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AMD FirePro was AMD's brand of
graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
s designed for use in
workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...
and servers running professional
Computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
(CAD),
Computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
(CGI),
Digital content creation Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content is "something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing or any of ...
(DCC), and
High-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...
/
GPGPU General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, or less often GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditiona ...
applications. The GPU
chips ''CHiPs'' is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to May 1, 1983. It follows the lives of two motorcycle officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). The serie ...
on FirePro-branded graphics cards are identical to the ones used on
Radeon Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Tech ...
-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 In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...
and GPGPU/High-performance computing. 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 Radeon Pro is AMD's brand of professional oriented GPUs. It replaced AMD's FirePro brand in 2016. Compared to the Radeon brand for mainstream consumer/gamer products, the Radeon Pro brand is intended for use in workstations and the running of ...
as AMD's professional workstation graphics card solution.
Radeon Instinct AMD Instinct is AMD's brand of professional GPUs. It replaced AMD's FirePro S brand in 2016. Compared to the Radeon brand of mainstream consumer/gamer products, the Instinct product line is intended to accelerate deep learning, artificial ne ...
is the current brand for servers. Competitors included
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
's
Quadro Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine ...
-branded and to an extent, Nvidia Tesla-branded product series and Intel's
Xeon Phi Xeon Phi was a series of x86 manycore processors designed and made by Intel. It was intended for use in supercomputers, servers, and high-end workstations. Its architecture allowed use of standard programming languages and application program ...
-branded products.


History

The FireGL line was originally developed by the German company Spea Software AG until it was acquired by
Diamond Multimedia Diamond Multimedia is an American company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced graphics cards, motherboards, modems, sound cards and MP3 players, however the company began with the production of the TrackSta ...
in November 1995. The first FireGL board used the
3Dlabs 3Dlabs was a fabless semiconductor company. It was founded in 1994 with headquarters in San Jose, California. It originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology, that was used on many of the world's leading computer g ...
GLINT 3D processor chip.1996 press release from 3Dlabs
/ref> Deprecated brand names are ATI FireGL, ATI FirePro 3D, and
AMD FireStream AMD FireStream was AMD's brand name for their Radeon-based product line targeting stream processing and/or GPGPU in supercomputers. Originally developed by ATI Technologies around the Radeon X1900 XTX in 2006, the product line was previously b ...
. In July 2016, AMD announced it would be replacing the FirePro brand with
Radeon Pro Radeon Pro is AMD's brand of professional oriented GPUs. It replaced AMD's FirePro brand in 2016. Compared to the Radeon brand for mainstream consumer/gamer products, the Radeon Pro brand is intended for use in workstations and the running of ...
for workstations. The new brand for servers is
Radeon Instinct AMD Instinct is AMD's brand of professional GPUs. It replaced AMD's FirePro S brand in 2016. Compared to the Radeon brand of mainstream consumer/gamer products, the Instinct product line is intended to accelerate deep learning, artificial ne ...
.


Features


Multi-monitor support

AMD Eyefinity AMD Eyefinity is a brand name for AMD video card products that support multi-monitor setups by integrating multiple (up to six) display controllers on one GPU. AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 Series "Evergreen" in September 2 ...
can support
multi-monitor Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer sy ...
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 DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...
displays. The device driver facilitates the configuration of diverse display group modes.


Differences with the Radeon Line

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 Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Tech ...
counterparts are suited towards video games and other consumer applications. Because they use the same drivers (Catalyst) and are based on the same
architectures Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...
and chipsets, the major differences are essentially limited to price and
double-precision Double-precision floating-point format (sometimes called FP64 or float64) is a floating-point number format, usually occupying 64 bits in computer memory; it represents a wide dynamic range of numeric values by using a floating radix point. Flo ...
performance. However, some FirePro cards may have major feature differences to the equivalent Radeon card, such as
ECC RAM Error correction code memory (ECC memory) is a type of computer data storage that uses an error correction code (ECC) to detect and correct n-bit data corruption which occurs in memory. ECC memory is used in most computers where data corruption c ...
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 In computer science, stream processing (also known as event stream processing, data stream processing, or distributed stream processing) is a programming paradigm which views data streams, or sequences of events in time, as the central input and ou ...
. 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 OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), field-progra ...
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 In computer science, stream processing (also known as event stream processing, data stream processing, or distributed stream processing) is a programming paradigm which views data streams, or sequences of events in time, as the central input and ou ...
and/or
GPGPU General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, or less often GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditiona ...
in combination with
CPUs A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...
and DSPs. All models implementing the
Graphics Core Next Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was lau ...
microarchitecture support hardware features defined by the
HSA Foundation The HSA Foundation is a not-for-profit engineering organization of industry and academia that works on the development of the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), a set of royalty-free computer hardware specifications, as well as open source so ...
and AMD has provided corresponding software.


FirePro DirectGMA

* GPUOpen: http://gpuopen.com/compute-product/direct-gma/


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 with a modified FireGL driver patch, to allow FireGL capabilities for their hardware, effectively getting a cheaper, equivalent, FireGL cards, 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. The trend of soft-mods was continued with the 2007 series FireGL cards, as follows:


Products


Workstation


Pre-ATI FireGL cards


FireGL Series

1
Vertex shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...
s :
Pixel shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of spec ...
s :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s
2 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : Compute Units


FireMV (Multi-View) Series

1
Vertex shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...
s :
Pixel shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of spec ...
s :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
:
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s
2 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
:
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s


FirePro (Multi-View) Series


FirePro 3D Series (V000)

1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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


FirePro Series (Vx900)

1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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


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. * 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. 1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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 specshttps://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/workstation/firepro-3d/7100#


FirePro D-Series

In 2013, AMD released the D-Series specifically for
Mac Pro Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of f ...
workstations. 1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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. 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.http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Driver-for-Linux-Release-Notes.aspx * 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. * OpenGL 4.6 is available in 18.Q2 (or later) analog to Adrenalin 18.4.1. 1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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


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.


Mobile Workstation


Mobility FireGL Series


FirePro Mobile Series


Server


FireStream Series


FirePro Remote Series

1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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. OpenGL 4.5 was only in Windows available. Actual Linux Driver support OpenGL 4.5 and Vulkan 1.0, but only OpenCL 1.2 by AMDGPU Driver 16.60. * 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. * OpenGL 4.6 is available in 18.Q2 (or later) analog to Adrenalin 18.4.1. 1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s: 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


Radeon Sky Series

1 Unified shaders :
Texture mapping unit In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a ...
s :
Render output unit In computer graphics, the render output unit (ROP) or raster operations pipeline is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipeline ...
s : 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

*
Nvidia Quadro Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine l ...
– Nvidia's competing workstation graphics solution *
Nvidia Tesla Nvidia Tesla was the name of Nvidia's line of products targeted at stream processing or general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU), named after pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Its products began using GPUs from the G80 ser ...
– Nvidia's competing GPGPU solution *
Xeon Phi Xeon Phi was a series of x86 manycore processors designed and made by Intel. It was intended for use in supercomputers, servers, and high-end workstations. Its architecture allowed use of standard programming languages and application program ...
-
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's competing High-performance computing solution *
List of AMD graphics processing units The following is a list that contains general information about GPUs and video cards by AMD, including those by ATI Technologies before 2006, based on official specifications in table-form. Field explanations The headers in the table listed b ...


References


External links


AMD FirePro Professional Graphics
{{DEFAULTSORT:FirePro AMD graphics cards Graphics cards