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ATI FirePro V5800 DVI

ATI FirePro V5800 DVI: An Obsolete Tool for Specific Tasks

April 2025

Introduction

The ATI FirePro V5800 DVI is a professional graphics card released by AMD in 2010. Despite its venerable age, it is still found in older workstations and niche projects. In this article, we will explore what this card is capable of in 2025, who might still benefit from it, and why it is no longer relevant for most tasks.

Architecture and Key Features

TeraScale 2 Architecture

The FirePro V5800 is built on the TeraScale 2 architecture, which once provided high performance in professional applications. The manufacturing process is 40 nm, which by today's standards (5–3 nm for flagship models in 2025) seems archaic.

Unique Features

The card supports DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, and OpenCL 1.0. It does not feature modern technologies such as ray tracing (RTX), DLSS, or FidelityFX—these emerged years after the V5800's release. Its only advantage lies in optimization for CAD applications (AutoCAD, SolidWorks) and stable drivers for professional software.

Memory: Modest Specifications

Type and Size

The FirePro V5800 is equipped with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit bus. Its bandwidth is 51.2 GB/s. In comparison, modern cards with GDDR6X achieve over 1000 GB/s.

Impact on Performance

Even in the 2010s, 1 GB of memory was minimal for complex 3D models. By 2025, this amount is insufficient for rendering scenes in Blender or working with 4K textures. However, it remains adequate for simple tasks, such as 2D graphic editing.

Gaming Performance: A Nostalgia for the Past

Average FPS in Older Titles

The FirePro V5800 was never positioned as a gaming card, but it managed to handle games at low settings in its time:

- CS: GO (720p, low settings): 30–40 FPS;

- Half-Life 2 (1080p): 60+ FPS.

Modern Games

By 2025, even the minimum requirements for AAA titles (such as Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty) demand 4+ GB of video memory and support for DirectX 12. The FirePro V5800 cannot run such games or will deliver merely 1–5 FPS.

Professional Tasks: Only for Basic Needs

3D Modeling and Rendering

The card is suitable for working in older versions of AutoCAD or SolidWorks with small models. Modern applications like Maya 2025 will lag due to insufficient memory.

Video Editing

Editing 1080p video in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is possible, but rendering will take significantly longer than on modern GPUs. The card is unsuitable for H.265 or 4K encoding.

Scientific Calculations

Support for OpenCL 1.0 allows for simple computations, but machine learning or simulations require CUDA (NVIDIA technology) and newer standards.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP and Cooling

The card's TDP is 75 watts. It does not require additional power and can be cooled by passive or compact active coolers.

Case Recommendations

Due to its modest heat output, the card is suitable for small form factor cases, but basic airflow should be ensured. In multi-card setups (such as old render farms), cooling for all slots is necessary.

Comparison with Competitors

Modern Alternatives

In 2025, it is difficult to compare the FirePro V5800 with new GPUs. The closest competitors from the 2010s are:

- NVIDIA Quadro 2000: 1 GB GDDR5, 128-bit bus, similar performance.

- AMD Radeon Pro W6600 (2021): 8 GB GDDR6, support for DirectX 12 Ultimate—this is a completely different class.

Practical Advice

Power Supply

A power supply of 300–400 watts is sufficient. The card connects through a PCIe x16 slot.

Compatibility

- Platforms: Works on motherboards with PCIe 2.0/3.0. Compatibility with PCIe 4.0/5.0 is not guaranteed.

- Drivers: Official support has been discontinued. For Windows 10/11, use drivers from 2015 or emulation via Compatibility Mode.

Pros and Cons

Pros

- Reliability and longevity.

- Low power consumption.

- Support for professional standards (Certified Drivers for CAD).

Cons

- Outdated architecture.

- Insufficient memory for modern tasks.

- Lack of support for new APIs and technologies.

Final Conclusion: Who is the FirePro V5800 DVI Suitable for in 2025?

This graphics card is a relic of a past era. It is worth considering only in two cases:

1. For restoring old workstations, where compatibility with legacy software is critical.

2. For educational purposes, to demonstrate the evolution of GPUs.

For gaming, professional editing, or 3D rendering in 2025, the FirePro V5800 is unfit. If you need a budget GPU for basic tasks, look at modern solutions like the AMD Radeon RX 6400 ($150) or the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ($160).

Conclusion

The ATI FirePro V5800 DVI is an example of how quickly technology becomes obsolete. Today, it is of interest only to enthusiasts and specialists working with legacy systems. In all other cases, investing in modern hardware will pay off multifold.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

April 2010

Model Name

FirePro V5800 DVI

Generation

FirePro

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

1,040 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

1024MB

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

1000MHz

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.

64.00 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.

11.04 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.

27.60 GTexel/s

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.

1.126 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.

800

L1 Cache

8 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

74W

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

None

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

250W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.126 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 850A

1.174 +4.3%

Quadro Plex 7000

1.152 +2.3%

FirePro V5800 DVI

1.126

Radeon HD 6950M

1.092 -3%

Tesla M2070

1.051 -6.7%