AMD FirePro S7150

AMD FirePro S7150

AMD FirePro S7150: A Professional Tool in the World of GPUs

April 2025


Introduction

The AMD FirePro S7150 is a professional graphics card released in 2016, targeting the corporate sector. Despite nearly a decade on the market, it remains of interest for specific tasks. In this article, we will analyze its relevance in 2025, who it is suitable for, and how it compares to modern solutions.


Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: Based on the 3rd generation Graphics Core Next (GCN).

Process Technology: 28 nm — an outdated standard for 2025, but sufficient for stable operation in server environments.

Unique Features:

- Support for ECC Memory for error correction in critical tasks.

- SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization) technology — allows sharing GPU resources among multiple users, useful in virtualized environments.

- OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 12 support for professional software.

Differences from Gaming GPUs: Lack of DLSS equivalents or ray tracing — these technologies emerged later and are characteristic of consumer lines (e.g., Radeon RX).


Memory

Type and Size: 8 GB GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus.

Bandwidth: 160 GB/s — a modest figure by 2025 standards (modern cards use HBM3 or GDDR7 with 800+ GB/s).

Impact on Performance:

- For rendering and 3D modeling, 8 GB is sufficient for working with medium-sized models.

- In scientific calculations, ECC memory reduces the risk of errors but has slower data processing speed than newer GPUs.


Gaming Performance

Non-Target Use: The FirePro S7150 is designed for workstations, but enthusiasts are testing it in games. Examples of FPS (at medium settings, 1080p):

- Cyberpunk 2077 (2023): ~25-30 FPS.

- Apex Legends: ~40-45 FPS.

- CS2: ~60 FPS.

4K and Ray Tracing: The card struggles with 4K (under 15 FPS) and does not support hardware ray tracing. It is outdated for gaming in 2025.


Professional Tasks

3D Modeling and Rendering:

- Optimized for Autodesk Maya and SolidWorks.

- In Blender (Cycles) tests, scene rendering takes 30% longer than the Radeon Pro W6600 (2023).

Video Editing:

- Supports Adobe Premiere Pro via OpenCL. Exporting a 10-minute 4K video takes about 15 minutes (compared to around 4 minutes for the RTX 4060).

Scientific Calculations:

- Compatible with OpenCL and ROCm. Suitable for CFD simulations and beginner-level machine learning, but inferior to modern GPUs with tensor cores.


Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 150 W — a moderate figure.

Cooling: Turbine with an active cooler. A case with good ventilation is recommended (2-3 intake fans).

Server Application: Often used in blade systems with forced cooling.


Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (2016):

- 8 GB GDDR5, 1664 CUDA cores.

- Better performance in rendering CUDA-optimized software (e.g., V-Ray).

Modern Analogues (2025):

- NVIDIA RTX A4000 (2021): 16 GB GDDR6, supports DLSS and RTX — 2-3 times faster in professional tasks.

- AMD Radeon Pro W7600 (2024): RDNA 3, 32 GB HBM3 — ideal for 8K editing.

Conclusion: The FirePro S7150 lags behind modern GPUs but is cheaper on the secondary market ($150-300 compared to $2000+ for new models).


Practical Tips

Power Supply: Minimum 450 W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

Compatibility:

- PCIe 3.0 x16 (compatible with PCIe 4.0/5.0, but with no speed increase).

- Requires AMD FirePro drivers (latest version — 2023).

Drivers: Stability is more important than novelty — use tested versions for your software.


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Reliability and long lifespan.

- Support for ECC memory and virtualization.

- Low cost on the secondary market.

Cons:

- Outdated architecture.

- Lack of modern technologies (ray tracing, AI acceleration).

- Limited performance in 4K and heavy tasks.


Final Conclusion

Who It Is Suitable For:

- IT Companies upgrading their workstation fleet on a limited budget.

- Laboratories where ECC memory is critical but high speed is not required.

- Enthusiasts building budget servers for virtualization.

Why in 2025? Despite its age, the S7150 remains a "workhorse" for undemanding professional tasks. However, for modern projects involving 8K rendering or AI, newer Radeon Pro or NVIDIA RTX A-series GPUs are better choices.


If you are looking for a reliable solution "here and now" for a symbolic price, the FirePro S7150 deserves consideration. However, the future belongs to GPUs with AI support and photorealistic rendering.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Desktop
Launch Date
February 2016
Model Name
FirePro S7150
Generation
FirePro
Bus Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Transistors
5,000 million
Compute Units
32
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
128
Foundry
TSMC
Process Size
28 nm
Architecture
GCN 3.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
8GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
256bit
Memory Clock
1250MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
160.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
29.44 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
117.8 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
7.537 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
235.5 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
3.693 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
2048
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
512KB
TDP
150W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.2
OpenCL Version
2.0
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_0)
Power Connectors
1x 6-pin
Shader Model
6.3
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
32
Suggested PSU
450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
3.693 TFLOPS
Vulkan
Score
33575
OpenCL
Score
29623

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
4.014 +8.7%
3.856 +4.4%
3.482 -5.7%
3.356 -9.1%
Vulkan
98446 +193.2%
69708 +107.6%
40716 +21.3%
5522 -83.6%
OpenCL
69550 +134.8%
48679 +64.3%
14494 -51.1%