Vancouver Film School selects HP Z Workstations with AMD FirePro professional graphics
Monday, August 11, 2014 at 11:44AM 
HP today announced that Vancouver Film School (VFS), Canada's premier post-secondary entertainment arts institution has installed 775 HP Z420 Workstations with AMD FirePro W7000 professional graphics.
The workstations are being used by students in the animation, film, game design, programming, digital design and foundation programs. A winner of four consecutive School of the Year Awards (2010–3) at the CG Student Awards, VFS uses approximately 300 HP Z420 Workstations throughout classrooms in its Animation & Visual Effects department alone.
"VFS students need reliable technological means to create. The computers they use are just that: dependable, fast and current to the standards of a very demanding CG environment," said Vanessa Jacobsen, interim head, Animation and Visual Effects, Vancouver Film School. "It is imperative that our students have the confidence to create using a wide variety of software on a workstation that can handle it. In fact, our students’ success relies on using the same tools that professionals at the top of their game are using."
Students in the program begin their year by developing a comprehensive understanding of the artistic and technical pillars that will make a well-rounded, hirable artist.
“As the leading workstation provider for most of the major film and animation studios, HP understands the unique demands of the industry and those training to bring us the next indie great or big-screen blockbuster film,” said Jeff Wood, vice president, Worldwide Product Management, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. “The HP Z420 Workstation is our most popular workstation, providing VFS with powerful performance at reasonable price.”
The HP Z420 includes up to eight processing cores using the latest Intel® Xeon® processor E5-1600 v2 and E5-2600 v2 product families, providing up to 64 GB of ECC memory and up to 12 TB of high-speed storage. The enhanced HP Z420 Workstation provides new levels of performance and expandability in an accessible tool-free mini-tower form factor—and at a great price. The HP Z family of products is engineered to meet the needs of the world’s most demanding customers, where mission-critical operations require the best performance and reliability.
“At AMD, we focus on supporting the digital content creation industry as well as industry-leading educational facilities, such as the Vancouver Film School, with outstanding graphics performance for a wide variety of leading software applications,” said David Cummings, senior director and general manager, Professional Graphics, AMD. “Together with HP Workstations, our AMD FirePro graphics are enabling the Vancouver Film School students with the tools to power their creativity in real time.”
With AMD Eyefinity Technology, GeometryBoost and DisplayPort 1.2, AMD FirePro W7000 professional graphics help bring the digital world to life. The AMD FirePro W7000 provides an immersive multitasking experience across up to four displays.
Reader Comments (1)
Haha, the only reason that VFS chose Firepro is that AMD gave them around 300 cards for free. VFS was originally so disappointed with the W7000 quality that they began to RMA and cancel their orders and move back to Quadro, but AMD made them an offer they couldn't refuse... $500k in free cards.