AMD FirePro W8000 And W9000 Review: GCN Goes Pro

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AMD’s GCN architecture, known for its strong compute and 3D performance, is finally being made available in the company's FirePro workstation graphics card family. Can AMD catch Nvidia? We test the two fastest FirePro cards to answer that question.

Meet The FirePro W-Series

As mentioned, AMD's FirePro W-series currently consists of four graphics products, though we hear that the entry-level W600 is nearly ready as well. We received samples of the two highest-end cards, the W9000 and W8000.

Technical details covering all of the products are still sparse, and AMD didn't break down all of the cards for us. However, using several additional sources, we were able to get most of the missing information.

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Header Cell - Column 0 FirePro W9000FirePro W8000FirePro W7000FirePro W5000
AMD ClassUltra High-EndHigh-EndHigh-EndMid-Range
ALUs204817921280640
GPU Clock975 MHz900 MHz950 MHz825 MHz
Texture Units1281128040
ROPs32323216
Pixel Fill Rate31.2 Gpixels/s28.8 Gpixels/s30.4 Gpixels/s13.2 Gpixels/s
Texture Fill Rate124.8 Gtex/s100.8 Gtex/s76 Gtex/s33 Gtex/s
Memory GDDR56 GB4 GB4 GB2 GB
Memory Interface384-Bit256-Bit256-Bit128-Bit
Memory Clock1375 MHz1375 MHz1200 MHz800 MHz
Memory Bandwidth264 GB/s176 GB/s153.6 GB/s102.4 GB/s
TFLOPs SP40963225.624321267.2
TFLOPs DP1024806.415279.2
CodenameTahiti XTTahiti ProPitcairnPitcairn
Maximum PowerConsumption278 Watt(measured)198 Watt(measured)<=150 Watt(estimated)<=75 Watt(estimated)
Power Connectors8-Pin + 6-Pin2 x 6-Pin6-PinNone
Connectors6 x Mini DP3D StereoGenlock/Framelock4 x DP3D Stereo Genlock/Framelock4 x DP3D Stereo (opt. Bracket) Genlock/Framelock2 x DP + DL-DVI3D Stereo (opt. Bracket)
MSRP$3999$1599$899$599

AMD FirePro W9000

AMD FirePro W8000

The design and exterior of the cards are similar to the consumer Tahiti-based cards, except for the power connectors, which can be found in the back. Plugging in auxiliary power makes the long cards even longer, which is something that system builders will have to take into account. Also, the I/O brackets reflect a more workstation-oriented audience, going heavy on DisplayPort connectivity.

Igor Wallossek
68 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    Typical of AMD : releasing cards without proper drivers.
    I bet most professionals wont touch these cards until atleast 3-4 driver revisions. These cards are newer, and perform worse than competitions older.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    1.How does the CPU performance affect the benchmarks ? IOW, are these softwares enough offloaded on to the GPU, that changing the CPU to a much better Intel Xeons wont affect the performance much ?

    2. Also, how do the consumer cards perform on these pro softwares ?
    Reply
  • rdc85
    They are new architecture, it's kinda expected result. I can see there a room for improvement, but without the application that can take advantage of it, then it will useless..

    in the end I'm glad to see that AMD graphic section is trying to make an effort, not like the their proc section..
    Reply
  • My impression is that on average, Nvidia higher quality. IMHO of course
    Reply
  • bystander
    mayankleoboy1Typical of AMD : releasing cards without proper drivers.I bet most professionals wont touch these cards until atleast 3-4 driver revisions. These cards are newer, and perform worse than competitions older.Did you not read all the benchmarks? In many of the benchmarks it beat out Nvidia's offering by a lot, some were even, some were worse. And they are cheaper than the those Nvidia cards it would seem by the price offering of 4.2k for the Quadro 6000 right on the last page, compared to 4k for the W9000 and 1.6k for the W8000.

    So depending on what you use it for, it may very well be a great choice.
    Reply
  • Please note that dozens of software companies (all the most prevalent in DCC and CAD) have thoroughly tested and certified the drivers for the W8000 and W9000 cards. This means that users of these applications should not be concerned about driver stability or user experience.

    Yes, this is a brand new architecture and yes, performance improvements will continue to be made with subsequent driver optimizations.
    Reply
  • ohim
    Even though no one will prolly ever play games on a workstation, this are the first cards to have equal or superior gaming performance over the consumer cards also. Wonder if taking a HD 7970 and possibly mooding the bios for a FirePro one how will it impact the workstation benchmarks.
    Reply
  • rmpumper
    The review needs at least one gaming GPU as comparison.
    Reply
  • I always wondered how well these cards would do with games, anyone an idea? :)
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    ohimEven though no one will prolly ever play games on a workstation, this are the first cards to have equal or superior gaming performance over the consumer cards also. Wonder if taking a HD 7970 and possibly mooding the bios for a FirePro one how will it impact the workstation benchmarks.
    AFAIK, its not possible now to BIOS mod a regular 7970 into a W9000. AMD and Nvidia have become smarter.
    Reply