AMD FirePro M5100

The AMD FirePro M5100 is a middle-class graphics card for mobile workstations, which has been presented in mid-2013. Similar to the Nvidia Quadro series, the FirePro cards offer certified drivers for professional 3D-software like CAD. Due to optimizations and some unlocked features, the performance in these applications is much better compared to a consumer Radeon GPU. Except for the certified drivers, the M5100 is more or less identical to the Radeon HD 8870M.

Architecture

The FirePro M5100 integrates 10 Compute Units based on the GCN architecture. Overall, the chip has 640 stream processors, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs. The memory of up to 2 GB GDDR5 is connected via an 128-bit interface. Just like the Radeon series, the FirePro M5100 offers features like Eyefinity, Enduro or PCIe 3.0. Presumably, AMD uses the Cape Verde graphics chip, but this has not yet been officially confirmed.

Performance

According to the clock rates of up to 775 MHz for the chip and 1125 MHz for the memory (4500 MHz effective, 72 GB/s), the 3D gaming performance will be slightly above the Nvidia Quadro K2100M or GeForce GT 750M with GDDR5 memory. Recent Games of 2014/2015 can thus be played fluently in medium to high details and a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.

Power Consumption

The FirePro M5100 features different energy saving techniques to reduce power consumption and prolong battery life. These include PowerPlay and PowerTune (for clocking the GPU), Zero Core (deactivates parts of the GPU when the display is off) and Enduro (dynamic GPU switching between the processor graphics and the dedicated Radeon GPU). The maximum power consumption under full load should be about 50 watts (estimate), making the card suitable for laptops 15 inches in size or greater.

FirePro M Series FirePro M6100 768 @ 1.1 GHz 128 Bit @ 6000 MHz FirePro M8900 960 @ 0.68 GHz 256 Bit @ 900 MHz FirePro M6000 640 @ 0.75 GHz 128 Bit @ 4500 MHz FirePro M5100 640 @ 0.73 - 0.78 GHz 128 Bit @ 4500 MHz FirePro M4000 512 @ 0.6 GHz 128 Bit @ 4500 MHz FirePro M4100 384 @ 0.67 GHz 128 Bit @ 4000 MHz FirePro M5950 480 @ 0.73 GHz 128 Bit @ 900 MHz FirePro M2000 480 @ 0.5 GHz 64 Bit @ 3200 MHz
Architecture	GCN
Pipelines	640 - unified
Core Speed	725 - 775 (Boost) MHz
Memory Speed	4500 MHz
Memory Bus Width	128 Bit
Memory Type	GDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory	2048 MB
Shared Memory	no
API	DirectX 12 (FL 11_1), Shader 5.0, OpenGL 4.3
Man. Technology	28 nm
Features	AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology, Up to 3 displays supported undocked, 5 displays docked, AMD App Acceleration, AMD PowerPlay power management technology, AMD PowerTune technology, AMD ZeroCore Power technology, AMD Enduro technology
Notebook Size	medium sized
Date of Announcement	01.10.2013
Link to Manufacturer Page	www.amd.com

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