FireGL

AMD FirePro

AMD FirePro

Brand by AMD


AMD FirePro was AMD's brand of graphics cards designed for use in workstations and servers running professional Computer-aided design (CAD), Computer-generated imagery (CGI), Digital content creation (DCC), and High-performance computing/GPGPU applications. The GPU chips on FirePro-branded graphics cards are identical to the ones used on Radeon-branded graphics cards. The end products (i.e. the graphics card) differentiate substantially by the provided graphics device drivers and through the available professional support for the software. The product line is split into two categories: "W" workstation series focusing on workstation and primarily focusing on graphics and display, and "S" server series focused on virtualization and GPGPU/High-performance computing.

Quick Facts Design firm, Type ...

The release of the Radeon Pro Duo in April 2016 and the announcement of the Radeon Pro WX Series in July 2016 marked the succession of Radeon Pro as AMD's professional workstation graphics card solution.[1] Radeon Instinct is the current brand for servers.

Competitors included Nvidia's Quadro-branded and to an extent, Nvidia Tesla-branded product series and Intel's Xeon Phi-branded products.

History

The FireGL line was originally developed by the German company Spea Software AG until it was acquired by Diamond Multimedia in November 1995.[2] The first FireGL board used the 3Dlabs GLINT 3D processor chip.[3]

Deprecated brand names are ATI FireGL, ATI FirePro 3D, and AMD FireStream.

In July 2016, AMD announced it would be replacing the FirePro brand with Radeon Pro for workstations.[1] The new brand for servers is Radeon Instinct.

Features

Multi-monitor support

AMD Eyefinity can support multi-monitor set-ups. One graphics card can drive up to a maximum of six monitors; the supported number depends on the distinct product and the number of DisplayPort displays. The device driver facilitates the configuration of diverse display group modes.

Differences with the Radeon Line

The user-mode drivers as well as the kernel-mode drivers for AMD FirePro products have additional features, and also (not depicted here) additional interfaces.[4]

The FirePro line is designed for compute intensive, multimedia content creation (such as video editors), and mechanical engineering design software (such as CAD programs). Their Radeon counterparts are suited towards video games and other consumer applications. Because they use the same drivers (Catalyst) and are based on the same architectures and chipsets, the major differences are essentially limited to price and double-precision performance. However, some FirePro cards may have major feature differences to the equivalent Radeon card, such as ECC RAM and differing physical display outputs.

Since the 2007 series, high-end and ultra-end FireGL/FirePro products (based on the R600 architecture) have officially implemented stream processing. The Radeon line of video cards, although present in hardware, did not offer any support for stream processing until the HD 4000 series where beta level OpenCL 1.0 support is offered, and the HD 5000 series and later, where full OpenCL 1.1 support is offered.

Heterogeneous System Architecture

HSA is intended to facilitate the programming for stream processing and/or GPGPU in combination with CPUs and DSPs. All models implementing the Graphics Core Next microarchitecture support hardware features defined by the HSA Foundation and AMD has provided corresponding software.

FirePro DirectGMA

AMD DirectGMA is a feature usable with AMD FirePro products.

Soft-mods

Because of the similarities between FireGL and Radeon cards, some users soft-mod their Radeon cards by using third-party software or automated scripts accompanied by a modified FireGL driver patch, to allow FireGL capabilities for their hardware, effectively getting a cheaper, equivalent, FireGL card, often with better OpenGL capabilities, but usually half of the amount of video memory. Some variants can also be soft-modded to a FireStream stream processor.[5]

The trend of soft-mods was continued with the 2007 series FireGL cards, as follows:

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Products

Workstation

Pre-ATI FireGL cards

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FireGL Series

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1 Vertex shaders : Pixel shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units
2 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : Compute Units

FireMV (Multi-View) Series

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1 Vertex shaders : Pixel shaders : Texture mapping unit : Render output units
2 Unified shaders : Texture mapping unit : Render output units

FirePro (Multi-View) Series

More information Model, Launch ...

FirePro 3D Series (V000)

More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : Compute Units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory
3 Windows 7, 8.1, 10 Support for Fire Pro Cards with Terascale 2 and later by firepro driver 15.301.2601[41]

FirePro Series (Vx900)

More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : Compute Units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.
3 Support for Windows 7, 8.1 for OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 2.0, when Hardware is prepared with firepro driver 14.502.1045.[46]

FirePro Workstation Series (Wx000)

  • Vulkan 1.0 and OpenGL 4.5 possible for GCN with Driver Update FirePro equal to Radeon Crimson 16.3 or higher.[47][48]
  • Vulkan 1.1 possible for GCN with Radeon Pro Software 18.Q1.1 or higher. It might not fully apply to GCN 1.0 or 1.1 GPUs.[49]
More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : Compute Units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.
3 OpenGL 4.4: support with AMD FirePro driver release 14.301.000 or later, in footnotes of specs[56]

FirePro D-Series

In 2013, AMD released the D-Series specifically for Mac Pro workstations.[57]

More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : compute units

FirePro Workstation Series (Wx100)

  • Vulkan 1.0 and OpenGL 4.5 possible for GCN with Driver Update FirePro equal to Radeon Crimson 16.3 or higher.[47][48] OpenCL 2.1 and 2.2 possible for all OpenCL 2.0-Cards with Driver Update in Future (Khronos). Linux Support for OpenCL is limited with AMDGPU Driver 16.60 actual to Version 1.2.[61]
  • Vulkan 1.1 possible for GCN with Radeon Pro Software 18.Q1.1 or higher. It might not fully apply to GCN 1.0 or 1.1 GPUs.[49]
  • OpenGL 4.6 is available in 18.Q2 (or later) analog to Adrenalin 18.4.1.
More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : compute units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.
3 OpenGL 4.4: support with AMD FirePro driver release 14.301.000 or later, in footnotes of specs[56]

FirePro Workstation Series (Wx300)

  • Vulkan 1.1 possible for GCN with Radeon Pro Software 18.Q1.1 or higher. It might not fully apply to GCN 1.0 or 1.1 GPUs.[49]
More information Model, Launch ...

Mobile Workstation

Mobility FireGL Series

More information Model (Codename), Launch ...
  1. Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of Texture Mapping Units multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
  2. Pixel fillrate is calculated as the number of Render Output Units multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
  3. Single precision performance is calculated from the base (or boost) core clock speed based on a FMA operation.

FirePro Mobile Series

More information Model (Codename), Launch ...
  1. Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of Texture Mapping Units multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
  2. Pixel fillrate is calculated as the number of Render Output Units multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
  3. Single precision performance is calculated from the base (or boost) core clock speed based on a FMA operation.

Server

FireStream Series

More information Model (Codename), Launch ...
  1. Precision performance is calculated from the base (or boost) core clock speed based on a FMA operation.

FirePro Remote Series

More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : compute units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.

FirePro Server Series (S000x/Sxx 000)

  • Vulkan 1.0 and OpenGL 4.5 possible for GCN with Driver Update FirePro equal to Radeon Crimson 16.3 or higher.[47] OpenGL 4.5 was only in Windows available.[48] Actual Linux Driver support OpenGL 4.5 and Vulkan 1.0, but only OpenCL 1.2 by AMDGPU Driver 16.60.[61]
  • Vulkan 1.1 possible for GCN with Radeon Pro Software 18.Q1.1 or higher. It might not fully apply to GCN 1.0 or 1.1 GPUs.[49]
  • OpenGL 4.6 is available in 18.Q2 (or later) analog to Adrenalin 18.4.1.
More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units: Compute units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.
3 OpenGL 4.4: support with AMD FirePro driver release 14.301.000 or later, in footnotes of specs[56]

Radeon Sky Series

More information Model, Launch ...

1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : compute units
2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.

See also


References

  1. Ung, Gordon Mah (July 25, 2016). "AMD introduces a new Radeon Pro WX series to replace FirePro". PC World. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  2. "Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Spea Software AG". Business Wire. November 17, 1995. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved July 25, 2021 via The Free Dictionary.
  3. "AMD introduceert ATI FirePro V8750 met 2GB gddr5-geheugen". Tweakers (in Dutch). Retrieved August 24, 2023.
  4. Bekman, Stas. "GLINT05 SPEA FireGL". stason.org.
  5. "ATI FireGL V3600 Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. June 5, 2023.
  6. "ATI FireGL V5600 Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. June 5, 2023.
  7. "ATI FireGL V7300 Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. July 12, 2023.
  8. "ATI FireGL V7600 Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. July 12, 2023.
  9. "ATI FireGL V7700 Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. July 13, 2023.
  10. FireMV 2260 brochure Archived July 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine: "Also with Microsoft DirectX 10.1 support the ATI FireMV 2260 exceeds all of the Windows Vista Aero minimum requirements". Retrieved July 12, 2008
  11. "ATI FireMV 2400 PCI Specs". TechPowerUp GPU Database. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
  12. "AMD Vendor ID page". Archived from the original on August 20, 2008.
  13. "AMD FirePro V5800 and V3800 Review - Evergreen completes the sweep". Archived from the original on April 28, 2010. Retrieved May 4, 2018.
  14. AMD FirePro V4800 & FirePro V7800 Review. Retrieved September 6, 2008.
  15. JeGX (March 10, 2016). "AMD Crimson 16.3 Graphics Driver Available with Vulkan Support". Geeks3D. Archived from the original on April 17, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  16. "The Khronos Group". The Khronos Group. March 1, 2021.
  17. "AMD FirePro D-Series GPUs". Archived from the original on December 9, 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  18. Smith, Ryan. "AMD Announces FirePro W8100". www.anandtech.com.
  19. "AMD FirePro W9100 Professional Graphics". AMD. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  20. "FirePro W4190M Grafik". AMD (in German).
  21. "FirePro W5130M". AMD (in German).
  22. "FirePro W5170M". AMD (in German).
  23. "FirePro W7170M". AMD (in German).
  24. "AMD FirePro R5000 Specs". TechPowerUp. July 28, 2023.
  25. "AMD FirePro S7100X Server GPU". AMD. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  26. Demerjian, Charlie (May 25, 2016). "AMD's Firepro S7100X is hardware virtualized". Semi Accurate. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  27. Kampman, Jeff (February 1, 2016). "FirePro S7100 graphics cards bring hardware GPU virtualization to life". Tech Report. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  28. Forrest, Derek (February 1, 2016). "AMD Reveals First Virtualized GPU Hardware: FirePro S-Series". Archived from the original on May 7, 2016. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  29. "AMD FirePro S9100". Techpowerup.com.
  30. "AMD Reveals FirePro S9300 X2: Dual Fiji for the Enterprise". Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2018.

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