Advanced Micro Devices on Monday announced a FirePro graphics processor for businesses that can deliver Windows desktop sessions to remote client PCs through support for Microsoft’s desktop virtualization technology.

A single FirePro V9800P GPU will be able to deliver up to 22 Windows 7 virtual-desktop sessions per graphics card, said Mitch Furman, senior product manager at AMD. The virtual desktop sessions can be delivered to a range of remote clients, including PCs and diskless thin clients, through Microsoft’s proprietary RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) transport protocol.

The remote desktops are delivered by harnessing the parallel computing power of graphics processors, Furman said. GPUs are considered to be faster than CPUs at specific scientific and math calculations, and AMD is trying to add more commercial applications so graphics processors find wider use in data centers. Graphics processors are used in some of the world’s fastest supercomputers for specific calculations.

The V9800P is targeted at customers looking for workstation replacements through virtualization, or at companies like engineering firms looking to create clusters for execution of scientific or math tasks. The GPU supports Microsoft’s RemoteFX, a virtual desktop technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2011, to deliver a graphics-based desktop environment to client PCs.

• READ MORE (Source): AMD Pushes Microsoft Virtual Desktops Through New GPU | PCWorld