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AMD Radeon E9174 MXM

AMD Radeon E9174 MXM: Compact Power for Specialized Solutions

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD Radeon E9174 MXM graphics card is a specialized solution designed for embedded systems, industrial computers, and compact workstations. Released at the end of 2024, it combines energy efficiency with adequate performance for professional tasks. In this article, we will explore who this card is suitable for and what technologies make it unique.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The E9174 MXM is built on a hybrid architecture known as RDNA 2+, optimized for low-profile systems. This is an adapted version of RDNA 2 with improved energy efficiency.

Process Technology: 6 nm (TSMC N6), which allowed for a 15% reduction in heat output compared to the standard 7 nm.

Unique Features:

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR 3.0): Upscaling technology to enhance FPS in games and applications that support AI algorithms.

- Hybrid Ray Tracing: Simplified ray tracing for basic tasks, but without hardware accelerators like those in RDNA 3.

- AV1 Codec: Hardware decoding/encoding AV1 for streaming and editing 4K video.

The card is designed for reliability: supporting 24/7 operation and protection against overheating.

2. Memory

Type and Size: 8 GB GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus.

Bandwidth: 224 GB/s (14 Gbps per module).

Impact on Performance:

- For Gaming: The memory is sufficient for 1080p/Medium-High settings, but limitations may occur at 4K.

- For Professional Tasks: 8 GB is suitable for rendering in Blender or Premiere Pro with medium-complexity projects.

GDDR6 provides a balance between speed and power consumption, which is critical for compact systems.

3. Gaming Performance

The E9174 MXM is not a gaming card but can run less demanding projects:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p/FSR 3.0/Medium): ~35-40 FPS.

- Fortnite (1440p/Epic): ~50-60 FPS with FSR.

- CS2 (1080p/High): ~90-100 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Implemented through software methods — FPS drop of 30-40%, making it impractical to use.

Summary: The card is suitable for kiosks, media centers, or indie games, but not for AAA gaming.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- Rendering 4K H.265 in DaVinci Resolve is about 20% faster than the NVIDIA T1000.

- Smooth playback of multicam projects thanks to AV1/VP9 decoders.

3D Modeling:

- In Blender (Cycles), rendering a medium-level scene takes about 15 minutes (compared to ~12 minutes with the RTX A2000).

- Supports OpenCL and ROCm 5.5, but the lack of CUDA limits compatibility with certain plugins.

Scientific Calculations:

- Tests in MATLAB show speeds comparable to the NVIDIA Quadro P2200.

The card is ideal for digital signage, medical systems, and light video editing.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP: 50 W — powered through the MXM slot, no additional connector is required.

Cooling:

- Passive heatsinks for systems with good ventilation.

- Active coolers for compact cases.

Recommendations:

- Use cases with at least 2 fans for passive cooling.

- Avoid placing it near other heat-generating components.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA Quadro T1000 (8 GB):

- + Better optimization for professional software (CUDA).

- - More expensive ($450 compared to $380 for E9174).

AMD Radeon Pro W6600M:

- + Higher gaming performance (RDNA 2, 28 W).

- - Focused on laptops, harder to find in MXM format.

Intel Arc A580M:

- + Better AV1 support.

- - Less stable drivers.

E9174 wins in price and energy efficiency but falls short in specialized tasks.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: A 300-350 W power supply with 80+ Bronze certification is sufficient.

Compatibility:

- Supports PCIe 4.0 x8.

- Check the motherboard BIOS for updates for MXM modules.

Drivers:

- Use the AMD Enterprise Driver branch for stability.

- For Linux — ROCm 5.5+ with kernel 6.3+.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low power consumption.

- Support for AV1 and FSR 3.0.

- Affordable price ($380).

Cons:

- Weak gaming performance.

- No hardware Ray Tracing.

- Limited compatibility with CUDA software.

9. Final Conclusion

The AMD Radeon E9174 MXM is a niche solution for:

- Corporate Clients: Digital signage, terminals, surveillance systems.

- Engineers: Light 3D rendering and editing in compact PCs.

- Enthusiasts: Building mini-PCs for streaming and indie games.

If you need a reliable, quiet, and economical card without a demand for ultra-performance, the E9174 is an excellent choice. However, for gaming or heavy rendering, consider more powerful models.

Prices are valid as of April 2025. Check with AMD's official partners for availability.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

October 2017

Model Name

Radeon E9174 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

4GB

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.

128bit

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.

96.00 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

512KB

TDP

50W

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 RX 540X Mobile

1.265 +3.4%

GeForce GTX 560 Ti OEM

1.238 +1.2%

Radeon E9174 MXM

1.223

Radeon R7 250X

1.192 -2.5%

GeForce GTX 850A

1.174 -4%