ATI Mobility FireGL V5700

The ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 is an AMD mobile workstation GPU built on the TeraScale architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 55 nm process. The M86 chip packs 378 million transistors into a 135 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 2.8M per square millimeter. Released on 2008-01-06, the card now carries end-of-life production status, with the FirePro Mobility line listed as its successor. The benchmark database places it at the 50th percentile of all GPUs tracked, meaning it sits exactly at the median of the performance distribution — neither a standout nor a laggard. Its average benchmark score is recorded as 0, and the fact pack provides no direct rival comparisons, so the percentile rank and the card's own specifications are the primary analytical tools available.

Who Should Consider It

The 50th percentile ranking positions the Mobility FireGL V5700 as a median performer among all GPUs in the database. This is not a card that leads in any metric; rather, it occupies the middle ground, suitable for workloads that do not push the boundaries of graphics processing. The FP32 throughput of 144.0 GFLOPS, a pixel rate of 2.400 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 4.800 GTexel/s define a compute and rasterization envelope that matches mainstream tasks from its era.

With 512 MB of GDDR3 memory on a 128-bit interface, the card is best suited to moderate resolutions and conservative settings. The DirectX 10.1 (10_1) and OpenGL 3.3 API support targets software contemporary with its 2008 release. Users running legacy workstation applications that rely on OpenGL 3.3 will find the feature set adequate; those needing Vulkan support will not, as the fact pack lists no Vulkan capability. For modern high-resolution gaming or compute-heavy rendering, the data indicates the card will be a limiting factor. The 512 MB framebuffer and 22.40 GB/s bandwidth constrain texture-heavy scenes, while the lack of dedicated ray tracing hardware rules out hardware-accelerated RT workloads entirely.

The end-of-life status and 2008 release date suggest the intended audience is users maintaining legacy environments or retro systems where the TeraScale-era API support aligns with the software in use. For anyone expecting current-generation performance, the 50th percentile rank and the modest specifications make clear this is not the right tool.

Memory Subsystem

The Mobility FireGL V5700 ships with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. The memory clock runs at 700 MHz, which translates to 1400 Mbps effective. The bus width is 128 bit, and the resulting bandwidth is 22.40 GB/s. These figures define the card's memory subsystem and its practical limits.

For high resolutions, the 512 MB capacity is the first constraint. A large framebuffer at elevated resolutions will exhaust the available memory quickly, forcing the GPU to spill data to system memory over the PCIe 2.0 x16 interface, which is far slower than the dedicated VRAM. The 22.40 GB/s bandwidth compounds this issue; texture streaming and large geometry datasets require sustained memory throughput that this figure cannot provide at high settings. The 128-bit bus width caps the data transfer rate, so even if the memory clock were higher, the narrow interface would remain a bottleneck.

The interaction between memory bandwidth and the card's rasterization rates is telling. The pixel rate of 2.400 GPixel/s and texture rate of 4.800 GTexel/s are low enough that the 22.40 GB/s bandwidth is not grossly mismatched for the card's era. At lower resolutions, where the framebuffer footprint is smaller and texture working sets fit within 512 MB, the memory subsystem can keep pace with the shading units. At higher resolutions, the balance tips, and memory becomes the dominant constraint.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The fact pack lists no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores for the Mobility FireGL V5700. This absence is consistent with the TeraScale architecture, which predates dedicated ray tracing and AI acceleration hardware. The card's feature set is therefore defined entirely by its general-purpose shading units and API support.

The shading unit count is 120, paired with 8 texture mapping units and 4 render output units. The FP32 throughput is 144.0 GFLOPS, which represents the card's total compute capacity for both traditional rasterization and any non-hardware-accelerated ray tracing or AI workloads. Without RT cores, any ray-traced effects would have to be computed on the shader units, and 144.0 GFLOPS provides limited headroom for such math-intensive tasks.

On the API front, the card supports DirectX 10.1 (10_1) and OpenGL 3.3. There is no Vulkan support listed. This means applications built on Vulkan will not run at all, while DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 titles from the card's contemporary period will run as intended. The API set is a hard boundary: software requiring newer API versions is excluded, and software from the DirectX 10.1 / OpenGL 3.3 generation is the card's native domain.

How It Compares

The fact pack's nearestRivals field is empty, so no named rival products, scores, or deltaPct values are available for comparison. The only positional metric is the 50th percentile rank against all GPUs in the database. This places the card exactly at the median of the performance distribution — half of tracked GPUs are faster, half are slower. Without rival-specific data, the comparison must be drawn from the card's own specifications and its percentile standing.

The 144.0 GFLOPS FP32 throughput, 2.400 GPixel/s pixel rate, and 4.800 GTexel/s texture rate define its raw capabilities. The 512 MB memory capacity and 22.40 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors in memory-bound scenarios. Against the broader database population, the 50th percentile rank suggests the card holds a middle position, but the TeraScale architecture's API limitations — DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 only, with no Vulkan — narrow its applicability to modern workloads far more than the raw performance rank implies.

The absence of listed rivals means no deltaPct figures can be cited. The percentile rank is the sole comparative metric available, and it indicates a card that is unremarkable within the full GPU population but potentially adequate within its specific era and workstation segment.

Power and Cooling

The fact pack does not list a TDP for the Mobility FireGL V5700. No suggested PSU rating and no power connector requirements are provided either. The only interface-related specification is the PCIe 2.0 x16 bus interface, which indicates the card connects through a standard PCIe slot.

Because no TDP figure is given, the data cannot quantify the card's thermal output or power draw. The 55 nm process node from TSMC is the only manufacturing detail relevant to power characteristics; smaller process nodes generally reduce power consumption, but without a TDP number, no specific wattage claim can be made. The absence of power connector information suggests the card may draw its power solely from the PCIe slot, but the data does not confirm this. Similarly, no slot width, length, or cooler specifications are provided, so the physical cooling requirements cannot be assessed from the fact pack.

For a mobile workstation part from the 55 nm era, the thermal envelope is likely modest, but the data supports no quantitative statement. Users planning a system around this card should note that the fact pack provides no power or cooling guidance.

FAQ

Q: What type and amount of memory does the ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 have?

A: It has 512 MB of GDDR3 memory on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 22.40 GB/s and a memory clock of 700 MHz (1400 Mbps effective).

Q: Does the card support Vulkan?

A: No. The supported APIs are DirectX 10.1 (10_1) and OpenGL 3.3; no Vulkan support is listed.

Q: When was this GPU released, and is it still in production?

A: It was released on 2008-01-06 and is now end-of-life. Its successor is the FirePro Mobility line.

Q: Does it have ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No. The fact pack lists no RT cores and no tensor cores; the architecture is TeraScale, which predates dedicated ray tracing hardware.

Q: What is the manufacturing process and die size?

A: It is fabricated by TSMC on a 55 nm process. The chip (M86) contains 378 million transistors on a 135 mm² die, for a transistor density of 2.8M per square millimeter.

Q: What is the card's performance percentile?

A: It sits at the 50th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 0.