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AMD FirePro W9100

AMD FirePro W9100: A Professional Classic in the Age of New Technologies

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD FirePro W9100 is a legend among professional graphics cards, released in 2014. Despite its age, it is still found in workstations and laboratories. By 2025, its relevance has waned, but for certain tasks, it remains an interesting solution. Let's explore who might still find this card useful today.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The FirePro W9100 is built on the GCN 2.0 (Graphics Core Next) microarchitecture using a 28 nm process. This generation of AMD focused on parallel computing, which is critical for professional tasks.

Unique Features:

- Support for OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 12 (Feature Level 12_0).

- Technologies such as AMD PowerTune (dynamic power management) and Eyefinity (multi-display support).

Important Note: The FirePro W9100 does not support modern gaming technologies like RTX, DLSS, or FidelityFX. It is a purely professional GPU, aimed at computation and rendering.

2. Memory

Type and Size: The card is equipped with 16 GB GDDR5 on a 512-bit bus. By 2025, this is an outdated standard; modern equivalents (like the Radeon Pro W7800) utilize GDDR6 or HBM2 for double the efficiency.

Bandwidth: 320 GB/s. In comparison, the NVIDIA RTX A5000 (2023) offers 768 GB/s due to GDDR6X.

Impact on Performance: A large memory capacity is beneficial for rendering complex 3D models and handling large datasets, but its slow memory speed limits performance in contemporary high-demand applications.

3. Gaming Performance

The FirePro W9100 was not designed for gaming, but it can be tested on older titles:

- The Witcher 3 (1080p, Ultra): ~30-35 FPS.

- GTA V (1440p, High): ~40 FPS.

- CS:GO (4K, Low): ~60-70 FPS.

Conclusions:

- In 2025, the card is unsuitable for modern games at resolutions above 1440p.

- The lack of support for ray tracing and upscaling technologies (DLSS, FSR) renders it obsolete for new titles.

4. Professional Tasks

3D Modeling and Rendering:

- In Autodesk Maya and Blender (using OpenCL), the W9100 shows acceptable rendering speeds but falls behind even budget modern cards like the NVIDIA RTX 4060.

Video Editing:

- In DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro, the card handles 4K video editing using proxy files but experiences lag when working with effects.

Scientific Calculations:

- Supports OpenCL, allowing its use in projects involving parallel computations (e.g., simulating physical processes). However, modern GPUs based on RDNA 3 or Ada Lovelace architectures (NVIDIA) outperform it by 3-5 times.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

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

Recommendations:

- Power Supply: At least 600 W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

- Cooling: The card requires good airflow in the case. The optimal option is workstations supporting GPUs up to 28 cm in length and 2-3 expansion slots.

- Thermal Paste: Replacing the thermal interface every 2-3 years (important for used models).

6. Comparison with Competitors

Historical Analogues (2014-2016):

- NVIDIA Quadro K6000: Comparable in price at the time, but with 12 GB GDDR5. It lags in memory capacity but excels in CUDA optimization.

Modern Analogues (2025):

- AMD Radeon Pro W7500 (2024): 8 GB GDDR6, TDP 130 W, performance 2-3 times higher.

- NVIDIA RTX A2000 (2021): 12 GB GDDR6, RTX support, priced from $600.

Conclusion: The W9100 is relevant only as a budget solution for specific tasks where memory capacity is critical and speed is secondary.

7. Practical Advice

Power Supply: Minimum 600 W, with two 8-pin connectors.

Compatibility:

- Platforms: Works better on older systems (Intel X99, AMD TR4). Issues may arise on modern motherboards with UEFI.

- Drivers: Official AMD support ended in 2021. Modified drivers will be needed for Windows 11/Linux.

Nuances: The card does not support HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 — maximum resolution via DisplayPort 1.2: 4K @ 60 Hz.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- 16 GB memory for handling large data.

- Reliability (with proper cooling).

- Low price on the second-hand market ($80-150).

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- No support for modern APIs and technologies.

- Limited compatibility with new software.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the FirePro W9100 Suitable For?

This card is suitable for:

1. Enthusiasts building retro systems or studying the history of GPUs.

2. Laboratories on a limited budget that need large VRAM for simple calculations.

3. Organizations upgrading old workstations without transitioning to modern standards.

Alternative: If you require similar performance with support for new technologies, consider the AMD Radeon Pro W6600 ($600) or NVIDIA RTX A2000 ($700).

Afterword

The FirePro W9100 is a prime example of a "workhorse" that has served its time but can still provide value in niche scenarios. In 2025, it should only be considered as a temporary solution or a tool for educational purposes. For serious tasks, it is better to invest in modern GPUs.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

March 2014

Model Name

FirePro W9100

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

16GB

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.

5.133 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

5.133 TFLOPS

OpenCL

Score

43046

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Quadro P3200 Mobile

5.419 +5.6%

Quadro P4000

5.198 +1.3%

FirePro W9100

5.133

Radeon RX 480 Mobile

5.062 -1.4%

GRID M60 1Q

4.922 -4.1%

OpenCL

GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER

90580 +110.4%

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

65973 +53.3%

FirePro W9100

43046

GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK

25249 -41.3%

Radeon R9 M380

12848 -70.2%