TFLOPS Peak Performance (up to)
  • 16 (1024) Compute Units (Stream Processors)
  • 80 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
• Radeon Pro 455:
  • 1.3 TFLOPS Peak Performance (up to)
  • 12 (768) Compute Units (Stream Processors)
  • 80 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
• Radeon Pro 450:
• 1 TFLOPS Peak Performance (up to)
• 10 (640) Compute Units (Stream Processors)
• 80 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

AMD is also launching a new program called "Meet the Creators," bringing creators together and inviting them to share their work. Creators will have the opportunity to collaborate across a variety of fields, learn about new tools and techniques for their respective crafts, and have a chance to be featured in Radeon Pro promotional campaigns.

The "Meet the Creators" program will also explore how Radeon Pro graphics play a role in the creative process. A part of that workflow is Radeon ProRender, AMD's physically-based rendering engine planned for open source later this year, and supported via plugins across many popular 3D content creation applications including Autodesk Maya, and a beta plugin for Rhino. AMD and Maxon announced today that Radeon ProRender software will be available in a future release of Maxon's Cinema 4D application for 3D modeling, animation and rendering, providing GPU-accelerated performance on Mac by leveraging Radeon Pro graphics and Apple's Metal API.

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver

AMD also today introduced the first of many Radeon Pro Software releases.

The Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4 is designed to address the specific needs of enterprise users and also will support the upcoming release of AMD’s next-generation of professional graphics, the Radeon Pro WX series.

AMD says that updates will be released on the 4th Thursday of each quarter, starting today, with future releases planned on January 26th, April 27th, July 27th, and October 26th, 2017.

When it comes to stability improvements, the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4 has been tested to help ensure reliability.

Radeon Pro Software is certified in over 100 workstation applications covering software professionals use, including Autodesk AutoCAD, Dassault CATIA, Siemens NX, Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, Autodesk Maya and many more.

For performance, you will see faster performance in PTC Creo, Siemens NX, and Dassault CATIA when you compare the 16.Q4 Enterprise Driver with last year’s AMD FirePro 14.502.1019 Driver.

Along with its performance and stability improvements, the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4 also includes production-level features and capabilities.

Support for AMD’s virtual reality LiquidVR technology exploits the capabilities of AMD graphics, and enables professional VR workflows on Radeon VR Ready Creator graphics cards. Radeon Pro Software is certified for workstation VR application use, such VR Design, Engineering Animation, and Modeling.

With DirectX 12 and Vulkan support, the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4 may be used for the coming real-time game engine professional workflow revolution. Game engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity are being used by professionals for real-time previz storyboarding, CAD visualization and Building Information Modeling (BIM).

There is also WHQL support for Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Windows 10 Device Guard, that enables users to lock down applications that are trusted on the device, helping increase protection from malware.