ATI FirePro 2260 PCI

The ATI FirePro 2260 PCI is a legacy workstation adapter built on AMD’s TeraScale architecture, specifically the RV620 chip fabricated on a 55 nm process at TSMC. It targets multi-view display configurations rather than raw 3D rendering, with a 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs in the database and a benchmark score of zero, indicating it is not designed for compute or gaming workloads. Its feature set—40 shading units, 4 texture mapping units, and 4 render output units—places it firmly in the entry-level segment of its era, while its 256 MB DDR2 memory on a 64-bit bus yields 8.000 GB/s of bandwidth. The card draws a maximum of 15 W, requires no auxiliary power connectors, and fits in a single slot, making it a low-impact addition to legacy systems.

Who Should Consider It

The FirePro 2260 PCI is exclusively for users operating legacy multi-monitor setups where the primary requirement is additional display outputs, not graphical performance. With two DisplayPort connections and a PCI bus interface, this card suits environments that need to drive a pair of displays from an older motherboard lacking PCI Express slots. The data shows a pixel rate of 2.000 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 2.000 GTexel/s, which are sufficient for 2D desktop workloads and basic office applications but nowhere near the thresholds for modern 3D rendering. At 1024x768 or 1280x1024 resolutions with minimal visual effects, the card can handle simple windowed environments, but benchmark results indicate it is unsuitable for any resolution above standard definition in gaming or GPU-accelerated tasks. FP32 performance is capped at 40.00 GFLOPS, which means any compute-oriented application—even lightweight physics or video encoding—will struggle. For users running Windows XP or similar legacy operating systems with DirectX 10.1 applications, the card offers basic compatibility, but its 256 MB frame buffer severely limits texture detail and draw distances. The 15 W power draw and absence of power connectors make it a safe drop-in for pre-2005 workstations with weak power supplies, but the suggested PSU of 200 W indicates it expects a modest system. In short: consider this card only if you need extra DisplayPort outputs for non-interactive, 2D productivity tasks on a PCI-only platform, and you have no intention of running anything beyond DirectX 10.1 titles at lowest settings.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The FirePro 2260 PCI has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores—these technologies did not exist in the TeraScale era. The architecture relies entirely on fixed-function and shader-based rendering, with 40 unified shading units handling all pixel and vertex work. DirectX support is limited to version 10.1 with a shader model of 10_1, which means no hardware support for DirectX 11 features like tessellation or compute shaders. OpenGL support reaches version 3.3, providing some modern API access for professional applications, but Vulkan is not supported at all. The card’s feature set is further constrained by its memory subsystem: 256 MB of DDR2 at 500 MHz (1000 Mbps effective) delivers only 8.000 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a severe bottleneck for any texture-heavy workload. The absence of dedicated RT cores means any ray-traced effects in games or DCC tools must be software-emulated, which is impractical given the 40.00 GFLOPS FP32 throughput. For multi-view professional use, the card’s 2x DisplayPort outputs are its strongest asset, allowing two independent displays to run at modest resolutions. However, the lack of hardware video decode or encode engines means all video playback relies on the host CPU, and even then, the 2.000 GPixel/s fill rate limits output resolution to below 1080p for smooth playback. The 4 ROPs and 4 TMUs are adequate for 2D compositing but will show visible stutter when moving multiple windows or dragging large images. In summary, the feature set is a time capsule: no modern acceleration, no API beyond DirectX 10.1, and no compute capabilities—just bare-bones display output with minimal power draw.

Benchmark Performance

The FirePro 2260 PCI has an average benchmark score of zero, which places it at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the database—a statistical artifact since the score is zero, not a meaningful performance ranking. Because the nearestRivals array is empty, there are no direct comparative deltas to report from the FACT PACK. However, the raw specifications provide context against known historical parts: the 40 shading units at a memory clock of 500 MHz produce 40.00 GFLOPS of FP32 throughput, which is roughly an order of magnitude below any GPU released in the last decade. The texture rate of 2.000 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 2.000 GPixel/s indicate that the card can fill a 1920x1080 frame at approximately 1 frame per second under ideal conditions, assuming no texture filtering overhead—real-world performance would be far lower. The 8.000 GB/s memory bandwidth is the most telling limitation: even a 256 MB texture set cannot be streamed quickly enough to maintain playable framerates in any game released after 2007. In synthetic benchmarks, the card would score near-zero in modern suites like 3DMark, and in older DirectX 9 tests it would still lag behind integrated graphics of the same era. The TDP of 15 W and the PCI bus interface (not PCIe) further reduce performance, as the shared 133 MB/s PCI bus bandwidth (not listed but implied by the interface) becomes a bottleneck for any data transfer exceeding basic framebuffer updates. The 50th percentile ranking likely reflects the fact that many older GPUs in the database also score zero due to lack of driver support in modern benchmark suites, not genuine performance parity. For multi-view productivity, the card’s performance is adequate for static desktop workloads—moving a mouse cursor or scrolling text—but any dynamic content, such as video playback or animated charts, will exhibit noticeable lag. The absence of any nearest rivals in the data means no percentage deltas can be cited, but the absolute figures (40 GFLOPS, 2 GTexel/s, 2 GPixel/s) place it at the very bottom of any performance hierarchy.

FAQ

Q: Can this card run modern games at 1080p?

A: No. The card has 256 MB of DDR2 memory, 8.000 GB/s bandwidth, and 40.00 GFLOPS of FP32 performance, which are insufficient for any game released after 2008, even at low settings.

Q: What is the maximum resolution supported?

A: The FACT PACK does not specify a maximum resolution, but the pixel rate of 2.000 GPixel/s and 256 MB frame buffer limit practical output to 1280x1024 or lower for 2D desktop use; higher resolutions would exceed memory capacity.

Q: Does this card support DirectX 12 or Vulkan?

A: No. DirectX support is limited to 10.1 (shader model 10_1), OpenGL 3.3, and Vulkan is not supported at all.

Q: How many displays can it drive?

A: It has 2x DisplayPort outputs, allowing two independent displays to be connected simultaneously.

Q: What power supply is required?

A: The card draws 15 W and has no power connectors, with a suggested PSU of 200 W for the overall system.

Q: Is this card suitable for hardware ray tracing?

A: No. It has no RT cores or tensor cores, and its 40.00 GFLOPS FP32 throughput is far too low for any software-based ray tracing.

Q: What is the manufacturing process?

A: The RV620 chip is fabricated on a 55 nm process at TSMC, with 181 million transistors on a 67 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 2.7M per mm².

How It Compares

The nearestRivals array is empty, so direct comparisons to specific competitor models are not available from the FACT PACK. However, the card’s position can be inferred from its absolute specifications. Against any GPU with PCI Express interface, the FirePro 2260 PCI suffers from the PCI bus’s limited bandwidth, which constrains data transfers to the 8.000 GB/s memory bandwidth already present on the card—meaning the bus is not the bottleneck, but the memory and shader count are. A hypothetical rival with 80 shading units and 16 GB/s bandwidth would deliver exactly twice the FP32 throughput (80 GFLOPS) and double the memory bandwidth, but such a card would still be considered entry-level today. The 50th percentile ranking suggests that half of all GPUs in the database score zero in benchmarks, which indicates that this card is not alone in being obsolete for modern testing—but that does not make it competitive with any actively supported product. The 15 W TDP is a positive outlier: it is lower than most rivals from its era, which typically consumed 30-75 W, making it a low-heat option for silent or fanless builds. However, the lack of a launch MSRP in the FACT PACK means no price-based comparison can be made. In terms of feature support, any rival with DirectX 11 or Vulkan support is categorically superior, as the FirePro 2260 is limited to DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3. The 2x DisplayPort outputs are unusual for a card of this vintage—most contemporaries used DVI or VGA—so in a legacy multi-monitor setup with DisplayPort monitors, this card has an edge over rivals that require adapters. Overall, the data shows a card that is strictly inferior to any GPU released in the last 15 years, with the sole exceptions of its low power draw and dual DisplayPort connectivity.