AMD is looking to get in the game — anyone’s game. The company just debuted the Radeon Sky Series, a new line of graphics cards designed to support cloud-based gaming.
However, these cards aren’t for consumers and they don’t just support a few simple streams. It’s designed to support a lot of streams. The AMD Radeon Sky Series can actually support six HD (720p) game streams at once, at 30 frames per second. It’s important to note that the cards can also handle 1080p game streams.
That basically means that a wide range of servers systems and service providers can stretch existing infrastructures and resources for more game streams, as well as demanding AAA titles.
The line includes a total of three cards. The AMD Radeon Sky 900 has 4GB of GDDR5 memory, a 384-bit memory interface, and a memory bandwidth of 480GB per second. The 700 has those same specs, but knocks the bandwidth down to 264GB per second. Last in the line is the Radeon Sky 500, which has 4GB of GDDR5 memory, a 256-bit interface, and bandwidth of 154GB per second.
AMD is also packaging these cards with the company’s RapidFire technology, which AMD calls the “secret sauce.” That little perk combines hardware and software to deliver easy integration and help shorten development time, all while providing access to key elements of AMD technology for the cloud. Other features include the Video Compression Engine (VCE), low latency, and more.
