See Ya, FirePro: AMD’s Radeon Pro Workstation Graphics Cards Have Landed

Today is a very special day for AMD and its Radeon Technologies Group, as the Radeon Pro series they revealed this past summer is finally ready to penetrate shopping carts the world over. As we covered in our announcement post, the “Radeon Pro” name replaces FirePro, which has been used since 2008 (it was FireGL before that). “FirePro” might have a little more oomph to it, but Radeon Pro is much more apt given where it comes from, and who it targets.

At some point this past summer, AMD brought its Radeon and FirePro teams closer together, under RTG, and FirePro became Radeon Pro. Radeon Pro is an extension of Radeon – its cards will be based on the same current architecture. The difference is that Radeon Pro, like any pro-grade component, has more R&D and refinement go into its drivers (there are regular and “Enterprise” drivers), special optimizations for certain workloads (especially CAD), and is guaranteed to be as stable as it can be – a key ingredient when we’re dealing with complex and important workloads.

So without further ado, here’s the brand-new Radeon Pro WX 7100, the top dog in AMD’s current Radeon Pro lineup:

The WX 7100 excites me for a handful of reasons, with a big one being the fact that it’s spec’d almost identically to the Radeon RX 480 – a card suitable for 1440p gaming and VR gameplay – yet takes up just a single slot. In direct comparison, the WX 7100 is about 100 GFLOPs slower at peak (a drop in the bucket when we’re dealing with 5,700), and that, along with other optimizations, helped drop the card from being a 150W one down to a 130W one.

 

 

 

As can be seen in the image carousel above, the WX 7100 has a 6-pin power connector at the front, and 4x DisplayPort connectors at the back. That latter feature is shared across the three new cards, with the WX 4100 converting them into mini-DP ports due to its low-profile design. Neither the WX 5100 or WX 4100 require a power connector.

AMD sees big 5K potential with these cards, and has chosen to focus on those capabilities over 4K (isn’t it amazing how fast 5K took over in the pro-realm?). Both the WX 7100 and WX 5100 are able to support dual 5K monitors when each uses two cables, or a single 5K with one cable. The WX 4100, despite its super-small size, is still able to support a single 5K monitor (with single or dual cable).

Other features shared: 10-bit color, DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.0, DisplayPort 1.4, AMD FreeSync, and AMD CrossFire Pro. On the OS front, all of the cards support 64-bit Windows 7 and 10, as well as 64-bit Linux.

In our announcement post this past summer, I predicted that the WX 7100 would cost $799 – and I was right. I was also right about the WX 5100’s price: $499. I was however incorrect about the WX 4100, which will sell for $399 (which I should have anticipated had I put more thought into it!). At these price points, AMD’s latest workstation lineup has much more affordable offerings than what we’ve seen from previous series, and even the competition, making them all-the-more alluring.

AMD has consumer targets for each card, which most of them being predictable. The WX 7100, as the top-dog, caters to those wanting the best performance from AMD, period. Like the RX 480, the WX 7100 has a big focus on VR, and can of course supplement those in content creation, whether it be video, imagery, CAD, or 3D design. The WX 5100 is “ready for the game engine revolution”, being the “fastest workstation card in its class”. The WX 4100, meanwhile, is a low-profile card targeting CAD professionals. You could build a really small CAD design rig with the help of this itty bitty card (here’s a size comparison using the outgoing W4300).

Both the Radeon Pro WX 4100 and WX 7100 will become available on the 10th of this month, while the WX 5100 will land on the 18th. As the images above might suggest, we have one of the WX 7100s in-house, and will be putting it through our gauntlet of tests in the very near-future.