Intel was the one who won the award for being the first company to launch an IDC (Installable Client Driver) OpenCL 2.0, ahead of the two major graphics cards company’s, AMD and NVIDIA. However, AMD’s answer was not long in coming, and they have already launched their own ICD OpenCL 2.0, integrated in Catalyst drivers 14.4.1 RC1.
The previous version of Catalyst (14.4) was compatible with OpenCL 1.2, so this version 14.4.1 RC1 is quite important because it is the first AMD to have support for the new OpenCL 2.0 API. Of course, this is only compatible Graphics Core Next architecture graphics cards, i.e., from the Radeon HD 7000 generation, those following it, and the Windows 8.1 operating system.
AMD’s new ICD OpenCL 2.0 supports all major features of this API, such as shared virtual memory (which provides a unified address space for applications and can now access both the memory of the graphics card and the system in a unified and homogeneous manner).
These new drivers are available for download on AMD’s website. Remember that you need an AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series or later, and Windows 8.1 operating system to run them.
