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AMD Radeon E9172 MXM

AMD Radeon E9172 MXM: A Compact GPU for Niche Tasks

April 2025

Introduction

In the world of graphics accelerators, the AMD Radeon E9172 MXM occupies a special niche. Released back in 2017, this graphics card remains in demand for specific scenarios due to its compactness and energy efficiency. This article will explore who might benefit from this GPU in 2025 and what tasks it can perform.

Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The E9172 MXM is based on the Polaris architecture (4th generation GCN). Despite its age, this architecture provides stable performance for basic graphical tasks.

Process Technology: 14 nm — outdated by 2025 standards, but sufficient for low power consumption.

Unique Features:

- Support for AMD FreeSync for smooth visuals in games.

- Compatibility with FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR 1.0), allowing for increased FPS in games through upscaling.

- Lack of hardware-accelerated ray tracing (RT Cores) and equivalents to DLSS.

Conclusion: The Polaris architecture is focused on reliability rather than groundbreaking performance.

Memory: Modest, but Adequate

- Type: GDDR5.

- Size: 4 GB.

- Bus: 128-bit.

- Bandwidth: 96 GB/s.

For games in 2025, 4 GB of video memory is critically low (for example, Cyberpunk 2077 requires at least 6 GB for 1080p). However, it is sufficient for office applications, streaming video, or older games.

Gaming Performance: A Nostalgic Throwback

The E9172 MXM is a choice for less demanding gamers:

- CS2 (1080p, low settings): ~60–70 FPS.

- Dota 2 (1080p, medium): ~80–90 FPS.

- The Witcher 3 (1080p, low): ~40–45 FPS.

- Modern AAA titles (2024–2025): 1080p with FSR 1.0 and minimum settings yields about 25–30 FPS.

Resolutions:

- 1080p: Optimal for most tasks.

- 1440p and 4K: Not recommended due to lack of memory and computing power.

Ray Tracing: Not supported.

Professional Tasks: Limited Capabilities

- Video Editing: Suitable for working in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro with videos up to 1080p. Rendering complex projects will take a lot of time.

- 3D Modeling: Handles simple scenes in Blender or AutoCAD, but for heavy tasks, a professional card (e.g., NVIDIA RTX A2000) is required.

- Scientific Calculations: Supports OpenCL 2.0, but computation speeds are significantly lower than those of modern GPUs.

Power Consumption and Thermal Output

- TDP: 50 W.

- Cooling: Passive or compact heatsink with a fan.

- Recommendations:

- Ideal for mini-PCs and industrial systems with limited airflow.

- Gaming builds do not require a powerful PSU — 300 W is sufficient.

Comparison with Competitors

In 2025, the E9172 MXM competes with older and budget models:

- NVIDIA Quadro P620: 2 GB GDDR5, similar performance, but better optimization for professional software.

- AMD Radeon RX 6400: Newer (6 nm, RDNA 2), 4 GB GDDR6, supports FSR 3.0 — 30–50% faster in games.

- Intel Arc A310: Budget option with ray tracing support and XeSS, but demanding of drivers.

Prices: New E9172 MXMs are hard to find, but in 2025, remaining stocks are priced at $150–200. For comparison: RX 6400 — $180–220, Arc A310 — $170–200.

Practical Tips

1. Power Supply: 300–400 W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

2. Compatibility: Only systems with MXM 3.1 Type A/B slots.

3. Drivers: Use the latest versions from AMD's site (support was discontinued in 2023, but current packages remain functional).

4. OS: Best stability — Windows 10; for Linux, check compatibility with Mesa.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low power consumption.

- Compact form factor.

- Quiet operation.

Cons:

- Weak performance in modern games.

- Only 4 GB of memory.

- No ray tracing support.

Final Conclusion: Who Is E9172 MXM Suitable For?

This graphics card is suitable for:

1. Office PCs and Media Centers: Streaming video, document work.

2. Industrial Systems: Embedded solutions with low TDP.

3. Nostalgic Gamers: Fans of indie games or projects from the 2010s.

If you need a GPU for modern games or professional tasks, consider the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT or NVIDIA RTX 3050. However, for niche scenarios, the E9172 MXM remains a reliable and economical option.

Conclusion

The AMD Radeon E9172 MXM is an example of a "workhorse" that, despite its age, finds application in 2025. Its strength lies in specialization rather than versatility.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

October 2017

Model Name

Radeon E9172 MXM

Generation

Embedded

Base Clock

1124MHz

Boost Clock

1219MHz

Bus Interface

MXM-A (3.0)

Transistors

2,200 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.

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 4.0

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.

64bit

Memory Clock

1500MHz

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.

48.00 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.

19.50 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.

39.01 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.

1248 GFLOPS

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.

78.02 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.

1.223 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.

512

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

35W

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

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_0)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.4

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

1.223 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon 630 Mobile

1.265 +3.4%

GeForce GTX 560 Ti

1.238 +1.2%

Radeon E9172 MXM

1.223

Radeon R7 M380

1.194 -2.4%

Radeon Graphics 384SP

1.175 -3.9%