Used daily by millions of professionals and students alike, AutoCAD software is a cornerstone of professional design and drafting workflows. Now Autodesk has certified AutoCAD for the Radeon™ PRO V520 GPUs currently only available in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) G4ad instances. Organizations can enhance their operations with the flexibility, convenience, and cost benefits of a fully cloud-enabled AutoCAD environment while delivering a workstation-class experience to any worker anywhere.
Amazon EC2 G4ad instances enable cloud-based support for graphic-intensive workloads. Companies can lessen their reliance on pricey and often under-utilized high-end workstations by offloading graphic-intensive workloads to the cloud. Employees can access EC2 G4ad instances using comparatively lower-cost, commodity-grade PCs, laptops, tablets, and netbooks. This approach makes it simple to support workers regardless of where they work—in the office, at home, or on the road—by delivering a highly productive, collaborative, and familiar work environment.
You can view the Autodesk AutoCAD certification under AutoCAD 2022 and Windows 10 in the certified graphics hardware website. The certification is referenced as Radeon Pro V520 MxGPU (AWS G4ad).
Why certification matters
AMD put the AMD Radeon PRO V520 GPUs used by Amazon EC2 G4ad instances through a sophisticated, meticulous testing suite which is provided and results reviewed by Autodesk. The evaluation required the cloud solution to meet the same rigorous standards as its desktop workstation counterparts. Every essential application feature was stress-tested to ensure that it ran correctly on the hardware. Certification helps assure that AutoCAD users will receive the same level of support within the application as they are used to with a physical workstation. This includes cases where the application is streaming to devices like tablets that would themselves not qualify for certification.
The G4ad instances are powered by 2nd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs and AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs built on the latest 7nm Zen 2 and AMD RDNA™ architectures to deliver high-performance, workstation-class experiences in the cloud.
The AMD Radeon™ Pro V520 graphics card provides next-generation efficient, high-performance graphics acceleration. The AMD Radeon™ Pro V520 graphics features fast data transfer between the GPU memory and the VM storage. AMD 2nd Gen EPYC processors deliver outstanding compute efficiency, designed to tackle complex, next-generation workstation applications. These choices make it possible for G4ad instances to support even the most demanding applications in the cloud while balancing cost and no-compromise performance.
A Visually Stunning Work Environment
Organizations can provision up to four AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs per G4ad instance. That level of GPU support makes it possible to drive dual 4K displays at 60Hz from the cloud, providing an immersive, ultra-high-resolution design experience. Alternately, that power can be used to provide a user with a massive desktop, for example, spanning one 4k monitor plus three additional 1080p monitors. The AMD Radeon Pro V520 graphics card supports the latest programming interfaces for graphics and compute tasks, including DirectX 11 and 12, OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.1 and OpenCL 2.0.
Rock-Solid Security from the Cloud
For commercially sensitive projects, working in the cloud centralizes data security. All project files are stored in the cloud and accessed through the virtual machine. A worker’s end-point only receives pixel information, like watching a streaming movie on a smart TV. This gives organizations reliable control over access to confidential data. In-house designers and external freelancers can be granted access to the same virtual machine for effortless collaboration.
At the same time, security capabilities for the organization and individual users is enhanced by the AMD Radeon™ Pro V520 GPU. For example, the V520 uses SR-IOV-based GPU virtualization (single root I/O virtualization) to help protect user data from other users in the shared cloud environment.
Optimized for Reliability from the Cloud
The AMD Radeon™ Pro V520 GPU’s ECC memory support, when enabled, helps with critical data by automatically detecting and correcting most memory errors, reducing data corruption in case of application failure. Amazon EC2 G4ad instances support professional operating systems, including Microsoft Windows® Server 2016, 2019, Ubuntu® 18.04, Linux® CentOS 7.7, and Amazon Linux® 2. Supported remoting protocols for Amazon EC2 G4ad instances include Teradici CAS, Amazon’s NICE DCV and Unity’s Parsec.
AutoCAD certification arrives at an opportune time for many organizations. With more employees than ever working from home, G4ad provides an elegant solution that helps ensure they achieve maximum productivity through an excellent working experience. The tools they need are at their fingertips, no matter where they are or what device is handy. Moving to the cloud with G4ad helps organizations manage expenses, giving them the option to reduce CAPEX and IT expenses by choosing predictable subscriptions that meet their evolving computing needs.
More resources:
- AWS Game Tech
- New Amazon EC2 G4ad instance sizes
- Incredibuild
- Unreal Swarm
- Perforce Helix Core
- Amazon Press Release
- AMD Press Release
- Amazon EC2 G4ad product information
- AMD.com/g4ad
- AMD Radeon Pro V520 Graphics
- AMD and AWS
George Watkins is a Product Marketing Manager for AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. Third party marks are for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.