AMD's 2012 Dual-GPU FirePro S10000 Tested in Current Games
The RandomGaminginHD YouTube channel has tested AMD's FirePro S10000 graphics card from 2012, a dual-GPU card, to attest to the viability of the modern gaming titles. The graphics card essentially clubs two Radeon HD 7950 GPUs on a single board, producing interesting benchmarks while also creating a technical disaster.
Gaming Performance and Limitations
The FirePro S10000 managed to score around 30 FPS in the game ARC Raiders; however, a major limitation that surfaced during testing was that only one of the two Tahiti-based GPUs on the card was operational. The implication is that at most half of the processing power of the card was actually utilized, as modern games and driver did not properly support dual-GPU configuration.
Compatibility Challenges
The old hardware had to face some complex modifications to let it run with newer games. It highlighted the complexity of using legacy professional hardware outside of its intended software environment.
- Driver Modification The official support for the FirePro S10000 ceased with FirePro 17.4 drivers. For better optimization, we had to flash the card's BIOS in order to trick the system into accepting newer AMD Adrenalin drivers.
- Operating System Required The card turned out to be incompatible with Windows 11. The only way it worked properly was with Windows 10.
Anomalies After Modification
Some oddities still occurred even after applying the modifications, such as the GPU-Z utility displaying two different names at the same time for the graphics card, the S10000 and W9000 X2, demonstrating how much the system was confused by the modified legacy card.
