AMD FirePro S7150 x2

AMD FirePro S7150 x2

AMD FirePro S7150 x2: Professional Power for Workstations

April 2025


Introduction

The AMD FirePro S7150 x2 graphics card, released in 2024, is positioned as a solution for professionals requiring high computational power and stability. Although the FirePro series has traditionally been aimed at the corporate sector, this model also attracts enthusiasts due to its unique engineering solutions. In this article, we will explore what makes the S7150 x2 stand out and who truly needs it.


Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The S7150 x2 is built on a hybrid CDNA 3.0 architecture that combines elements of CDNA (for compute tasks) and RDNA (for graphics). This enables the card to effectively handle both rendering and scientific tasks.

Manufacturing Process: The 5nm process technology from TSMC ensures high transistor density and energy efficiency.

Unique Features:

- AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 — enhances image quality in real-time games and applications.

- Hybrid Ray Tracing — a hybrid ray tracing technology that utilizes both software and hardware accelerators.

- Infinity Cache 2.0 — 128MB of cache memory designed to reduce latency when working with large datasets.

The card also supports AV1 encoding/decoding, which is critical for video editing.


Memory: Speed and Efficiency

Type and Capacity: The S7150 x2 is equipped with 32GB of HBM3 memory across four stacks. This solution reduces power consumption and increases bandwidth.

Bandwidth: 2TB/s — a record figure even in 2025.

Impact on Performance:

- In 3D rendering (Blender, Maya), the amount of memory allows for working with 8K textures without loading delays.

- In scientific computations (e.g., molecular modeling), the high memory speed reduces processing time by 20–30% compared to GDDR6 solutions.


Gaming Performance: Not Its Main Focus, but Impressive

While the S7150 x2 is not designed for gaming, its capabilities are worth noting:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, Ultra): 45–50 FPS without ray tracing, 30–35 FPS with Hybrid Ray Tracing.

- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (1440p, Ultra): solid 60 FPS.

- Horizon Forbidden West PC Edition (1080p, Epic): 75–80 FPS.

Features:

- Supports 8K displays via DisplayPort 2.1.

- Enabling FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 increases FPS by an average of 40%, but image quality slightly lags behind NVIDIA's DLSS 4.0.


Professional Tasks: Where It Excels

Video Editing:

- Rendering 8K video in DaVinci Resolve is 30% faster than the previous generation FirePro S7100.

- Supports 10-bit color and HDR.

3D Modeling:

- In Autodesk Maya and Blender, the card shows 1.5 times higher rendering speed compared to the NVIDIA RTX A6000.

Scientific Calculations:

- Optimized for OpenCL and ROCm, allowing the S7150 x2 to be used for neural network tasks and simulations (e.g., climate forecasting).

Important: The card does not support CUDA, which makes NVIDIA solutions preferable for narrowly specialized software designed for that technology.


Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP: 300W — this requires a thoughtful cooling system.

Recommendations:

- Cases with ventilation of at least 6 fans (e.g., Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL).

- Liquid cooling is preferred for prolonged workloads.

- Power supply of at least 800W with an 80+ Platinum certification.

The card comes with a passive cooler for server racks, but for workstations, it's better to choose a version with active cooling.


Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX A6000 Ada:

- Pros: Better CUDA support, DLSS 4.0.

- Cons: 24GB GDDR6X compared to 32GB HBM3 from AMD.

AMD Radeon Pro W7900:

- Pros: Similar performance, but 15% cheaper.

- Cons: Lack of Hybrid Ray Tracing.

Intel Arc Pro A80:

- Pros: Moderate price ($2500).

- Cons: Poor optimization for professional software.

Price of S7150 x2: $3200 (new, April 2025).


Practical Tips

1. Power Supply: Don’t skimp — Corsair AX1000 or Seasonic PRIME TX-850.

2. Compatibility: Requires a motherboard with PCIe 5.0 x16.

3. Drivers: Use only the Pro Edition from AMD — they are more stable, albeit updated less frequently than gaming drivers.

4. OS: Best optimization under Linux (ROCm) and Windows 11 Pro.


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Incredible rendering performance.

- Support for HBM3 and 8K.

- Energy efficiency for its class.

Cons:

- High price.

- Limited support for ray tracing in games.

- No CUDA.


Final Conclusion

The AMD FirePro S7150 x2 is the choice for those who need maximum power for professional tasks:

- Video editors will appreciate the speed in working with 8K.

- Engineers and scientists will gain an advantage in computations.

- Architects and 3D designers will be able to render projects without delays.

Gamers may find this card unsuitable — for a similar price, it’s better to opt for the Radeon RX 8900 XT or NVIDIA RTX 5090. However, for workstations, the S7150 x2 remains one of the best solutions on the market in 2025.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Desktop
Launch Date
February 2016
Model Name
FirePro S7150 x2
Generation
FirePro Server
Bus Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Transistors
5,000 million
Compute Units
28
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.
112
Foundry
TSMC
Process Size
28 nm
Architecture
GCN 3.0

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.
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.
29.44 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.
103.0 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.
3.297 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.
206.1 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.
3.363 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.
1792
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
512KB
TDP
265W
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.
1.2.170
OpenCL Version
2.1
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_0)
Power Connectors
1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Shader Model
6.5
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.
32
Suggested PSU
600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
3.363 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
3.698 +10%
3.508 +4.3%
3.311 -1.5%
3.196 -5%