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AMD FirePro V5900 upgrade to FirePro W5100

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First post, by Minutemanqvs

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My main retro gaming PC, mainly used for GoG games from 2000-2015, is a dual-code Socket 939 AMD Opteron 180 coupled with 4GB of PC3200 RAM, an SSD and as a graphic card an AMD FirePro V5900. The mainboard has a PCIe 2.0 chipset.

The cards:

IMG-0347.jpg
IMG-0348.jpg

I quite like these FireGL/FirePro/Radeon Pro series of workstation cards because they are often cheaper on local auction sites as the sought after gamer cards. These particular cards, despite being from 2011 and 2014 have 4 DisplayPort connectors perfectly capable of driving my 2560x1440 monitor on Windows 7.

The V5900 is a "Cayman LE GL" core based on the TeraScale 3 architecture with 2GB of GDDR 5 memory. Mine has a "HP" BIOS but I also have a "Dell" one which is exactly the same. It's a PCIe 2.0 ×16 card. It's a DirectX 11 card from 2011 and the latest drivers from 2017.
v5900.gif

I recently bought a W5100 card from a local auction site for 20€. It is a "Bonaire Pro" core based on the GCN 2nd gen architecture with 4GB ofGDDR 5 memory. It's from 2014 and PCIe 3.0 ×16 (remember the mainboard is only 2.0). So there was TeraScale 3 > GCN 1st gen > GCN 2nd gen. It's a DirectX 12 card. The latest drivers are from 2021.
w5100.gif

So I ran some benchmarks with both cards, first with 3DMark 03 on the full 2560x1440 resolution with 8 Sample AA and Anisotropic filtering. This is really over the top for this system but whatever!
settings.png

The results are actually quite good with respectively 7415 and 11153 points, quite a nice upgrade!
3dmark03-v5900.png
3dmark03-w5100.png

On the other hand, Quake III went from 268 fps on the V5900 to...185 fps on the W5100, again in 2560x1440 resolution. I wonder if this can be caused by the PCIe 3.0 to 2.0 downgrade with the W5100? I wonder if it doesn't run at 1.1 from the screenshot above...have to find a way to test that.

The W5100 is also much quieter than the V5900 which is a typical 1 slot blower card...all in all, I'll keep the W5100 in the system just for the noise level. All games I play run perfectly fine.

Last edited by Minutemanqvs on 2023-04-14, 18:38. Edited 1 time in total.

Searching anything Nexgen, PM me if you have one. Also ATI Rage 128 PCI cards.

Reply 1 of 6, by Minutemanqvs

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...mystery solved for the PCIe 1.1 speed, it's a power saving feature. As soon as there load on the GPU it jumps back to 2.0!

Searching anything Nexgen, PM me if you have one. Also ATI Rage 128 PCI cards.

Reply 2 of 6, by paradigital

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These are essentially Radeon RX 455 cards slightly downclocked. I’ve got one in my office machine which I occasionally fire up the odd casual game on, works really well.

I also like picking up Quadro and FireGL/FirePro cards as a bargain version of the gaming focused cards, usually ends up being notably cheaper!

Reply 3 of 6, by shevalier

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@Minutemanqvs
I also like server Radeons - they are nice
I have a V5700 (HD4770) - a copper radiator, a turbine, a appearance.
But ball bearings that have been spinning non-stop for 10 years are terrible.
It's good that they can be replaced with good from Fushi type MR52ZZ, precision ABEC-9.
Sellers google without problems.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-04-14, 17:05:

3DMark 03 on the full 2560x1440 resolution with 8 Sample AA and Anisotropic filtering

Cool, but not comparable.
Is it possible with the default settings?

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Audigy 4 SB0610
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value SB0400
Gigabyte Ga-k8n51gmf, Turion64 ML-30@2.2GHz , Radeon X800GTO PL16, Diamond monster sound MX300

Reply 4 of 6, by Minutemanqvs

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shevalier wrote on 2023-04-15, 09:16:
@Minutemanqvs I also like server Radeons - they are nice I have a V5700 (HD4770) - a copper radiator, a turbine, a appearance. B […]
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@Minutemanqvs
I also like server Radeons - they are nice
I have a V5700 (HD4770) - a copper radiator, a turbine, a appearance.
But ball bearings that have been spinning non-stop for 10 years are terrible.
It's good that they can be replaced with good from Fushi type MR52ZZ, precision ABEC-9.
Sellers google without problems.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-04-14, 17:05:

3DMark 03 on the full 2560x1440 resolution with 8 Sample AA and Anisotropic filtering

Cool, but not comparable.
Is it possible with the default settings?

Ah thanks for the ball bearing reference, it can be useful! Here is the result with the default 3Dmark 03 settings for the W5100: 44281

w5100-default-settings.png

Last edited by Minutemanqvs on 2023-04-15, 10:30. Edited 1 time in total.

Searching anything Nexgen, PM me if you have one. Also ATI Rage 128 PCI cards.

Reply 5 of 6, by Minutemanqvs

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paradigital wrote on 2023-04-14, 18:58:

These are essentially Radeon RX 455 cards slightly downclocked. I’ve got one in my office machine which I occasionally fire up the odd casual game on, works really well.

I also like picking up Quadro and FireGL/FirePro cards as a bargain version of the gaming focused cards, usually ends up being notably cheaper!

The Quadros are probably even more widely available if the "Workstation" GPU marketshare is anywhere near the "Gaming" marketshare. I have a Quadro K600 in my work PC, small, silent and effective for what it's required...
I'm still hesitating on buying a FireGL X3 (Radeon X800 XT equivalent) from a german ebay seller which has apparently quite a lot of them, but it's more in the 55€ once shipped and that's on the upper limit for the usage I have.

Searching anything Nexgen, PM me if you have one. Also ATI Rage 128 PCI cards.

Reply 6 of 6, by paradigital

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I’ve got a few Quadros where getting the equivalent Geforce would have been very expensive. My Quadro FX 3000 was around £50, but a GeForce FX 5900U would have been 4-5 times that. I’ve also got an FX 1000 which is a pretty good analog for an FX 5800 (non ultra). At the newer end I bought a Quadro K4000 during the crypto mining epidemic a few years ago to throw in a low end gaming PC. Seems to have around GeForce 750ti levels of grunt for a pittance.

I couldn’t find a good X850XT AGP so ended up with a FireGL X3.

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