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AMD FirePro W7170M

AMD FirePro W7170M: Professional Power for Workstations

April 2025

In the world of professional graphics cards, the AMD FirePro W7170M has long been a benchmark for reliability and performance. Despite the emergence of more modern solutions, this model remains relevant for specialized tasks. Let's explore what sets it apart and who it is suitable for in 2025.

Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The FirePro W7170M is built on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 3.0 microarchitecture, providing high parallel computing capabilities. The manufacturing process is 28 nm, which is considered outdated by 2025 standards, but optimized drivers compensate for this in professional tasks.

Unique Features:

- Support for AMD FirePro S400 — synchronization of multiple GPUs for workstations.

- Mantle API and OpenCL 2.0 technologies for accelerated rendering.

- Lack of modern gaming features such as FidelityFX or hardware ray tracing — the card is designed for stability rather than gaming.

Memory: Type, Size, and Performance

Memory Type: GDDR5 (not GDDR6 or HBM).

Size: 8 GB — sufficient for working with heavy 3D models and rendering at resolutions up to 4K.

Bandwidth: 160 GB/s (256-bit bus).

Impact on Performance:

- High bandwidth minimizes latency when processing textures in CAD applications (AutoCAD, SolidWorks).

- For gaming, GDDR5 becomes a bottleneck — the speed difference compared to GDDR6X competitors is noticeable.

Gaming Performance

The FirePro W7170M is not marketed as a gaming card, but its capabilities can be assessed:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, medium settings): ~35 FPS.

- Red Dead Redemption 2 (1440p, low settings): ~28 FPS.

- CS2 (1080p, high settings): ~90 FPS.

Resolution Support:

- 4K: rendering is possible, but not suitable for gaming due to low FPS.

- 1080p/1440p: acceptable for less demanding projects.

Ray Tracing: Not supported — this requires cards with RDNA 2/3 or NVIDIA RTX.

Professional Tasks

3D Modeling:

- In Autodesk Maya and Blender, rendering moderately complex scenes takes 15-20% less time than with gaming cards like the Radeon RX 6600.

Video Editing:

- Speeding up H.264/H.265 encoding in Adobe Premiere Pro — rendering a 10-minute 4K video: ~7-8 minutes.

Scientific Computation:

- OpenCL support allows the use of the GPU for physical modeling (COMSOL) and data analysis. CUDA is not available — this is a drawback compared to NVIDIA Quadro.

Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP: 150 W — requires quality cooling.

Recommendations:

- A case with at least 3 fans and good airflow in the front panel.

- Liquid cooling (LC) setups are preferred for workstations with multiple GPUs.

Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (2016 equivalent):

- Similar TDP (150 W) and memory size (8 GB GDDR5).

- Quadro excels in CUDA tasks but falls short in OpenCL.

AMD Radeon Pro W6600 (2021):

- More modern RDNA 2 architecture (6 nm) with ray tracing support.

- Price: $649 compared to $600 for the new W7170M in 2025 (official AMD partners).

Practical Tips

Power Supply: At least 500 W (80+ Gold recommended).

Compatibility:

- Requires PCIe 3.0 x16.

- Support for macOS/Linux — drivers are stable, but updates ceased in 2023.

Drivers:

- Use Pro Edition versions — they are optimized for professional software.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros:

- Reliability and long lifespan.

- Energy efficiency for its class.

- Good support for OpenCL.

Cons:

- No ray tracing or DLSS equivalents.

- Outdated manufacturing process.

Conclusion

The AMD FirePro W7170M in 2025 is suitable for:

- Engineers and designers who need stability in CAD applications.

- Budget studios for video editing without overspending on newer Quadro cards.

- Educational institutions for training on professional hardware.

Do not choose this card if you need:

- 4K gaming at maximum settings.

- Modern features like AI rendering.

Its price in new shipments is $550-600, making it a cost-effective solution for specific tasks. Despite its age, the W7170M remains a "workhorse" where proven reliability is crucial.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

October 2015

Model Name

FirePro W7170M

Generation

FirePro Mobile

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

5,000 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.

128

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 3.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

4GB

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.

23.14 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.

92.54 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.

2.961 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.

185.1 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.

3.02 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

100W

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

None

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.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

3.02 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon HD 7950 Boost

3.249 +7.6%

GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile

3.102 +2.7%

FirePro W7170M

3.02

Radeon R9 M395X

2.902 -3.9%

Radeon HD 6870 1600SP Edition

2.774 -8.1%