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AMD FirePro W8100

AMD FirePro W8100: A Professional Tool in the World of Computing

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD FirePro W8100 is a graphics card designed for professionals rather than gamers. Despite being over ten years old since its release, it still finds application in specific tasks. In this article, we will explore what makes the W8100 noteworthy, how it handles modern workloads, and who should pay attention to it in 2025.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The FirePro W8100 is built on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.0 microarchitecture, which debuted in 2012. This first generation of GCN is oriented towards a balance between parallel computing and graphic rendering.

Process Technology: The card is manufactured using 28nm technology, which seems outdated by today’s standards (with the newest GPUs using 5–7nm). However, it was the standard for its time, providing acceptable energy efficiency.

Unique Features:

- Support for ECC memory for error correction in professional tasks.

- Optimization for OpenCL 1.2 and DirectX 11.2.

- AMD PowerTune technology for dynamic power management.

It is worth noting that modern features like ray tracing (RTX) or AI acceleration (DLSS/FidelityFX) are absent here — this is a specialized solution for workstations.

2. Memory: Type, Size, and Performance

Memory Type: GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus.

Size: 8 GB — a solid figure even for 2025, especially for rendering tasks.

Bandwidth: 160 GB/s (effective memory frequency — 5000 MHz).

Impact on Performance:

- In professional applications (e.g., Autodesk Maya), the large memory capacity allows for working with heavy scenes.

- In gaming, the bus width and GDDR5 type become a bottleneck: for example, in Cyberpunk 2077 (2025 Edition) at 1080p, the card delivers about 25–30 FPS on low settings.

3. Gaming Performance

The FirePro W8100 is not a gaming card, but its capabilities should be assessed for a general understanding:

- 1080p:

- CS2 — 60–70 FPS (medium settings).

- Fortnite — 40–45 FPS (low settings).

- 1440p and 4K: Not recommended — FPS drops below 30 even in less demanding projects.

Ray Tracing: Not supported natively. Software emulation (for example, through DirectX Raytracing) reduces performance to unacceptable levels (5–10 FPS).

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing: In Adobe Premiere Pro (2025), rendering 4K videos takes 2–3 times longer than on modern Radeon Pro W7800. However, OpenCL support accelerates some filters.

3D Modeling: In Blender and SolidWorks, the card shows stability thanks to Pro drivers. Rendering a complex scene takes ~30 minutes compared to 10 minutes for the NVIDIA RTX A5000.

Scientific Calculations: OpenCL support makes the W8100 suitable for physical modeling tasks, but its speed is inferior to modern GPUs with CUDA cores (e.g., NVIDIA A100).

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 220 W — a high figure even for professional solutions.

Recommendations:

- A power supply of at least 600 W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

- A case with good ventilation: a minimum of 3 fans (intake + exhaust).

- For workstations, server cases with support for active cooling are preferred.

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon Pro W6600 (2021):

- 7nm process technology, 8 GB GDDR6, support for Ray Accelerators.

- Price: $649 (new models in 2025 — around $500).

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 (2018):

- 8 GB GDDR6 with ray tracing, CUDA cores.

- Price: $900 (in 2025 — $600–700).

Conclusion: The W8100 lags in speed but excels in stability for outdated software. However, its purchase is justified only at a budget of up to $300 (used) or for specific requirements.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: 600 W + headroom (e.g., Corsair CX650M).

Compatibility:

- Requires PCIe 3.0 x16.

- Supports Windows 10/Linux (AMD Pro Edition drivers).

- macOS — limited compatibility (only older versions).

Drivers: Use only certified versions from the AMD website. Gaming drivers like Adrenalin are not suitable!

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Reliability and stability in professional applications.

- Support for ECC memory for accurate calculations.

- Affordable price on the secondary market ($200–300).

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- No support for modern APIs (DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.3).

- Poor gaming performance.

9. Final Conclusion

The AMD FirePro W8100 in 2025 is a choice for:

- Professionals using outdated software that requires stability.

- Laboratories with a limited budget where ECC memory is critical.

- Enthusiasts building retro systems.

Do not buy the W8100 if:

- You need high rendering speeds or support for modern technologies.

- You are a gamer — even budget RX 7600s ($249) will perform better.

This card is an example of a "workhorse" that, despite its age, continues to serve its purpose in niche scenarios.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

June 2014

Model Name

FirePro W8100

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.

160

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 2.0

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.

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.

52.74 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.

131.8 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.

2.109 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.

4.135 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.

2560

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

1024KB

TDP

220W

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

2x 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.

Suggested PSU

550W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

4.135 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

4.287 +3.7%

GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

4.189 +1.3%

FirePro W8100

4.135

Radeon Pro 570

4.039 -2.3%

Quadro P2200

3.898 -5.7%