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AMD FirePro W4000

AMD FirePro W4000 in 2025: Is it Worth Considering an Obsolete Professional Graphics Card?

Introduction

The AMD FirePro W4000 is a professional graphics card released in 2012. Despite its age, it is still found on the second-hand market and in some corporate systems. As of 2025, its relevance raises questions, yet it may still be interesting for certain scenarios. In this article, we will examine its features, performance, and the feasibility of purchasing it in a landscape dominated by modern architectures.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The FirePro W4000 is built on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.0 architecture — the first version of AMD’s revolutionary architecture. The manufacturing process is 28 nm, which is significantly inferior to modern 5–7 nm chips.

Unique Features:

- Support for OpenCL 1.2 and DirectX 11 — these standards were relevant for their time, but their capabilities are limited in 2025.

- Lack of Modern Technologies: There is no hardware ray tracing (RTX), upscaling (DLSS, FSR), or enhanced rendering (FidelityFX).

Professional Focus:

The card is optimized for workstations — stability, rendering accuracy, and compatibility with professional software (AutoCAD, SolidWorks).

2. Memory: An Obsolete but Functional Approach

- Type and Size: 2 GB GDDR5 — critically low for modern tasks. For example, rendering complex 3D scenes requires a minimum of 8–12 GB.

- Bandwidth: 96 GB/s (128-bit bus) — 5–7 times lower than modern cards with GDDR6X or HBM2e.

- Performance Impact: The limited size and speed of the memory make the card unsuitable for working with 4K textures or large datasets in scientific calculations.

3. Gaming Performance: A Nostalgia for the Past

The FirePro W4000 was not designed for gaming, but in the 2010s, it handled projects at the level of Battlefield 3 or Skyrim. In 2025, its capabilities look like this:

- 1080p (Low/Medium):

- CS2 — 40–50 FPS (no anti-aliasing).

- GTA V — 25–35 FPS.

- Modern AAA titles (Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield) — less than 15 FPS even on the lowest settings.

- 1440p and 4K: These resolutions are not recommended due to insufficient memory and low computational power.

Ray Tracing: Not supported.

4. Professional Tasks: Only for Basic Use

- 3D Modeling: Compatible with AutoCAD 2015 and similar software, but rendering complex models takes hours.

- Video Editing: Editing 1080p footage in DaVinci Resolve is possible, but effects and color correction cause lag.

- Scientific Calculations: OpenCL support allows the card to be used for simple simulations, but performance is 10–20 times lower than modern Radeon Pro or NVIDIA RTX A-series cards.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

- TDP: 75 W — powered through the PCIe slot, without additional connectors.

- Cooling: Passive or single-slot cooler. Even under load, temperatures rarely exceed 75°C.

- Case Recommendations: Ideal for compact and silent systems (e.g., office PCs).

6. Comparison with Competitors

- NVIDIA Quadro K2000 (2013): Similar specifications (2 GB GDDR5, 128 bit), but with poorer optimization for OpenCL.

- Modern Alternatives (2025):

- AMD Radeon Pro W6400 (6 nm, 4 GB GDDR6) — 3–4 times faster, price $229.

- NVIDIA RTX A2000 (12 GB GDDR6, RTX support) — optimal for professionals, $450.

7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: A 300–400 W unit is sufficient (e.g., be quiet! System Power 10 400W).

- Compatibility:

- Supports PCIe 3.0 x16, but works on PCIe 4.0/5.0 (with speed limitations).

- Drivers: Official updates ceased in 2020. The best OS is Windows 10 LTSB.

- Caveats: Check compatibility with your software — many modern applications require OpenCL 2.0+ or Vulkan.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low power consumption.

- Compactness and noiseless operation.

- Reliability (designed for 24/7 operation).

Cons:

- Outdated architecture.

- Insufficient memory and bandwidth.

- Lack of support for modern APIs and technologies.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the FirePro W4000 Suitable For?

This card is a relic of the past, but in 2025 it can still be useful for:

- Office PCs: Video playback, document work.

- In legacy systems: Upgrading old workstations without replacing the power supply and case.

- Retro computing enthusiasts: Building a PC from the 2010s era.

Price: New units are not sold, but on the second-hand market, they cost $20–40.

Alternative: If the budget allows, opt for the Radeon Pro W6400 or NVIDIA RTX A2000 — they will provide current performance and technology support.

Conclusion

The AMD FirePro W4000 is an example of a "workhorse" of its time, but in 2025, its time has passed. It is only suitable for niche tasks where minimal cost and compatibility with old hardware are important. For all other scenarios, invest in modern solutions — they will pay off with significant savings in time and effort.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2012

Model Name

FirePro W4000

Generation

FirePro

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

2,800 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.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 1.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

2GB

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

800MHz

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.

102.4 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.

26.40 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.

39.60 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.

79.20 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.

1.242 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.

768

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

75W

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

1.2

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_1)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

5.1

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

250W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.242 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

UHD Graphics 64EU Mobile

1.306 +5.2%

Radeon E9173 PCIe

1.273 +2.5%

FirePro W4000

1.242

Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition

1.224 -1.4%

GeForce GTX 590

1.219 -1.9%