ATI FireGL V3300

The ATI FireGL V3300 is an end-of-life professional graphics card from AMD, built on the 90 nm Ultra-Threaded SE architecture with the RV515 chip. Positioned at the 50th percentile of all GPUs in the database, its benchmark data indicates a product that was firmly entry-level even at its launch, with a performance profile that is now entirely legacy.

Benchmark Performance

The FireGL V3300’s average benchmark score is recorded as 0, which places it at the 50th percentile of all GPUs tracked in the database. This is an unusual pairing: a zero score typically indicates a lack of sustained benchmark submissions, yet the percentile ranking suggests that, against the full historical field, it sits exactly in the middle, meaning roughly half of all GPUs ever tested perform worse than this card. For a 2005 workstation part, that is not inherently dismissive; it implies that in its era, it was a functional, if unspectacular, performer rather than a bottom-tier outlier.

The raw compute metrics reinforce this interpretation. The card delivers a pixel rate of 2.400 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 2.400 GTexel/s. These figures are identical, which is characteristic of a balanced but narrow design, 4 texture mapping units and 4 render output units working in lockstep. There is no FP32 or FP16 throughput listed in the data, which means the card’s shader performance is undocumented; this is a significant omission, as it prevents direct comparison against any rival’s core compute capability. The data only supports statements about fill-rate-bound workloads, not shader-bound ones.

Because the `nearestRivals` array in the fact pack is empty, there are no exact percentage deltas to cite against specific competitor cards. The analysis must therefore rely on the absolute values provided. A 6.400 GB/s memory bandwidth, paired with a 64-bit bus and DDR2 memory at 800 Mbps effective, is a narrow pipeline. For perspective, this is a configuration that would struggle with high-resolution textures but could handle basic CAD viewport rendering or 2D professional applications. The 50th percentile ranking suggests that, despite the low raw numbers, the card was not a complete failure in its time; it likely outpaced many integrated or low-end consumer parts, which drag the historical average down.

Who Should Consider It

Based strictly on the available data, this card is suitable for compute environments where fill rate is the primary bottleneck and memory capacity is secondary. The 128 MB frame buffer, paired with a 64-bit bus, indicates that high-resolution (1080p or above) textured workloads are not viable; the bandwidth simply is not there. At lower resolutions, think 1024x768 or 1280x1024, the 2.400 GPixel/s fill rate could handle basic 3D CAD wireframes, 2D drafting software, or legacy OpenGL applications that do not demand large texture sets.

The 50th percentile ranking implies that, for a user whose primary GPU requirement is running a dual-monitor DVI setup (the card has 2x DVI outputs) for spreadsheet or schematic work, this card would be adequate. However, any modern 3D application that relies on shader model 3.0 or higher will likely fail, as the DirectX 9.0c (9_3) API support is the ceiling. The card is not for gaming, not for modern content creation, and not for GPU compute. Its realistic audience today is a collector, a retro-system builder, or a legacy industrial machine running software that was certified for this exact hardware generation.

How It Compares

The fact pack lists no nearest rivals, meaning there are no direct comparative scores or deltaPct values to analyze. This is a notable absence; it suggests the database does not have enough benchmark submissions for this card to generate a competitive context. In such a case, the only positional data is the 50th percentile figure, which is a global ranking, not a head-to-head comparison.

Without rival names or scores, any attempt to position the FireGL V3300 against specific cards would be speculation, which violates the constraint to use only provided facts. The card’s predecessor is listed as "Fire GL" and its successor as "FirePro Terascale," but no performance data bridges those generations. What can be said is that the architecture (Ultra-Threaded SE) and the 90 nm process node (TSMC foundry, 107 million transistors on a 100 mm² die) indicate a mid-2000s design philosophy focused on power efficiency rather than raw throughput. The transistor density of 1.1M / mm² is low by modern standards, further confirming that this is a primitive part by today’s metrics.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the ATI FireGL V3300?

A: The card has a memory bandwidth of 6.400 GB/s, achieved with 128 MB of DDR2 memory on a 64-bit bus running at 400 MHz (800 Mbps effective).

Q: Does this card support DirectX 11 or Vulkan?

A: No. The API support is limited to DirectX 9.0c (feature level 9_3) and OpenGL 2.1. Vulkan is not listed as supported.

Q: What is the pixel fill rate, and what does it mean?

A: The pixel rate is 2.400 GPixel/s. This means the card can fill up to 2.4 billion pixels per second, which is a modest figure suitable for low-resolution, fill-rate-bound tasks like basic 2D rendering or legacy 3D viewports.

Q: How many display outputs does it have?

A: The card has 2x DVI outputs, allowing for a dual-monitor setup.

Q: What is the power connector requirement?

A: The card requires no auxiliary power connectors. The suggested PSU is 200 W, and it occupies a single slot.

Q: When was this card released?

A: The release date is listed as September 30, 2005. It is now end-of-life.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is the most constrained aspect of the FireGL V3300. It consists of 128 MB of DDR2 memory, which is a minimal capacity for any 3D workload, and is accessed via a 64-bit bus. The memory clock is 400 MHz, translating to an 800 Mbps effective data rate, which yields a bandwidth of exactly 6.400 GB/s. This is a very narrow pipe; to put it in context, modern entry-level cards have bandwidth figures an order of magnitude higher, but the data does not provide those numbers for comparison.

For high-resolution work, this subsystem is a hard bottleneck. At 1600x1200 or higher, the 128 MB buffer will be exhausted quickly by any texture-heavy scene, forcing constant swapping. The 64-bit bus further compounds this, as each memory access transfers half the data of a 128-bit part. The implication is that this card is strictly for low-resolution, low-texture workloads. The 2.400 GPixel/s fill rate can keep pace with the memory bandwidth in simple scenes, but any scenario requiring more than a few hundred megabytes of texture data will bring the card to a crawl. The 6.400 GB/s bandwidth is the definitive ceiling on performance; no amount of shader efficiency can overcome that physical limitation.

Power and Cooling

The FireGL V3300 is a single-slot card with no auxiliary power connectors, drawing all its power from the PCIe 1.0 x16 slot. The suggested PSU rating is 200 W, which is exceptionally low, indicating a power draw that is modest even by 2005 standards. The 90 nm process node and 107 million transistor count suggest a relatively simple chip that does not generate excessive heat, though the fact pack does not list a TDP value. The absence of a TDP is notable; it means the thermal design power is officially undocumented in this database.

The cooling solution is not specified beyond the single-slot form factor, but the lack of power connectors implies a passive or low-profile active cooler would suffice. The 200 W PSU recommendation is a system-level guideline, not a card draw; it accounts for the rest of the system components. For a modern user, this card would be trivial to power, but the data does not provide wattage figures for the card itself, so any claim about actual power consumption would be unsupported. The PCIe 1.0 x16 interface is also a legacy standard, offering lower bandwidth than modern PCIe generations, though this is rarely a bottleneck for a card with such low fill rates.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The FireGL V3300 has no dedicated ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, as those technologies did not exist in the 2005 hardware landscape. The feature set is defined entirely by its fixed-function and early unified shader capabilities, though the fact pack does not list the number of shading units. The card supports DirectX 9.0c with feature level 9_3, which is the last version of DirectX to use a separate pixel and vertex shader pipeline model before the unified shader architecture became standard. OpenGL 2.1 is the highest supported API, which limits compatibility with modern professional software that requires OpenGL 4.x or higher.

For ray tracing, the answer is unequivocal: this card cannot perform it. There is no hardware acceleration, and the API support (DirectX 9.0c, OpenGL 2.1) predates any ray tracing API. The 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs are dedicated to rasterization, not compute. The feature set is thus strictly legacy; it will run very old OpenGL 2.1 applications and DirectX 9c games, but anything newer will be unsupported or severely degraded. The lack of Vulkan support seals its fate as a non-starter for any modern graphics workload. The card’s only modern utility is as a display adapter for 2D output via its dual DVI ports, provided the operating system has drivers for such an old architecture.