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AMD FirePro S9170

AMD FirePro S9170: Professional Power in Detail

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD FirePro S9170 is a specialized graphics card designed for professional tasks. Although the model was released back in 2015, it remains of interest to enthusiasts and organizations that require stability and a large amount of memory. In this article, we will explore what this card is capable of in 2025 and who might find it useful.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The FirePro S9170 is built on the 2nd generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture (codename Hawaii). This solution is focused on parallel computing, which is critical for workstations.

Manufacturing Process: It uses a 28nm manufacturing technology. By 2025, this is considered outdated (modern GPUs use 5-7 nm), which impacts energy efficiency.

Unique Features:

- Support for OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 12 for professional software.

- Absence of gaming technologies like RTX, DLSS, or FidelityFX—the card is not intended for ray tracing or upscaling.

- AMD PowerTune—energy consumption optimization under load.

2. Memory: Volume and Speed

Memory Type: HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) 1st generation—a revolutionary technology for its time with a vertical chip arrangement.

Capacity: 32 GB—an impressive figure even in 2025. This allows for working with heavy 3D models and large datasets.

Bandwidth: 512 GB/s—achieved through a 4096-bit bus. By comparison, modern gaming cards with GDDR6X offer up to 1 TB/s, but in professional tasks, HBM remains relevant due to low latency.

Performance Impact: The large memory capacity allows for rendering scenes in 8K without loading data, which is critical for visualization in architecture and scientific simulations.

3. Gaming Performance: What to Expect?

The FirePro S9170 is not a gaming card, but it can be tested in games.

Examples of FPS (1080p, medium settings):

- Cyberpunk 2077: ~25-30 FPS (without ray tracing).

- Elden Ring: ~35-40 FPS.

- Counter-Strike 2: ~90-100 FPS.

Resolutions:

- 4K—not recommended: FPS drops to 15-20 in most modern titles.

- 1440p—acceptable for less demanding games (40-50 FPS).

Ray Tracing: Not supported natively. Software emulation via DirectX 12 reduces performance by 2-3 times.

4. Professional Tasks: Primary Specialization

3D Modeling:

- In Blender (Cycles engine), rendering a medium-complexity scene takes 20-30% less time than gaming cards like the NVIDIA RTX 3060, thanks to optimization for OpenCL.

Video Editing:

- In DaVinci Resolve, the card handles 8K raw footage, but is outperformed by modern solutions in export speed (for example, the Radeon Pro W7900 is twice as fast).

Scientific Computations:

- Support for OpenCL and FP64 (double precision) makes the S9170 suitable for CFD simulations and molecular modeling.

CUDA vs OpenCL: For tasks requiring CUDA (such as some versions of MATLAB), this card will not be suitable—this is NVIDIA territory.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP: 275W—a high figure even for professional solutions in 2025.

Cooling Recommendations:

- An air intake system is mandatory: a minimum of 2 x 120mm fans in the case.

- For server racks—active cooling or specialized coolers.

Cases: It's best to use a Full-Tower that supports long GPUs (the card occupies 2 slots, length—267 mm).

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon Pro W7900 (2025):

- Price: $3500 (new) vs S9170 (available only used, $400-600).

- Performance: The W7900 surpasses the S9170 by 4-5 times thanks to RDNA 4 and a 5nm process.

NVIDIA RTX A6000 (2025):

- Support for CUDA and RT Cores.

- Price: $4500.

Conclusion: The S9170 falls short against modern counterparts but remains a budget option for tasks where memory capacity is prioritized over speed.

7. Practical Advice

Power Supply: At least 600W with an 80+ Gold certification. Example: Corsair RM650x.

Compatibility:

- Motherboards: Requires PCIe 3.0 x16.

- OS: Official drivers available for Windows 10/11 and Linux.

Drivers: Use AMD Pro Software—they are more stable than gaming Adrenalin drivers.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- 32 GB HBM—ideal for rendering.

- Support for OpenCL and FP64.

- Reliability (designed for 24/7 operation).

Cons:

- No support for modern APIs (DirectX 12 Ultimate).

- High power consumption.

- No new drivers since 2023.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the FirePro S9170 Suitable For?

This card is a choice for those who:

1. Need a large memory capacity for rendering or scientific tasks.

2. Have a limited budget ($500-700 in the used market).

3. Work with older software optimized for GCN.

For gaming, ray tracing, or neural network tasks, it's better to choose modern solutions. But if you're looking for a “workhorse” for specific tasks—the S9170 can still surprise.

Prices are indicative for new devices, if available. As of April 2025, the FirePro S9170 has been discontinued and is available only on the secondary market.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

July 2015

Model Name

FirePro S9170

Generation

FirePro

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

6,200 million

Compute Units

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.

176

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 2.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

32GB

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.

512bit

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.

320.0 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.

59.52 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.

163.7 GTexel/s

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.

2.619 TFLOPS

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.

5.343 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.

2816

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

1024KB

TDP

275W

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 + 1x 8-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.

Suggested PSU

600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

5.343 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon R9 295X2

5.618 +5.1%

Radeon R9 290X

5.519 +3.3%

FirePro S9170

5.343

Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile

5.193 -2.8%

Radeon RX 5300 XT

5.092 -4.7%