Home / ATI / ATI FirePro V8800: Performance and Specs

ATI FirePro V8800

ATI FirePro V8800 in 2025: Nostalgia or a Relevant Tool?

Introduction

The ATI FirePro V8800 graphics card, released in 2010, became a legend among professional GPUs of its time. Despite its venerable age, it still generates interest among enthusiasts and professionals working with legacy systems. In this article, we will explore whether its use is justified in 2025 and who may find it useful.

1. Architecture and Key Features

TeraScale 2 Architecture

The FirePro V8800 is built on TeraScale 2 architecture (codename "Cypress"), manufactured using a 40nm process. It boasts 1600 stream processors and 32 texture units. The card supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, which seem outdated compared to modern standards (DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 2.0).

Lack of Modern Technologies

It does not support ray tracing (RTX), AI algorithms (DLSS, FSR), or FidelityFX. Its advantage lies in stability for professional applications optimized for older drivers.

2. Memory: Modest, But Sufficient for Its Tasks

GDDR5 and 256-bit Bus

The memory capacity is 2GB GDDR5 with a bandwidth of 147GB/s (256-bit bus). This is insufficient for modern gaming and 3D rendering: even a simple scene in Blender consumes 4–6GB. However, for working with 2D graphics or older software (e.g., AutoCAD 2010), the resources are adequate.

Limitations

The wide bus compensates for the low memory frequency (1150 MHz), but in multitasking scenarios, the buffer quickly overflows.

3. Gaming Performance: Not for Gamers

Outdated Metrics

In games from the 2020s, the FirePro V8800 shows less than 15 FPS even on low settings (1080p). For example:

- Cyberpunk 2077: 8–10 FPS;

- Elden Ring: 10–12 FPS.

Compatibility

The card can run projects up to 2015 at medium settings: The Witcher 3 — 25–30 FPS (720p), GTA V — 35–40 FPS (1080p). 4K support is absent.

4. Professional Tasks: Narrow Specialization

3D Modeling and Rendering

In Autodesk Maya or SolidWorks, the V8800 can handle simple tasks, but rendering complex scenes will take hours. In comparison, a modern Radeon Pro W6800 performs similar calculations 10–15 times faster.

Calculations on OpenCL

Support for OpenCL 1.2 allows using the card for scientific calculations (e.g., physical modeling), but its FP32 performance (2.1 TFLOPs) is lower than even integrated graphics from Ryzen 8000 (3.5 TFLOPs).

Video Editing

Editing in DaVinci Resolve is possible only at resolutions up to 1080p and with minimal effects. Exporting a 10-minute video will take 30–40 minutes.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Output

TDP 225W

The card's power consumption is comparable to modern gaming models (e.g., RTX 4060, TDP 115W), but its efficiency is extremely low. A power supply of at least 500W with an 8-pin connector is required.

Cooling

The turbine cooling system is noisy (up to 45 dB under load). A case with good ventilation is recommended (at least 3 fans).

6. Comparison with Competitors

2010s Alternatives

- NVIDIA Quadro 5000 (2010): 2.5GB GDDR5, 352 CUDA cores. Lags in OpenCL tasks.

- AMD FirePro W9100 (2014): 16GB GDDR5, 2816 cores. More promising for professional use.

Modern Solutions

- NVIDIA RTX A2000 (2021): 12GB GDDR6, supports RTX. Price: $600–700.

- AMD Radeon Pro W6600 (2021): 8GB GDDR6, 1792 cores. Price: $649.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply and Compatibility

- Minimum PSU: 500W (80+ Bronze).

- Compatible only with motherboards supporting PCIe 2.0 x16.

Drivers

The latest drivers were released in 2019. For Windows 10/11, use compatibility mode.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Reliability and durability.

- Support for legacy software.

- Low price on the secondary market ($50–80).

Cons:

- No support for modern APIs.

- High power consumption.

- Limited memory capacity.

9. Conclusion: Who is the FirePro V8800 For?

This graphics card is suitable for:

1. Retro PC enthusiasts collecting systems from 2010-2015.

2. Professionals working with outdated professional software (e.g., in educational institutions).

3. IT archivists recovering projects on old hardware.

In 2025, the FirePro V8800 is a museum exhibit rather than a working tool. For serious tasks, it's better to opt for modern counterparts, such as the Radeon Pro W7800 or NVIDIA RTX A4000, which offer 20–30 times greater performance with half the power consumption.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

April 2010

Model Name

FirePro V8800

Generation

FirePro

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

2,154 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

40 nm

Architecture

TeraScale 2

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

1150MHz

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.

147.2 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.

66.00 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.

528.0 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.

2.693 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.

1600

L1 Cache

8 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

208W

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.

N/A

OpenCL Version

1.2

OpenGL

4.4

DirectX

11.2 (11_0)

Power Connectors

2x 6-pin

Shader Model

5.0

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

2.693 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon R9 M390X

2.902 +7.8%

Radeon HD 7950 Monica BIOS 1

2.785 +3.4%

FirePro V8800

2.693

Iris Xe MAX Graphics

2.585 -4%

GeForce GTX 870M

2.547 -5.4%