AMD Radeon R5 A220

AMD's Radeon R5 A220 is an end-of-life discrete graphics card built on the TeraScale 2 architecture with the Caicos chip, fabricated by TSMC on a 40 nm process. The die measures 67 mm² and contains 370 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 5.5M per square millimetre. The card ships with 1024 MB of DDR3 memory on a 64-bit bus, delivering 14.40 GB/s of bandwidth. The specification table lists no recorded benchmark runs (average score of 0) and no nearest-rival entries, so this analysis relies entirely on the published specifications and the card's 50th percentile position in the database.

Benchmark Performance

The fact pack lists an average benchmark score of 0 and a percentile rank of 50 among all GPUs. The zero score indicates that no actual benchmark runs are recorded for this card; the 50th percentile is therefore a positional placeholder rather than a measured result. Without nearestRivals data, no exact percentage deltas can be computed against competing products.

What the data does provide are the raw throughput figures. The card's FP32 compute is 248.0 GFLOPS, its texture fill rate is 6.200 GTexel/s, and its pixel fill rate is 3.100 GPixel/s. These are the only performance numbers in the specification. The shading complex comprises 160 shading units, 8 texture mapping units, and 4 render output units. The memory runs at 900 MHz, or 1800 Mbps effective, over a 64-bit bus.

Interpreting these figures: the pixel rate of 3.100 GPixel/s is low by modern standards, and the 248.0 GFLOPS compute places the card firmly in the entry-level segment of its era. The texture rate of 6.200 GTexel/s means the card can fill textures at a modest pace, but the 4 ROPs will bottleneck fill-heavy workloads. The 50th percentile ranking, if taken at face value, would put the card exactly in the middle of the database — but given the zero score, that ranking should be treated as an artifact of missing data rather than a verified result.

The bandwidth of 14.40 GB/s is the ceiling for data movement. With 160 shading units and 8 TMUs, the card is unlikely to be compute-bound in most workloads; the memory interface will saturate first. The 64-bit bus is a narrow interface, and DDR3 at 900 MHz is slow. In practice, the card will deliver its peak rates only in situations where the working set fits within 1024 MB and the access pattern is sequential. The 248.0 GFLOPS compute figure is the theoretical peak, but real workloads will rarely approach it because the 14.40 GB/s bandwidth cannot feed the shaders fast enough.

Power and Cooling

The TDP is listed at 35 W. The card is single-slot and has no power connectors, meaning all power is drawn from the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. The specification does not include a suggested PSU, so the data does not mandate any particular power supply capacity. The 35 W figure is the only power number in the pack. The card's length is 168 mm (6.6 inches), which is compact and should fit in most chassis.

The 40 nm process node, with 370 million transistors on a 67 mm² die, contributes to the modest thermal envelope. A 35 W TDP requires only light cooling; the single-slot form factor confirms that a large heatsink is not needed. Because no auxiliary power connector is present, installation is straightforward: the card plugs into the slot and the system's existing power delivery handles it. The absence of a suggested PSU rating in the data means no specific wattage recommendation can be made; the practical implication is that the card's power draw is low enough to be served by any standard slot supply. The 168 mm length also means the card will not obstruct drive bays in most mid-tower cases, and the single-slot design leaves adjacent expansion slots free.

Who Should Consider It

Given the specification set — 1024 MB of DDR3, a 64-bit bus, 14.40 GB/s bandwidth, and 3.100 GPixel/s pixel rate — the Radeon R5 A220 is suited to low-resolution gaming and legacy applications. The API support is DirectX 11.2 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.4; there is no Vulkan support, which rules out modern titles that rely on Vulkan. The display outputs are limited to one DVI and one HDMI 1.3a port, so multi-monitor setups are capped at those two connectors.

The 50th percentile position in the database, despite the zero benchmark score, suggests the card sits in the middle of the historical GPU distribution — but without measured scores, this is speculative. For a builder assembling a retro system or a basic office machine, the card's 35 W TDP and lack of power connectors make it an easy drop-in. For gaming, the data indicates the card will handle older, less demanding titles at modest settings, but the 1024 MB memory cap and 14.40 GB/s bandwidth will limit texture quality and resolution. The end-of-life production status means it is not a candidate for new builds; it is a salvage option for existing platforms that need a discrete output with HDMI 1.3a and DVI support.

FAQ

Q: What architecture does the Radeon R5 A220 use?

A: The card is built on the TeraScale 2 architecture with the Caicos chip, fabricated by TSMC on a 40 nm process.

Q: How much memory does it have and what is the bandwidth?

A: It has 1024 MB of DDR3 memory on a 64-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 14.40 GB/s. The memory clock is 900 MHz, or 1800 Mbps effective.

Q: Does the card require a power connector?

A: No. The power connector field is listed as "None", and the TDP is 35 W. Power is drawn from the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot.

Q: What display outputs are available?

A: The card provides one DVI output and one HDMI 1.3a output.

Q: What is the production status?

A: The production status is "End-of-life", meaning it is no longer manufactured.

Q: Does it support Vulkan?

A: No. The API list includes DirectX 11.2 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.4, but no Vulkan support is listed.

How It Compares

The nearestRivals array in the fact pack is empty. There are no rival names, scores, or deltaPct values to reference. Consequently, the comparative analysis cannot cite specific percentage advantages or disadvantages against named products. The only comparative data point is the percentileVsAllGpus value of 50, which places the card at the midpoint of the database's GPU population — though the accompanying benchmark score of 0 indicates no recorded runs. Without rival entries, the card's position is defined solely by its specification table and this percentile placeholder.

The absence of rival data is itself informative: the card is old enough and obscure enough that the database does not track direct competitors. The 50th percentile, if it reflects any underlying distribution, would suggest a median position, but the zero score undermines that reading. In the database context, the card can only be compared to the broader GPU population, and that comparison yields no percentage deltas because no rival scores exist. A builder considering this card should treat the 50th percentile as a weak signal, not a verified benchmark result.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is defined by four numbers: 1024 MB capacity, DDR3 type, 64-bit bus width, and 14.40 GB/s bandwidth. The memory clock is 900 MHz, with an effective data rate of 1800 Mbps. The 64-bit bus is narrow, and DDR3 is an older memory type. The 1024 MB capacity is small, so high-resolution textures will exceed the frame buffer quickly. The pixel rate of 3.100 GPixel/s and the bandwidth of 14.40 GB/s together indicate that the card is best suited to lower resolutions where the memory demands are smaller.

For high resolutions, the combination of a 64-bit bus and 14.40 GB/s bandwidth becomes the limiting factor long before the 160 shading units are fully utilised. The data shows a memory clock of 900 MHz, which is the only clock figure in the pack; the card's core clocks are not listed. The 4 render output units produce a pixel fill rate of 3.100 GPixel/s. At high resolutions, the number of pixels to fill scales with the resolution; the 3.100 GPixel/s ceiling means that even if the shading units could process geometry faster, the ROPs would cap the final output. The 8 texture mapping units deliver 6.200 GTexel/s, which is adequate for simple texturing but will struggle with multi-textured scenes. The 248.0 GFLOPS FP32 throughput is the compute ceiling, but the bandwidth is low relative to the compute, so memory access will be the primary constraint in most workloads.