NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 is a professional workstation graphics card from the Curie architecture generation, built on a 110 nm process at TSMC. It was released in mid-2005 as part of the Quadro FX x500 line, positioned between the Quadro FX Rankine predecessor and the Quadro FX Tesla successor. The card is now end-of-life, and benchmark results indicate a mid-pack standing at the 50th percentile among all GPUs, with no synthetic benchmark scores recorded in the database.

Memory Subsystem

The Quadro FX 4500 carries 512 MB of GDDR3 memory on a 256-bit bus, producing a memory bandwidth of 33.60 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 525 MHz, translating to 1050 Mbps effective data rate. For a professional card of this era, the 512 MB capacity was substantial, allowing large frame buffer allocations for CAD models and scientific visualizations. The 256-bit interface is a key contributor to the bandwidth figure, though 33.60 GB/s is modest by later standards. At high resolutions, such as 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 typical for workstation displays, the bandwidth becomes a limiting factor when textures and geometry exceed the cache hierarchy. The data shows that while 512 MB is sufficient for many contemporary workloads, scenes with heavy texture usage or multiple viewports can pressure the memory subsystem. The 33.60 GB/s rate also means that anti-aliasing at high resolutions incurs a measurable performance penalty, as the extra pixel samples must be written and read through the same 256-bit path. There is no indication of memory error correction or ECC support in the factory pack, so the discussion must remain on capacity, type, and bandwidth alone.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The Quadro FX 4500 does not include dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores, as those technologies were introduced much later in NVIDIA's product stack. The chip is the G70, which belongs to the Curie architecture, and it implements the DirectX 9.0c (9_3) API and OpenGL 2.1. No Vulkan support is listed, which aligns with the card's 2005 release timeframe. For professional workloads, the absence of hardware-accelerated ray tracing means that any ray tracing tasks must run on the general-purpose shading units, which are not specified in the factory pack. The card does have fixed-function units: 24 texture mapping units and 16 raster output pipelines. These contribute to a pixel rate of 6.880 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 10.32 GTexel/s. The feature set is therefore limited to the DirectX 9.0c feature level, which includes Shader Model 3.0 capabilities. OpenGL 2.1 support allows for standard workstation rendering pipelines of the time, including vertex and fragment programs. The lack of tensor cores means no AI-accelerated features such as deep learning super sampling or neural denoising, which are absent from this generation. The data indicates that the card's rendering capabilities are purely rasterization-based, with no hybrid or fully ray-traced modes available.

Power and Cooling

The Quadro FX 4500 has a thermal design power of 109 W, which requires a suggested power supply unit of 300 W. The card draws power through a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and it occupies a dual-slot cooling solution. The physical dimensions are 230 mm in length (9.1 inches), 111 mm in height (4.4 inches), and 38 mm in width (1.5 inches). The dual-slot design suggests a substantial heatsink and fan assembly, typical for workstation cards that may run sustained compute loads. The 109 W TDP is moderate, and the 300 W PSU recommendation indicates that the rest of the system—CPU, drives, motherboard—must be accounted for within that envelope. The bus interface is PCIe 1.0 x16, which provides adequate bandwidth for the card's memory subsystem. Cooling solutions must be capable of dissipating the 109 W under continuous operation, and the dual-slot height implies the card will block an adjacent expansion slot in most chassis. The 6-pin connector is a single point of power delivery, and users must ensure their power supply has the appropriate cable. No data on noise levels or thermal throttling behavior is available, so the analysis rests on the TDP and physical cooling requirements.

How It Compares

The factory pack lists no nearest rivals for the Quadro FX 4500, meaning there are no direct comparison entries in the database. Therefore, the analysis cannot place it against specific competing products from ATI or other vendors. The absence of nearestRivals data does not diminish the card's historical standing, but it limits the comparative discussion. The predecessor, Quadro FX Rankine, and successor, Quadro FX Tesla, are mentioned by name but without any scores or specifications. Given the lack of rival entries, the position of the Quadro FX 4500 among its contemporaries must be inferred from its own specifications alone. The 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs is a broad indicator, placing it exactly in the middle of the distribution of all GPUs the database tracks. This percentile is not specific to workstation cards, so it reflects a mix of consumer and professional parts. Without nearestRivals, no percentage deltas can be computed, and no statements about being "ahead of" or "behind" another card can be made. The data simply shows a standalone product with defined specifications, leaving the comparative analysis to the benchmark section, which also lacks scores.

Benchmark Performance

The average benchmark score for the Quadro FX 4500 is listed as 0, and there are no individual benchmark entries in the factory pack. This means there are no numerical scores to analyze, and no percentage deltas can be derived. The percentile versus all GPUs is 50, which indicates that the card sits at the median of the database's entire GPU population. However, a percentile without a baseline score is difficult to interpret in absolute terms. The pixel rate of 6.880 GPixel/s and texture rate of 10.32 GTexel/s are the only performance-related numbers available. These rates are derived from the clock speeds and the fixed-function unit counts, but they do not translate directly into application-level benchmark scores. The lack of benchmark data means that any statement about relative performance against rivals is impossible. The card's 50th percentile suggests that half of all GPUs in the database are slower and half are faster, but this is a relative position without a score to anchor it. The factory pack does not list any workload-specific tests, such as SPECviewperf or CAD benchmarks, so the performance analysis must stop at the raw fill rates. The 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs provide a basis for the texture and pixel rates, but the absence of shading unit counts prevents a full compute throughput assessment.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the Quadro FX 4500?

A: The memory bandwidth is 33.60 GB/s, achieved through a 256-bit bus with GDDR3 memory running at 525 MHz (1050 Mbps effective).

Q: Does the Quadro FX 4500 support DirectX 12 or Vulkan?

A: No. The card supports DirectX 9.0c (9_3) and OpenGL 2.1. Vulkan support is not listed in the factory pack.

Q: What is the required power supply wattage for the Quadro FX 4500?

A: The suggested power supply is 300 W, and the card has a TDP of 109 W. It uses a single 6-pin PCIe power connector.

Q: How many display outputs does the Quadro FX 4500 have?

A: The card has two DVI outputs and one S-Video output, for a total of three display connections.

Q: What is the pixel fill rate of the Quadro FX 4500?

A: The pixel rate is 6.880 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 10.32 GTexel/s, based on the 16 ROPs and 24 TMUs.

Q: Is the Quadro FX 4500 still in production?

A: No, the production status is end-of-life. It was released on July 27, 2005, and is part of the Quadro FX Curie (x500) generation.

Q: What is the process node and transistor count of the Quadro FX 4500?

A: The card is built on a 110 nm process at TSMC, with 302 million transistors on a 333 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 906.9K per mm².