AMD FirePro D300 vs AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a complete sweep for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT across the two shared tests, with margins that range from decisive to astronomical. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 7700 XT scores 138,383 against the FirePro D300’s 19,515, a delta of 609.1%. That is not a competitive gap; it is a generational chasm. The FirePro D300’s score places it in a completely different performance class, and no amount of driver optimization or workload tuning could bridge that divide.

The Vulkan result is closer in relative terms but still unequivocal. The RX 7700 XT posts 46,443, while the FirePro D300 manages 19,759, giving the newer card a 135% advantage. What is notable here is that the FirePro D300’s Vulkan score is actually slightly higher than its OpenCL score, suggesting the older GCN architecture handles the lower-level API with relative competence. Yet even that favorable comparison leaves it at less than half the RX 7700 XT’s output.

Looking at the broader database context, the RX 7700 XT’s average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 22,549. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile at 22,435 (0.5% behind), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile at 22,729 (0.8% ahead), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 at 22,895 (1.5% ahead). The RX 7700 XT also leads the AMD Radeon RX 5700 by 1.7%. These deltas are small, indicating that the RX 7700 XT sits in a tightly contested performance band where a few percentage points separate it from its direct competition. The card’s percentile rank of 67 among all GPUs places it comfortably above the median but not in the top tier.

The FirePro D300, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 19,637, with a percentile rank of 64. Its nearest rivals are similarly aged or oddly matched hardware: the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 at 19,602 (0.2% behind), the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT at 19,765 (0.6% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX at 19,410 (1.2% behind), and the NVIDIA Tesla K40m at 19,885 (1.2% ahead). The presence of the RX 7900 XTX in that list is striking, suggesting that the FirePro D300’s average is dragged down by its weak OpenCL result, while the 7900 XTX’s average might be affected by specific test conditions. Regardless, the FirePro D300’s performance profile is that of a mid-range workstation card from a bygone era, and the numbers confirm it.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is the superior product in every measurable way. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks, has a higher average score, a better percentile rank, and offers support for modern APIs including DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. The FirePro D300, with its GCN 1.0 architecture, DirectX 12 (11_1) support, and Vulkan 1.2.170, is a legacy part that has been end-of-life for years.

Who should pick the RX 7700 XT? Anyone whose workload involves current-generation gaming, real-time ray tracing, or compute tasks that benefit from RDNA 3.0’s feature set. The card’s 35.17 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, 54 ray-tracing cores, and 12 GB of GDDR6 memory with 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth make it a capable choice for high-resolution gaming and content creation. Its active production status and release date of September 2023 mean it remains a viable current-generation purchase.

Who should pick the FirePro D300? Strictly speaking, only those with legacy software dependencies that require its specific GCN 1.0 feature set, or those maintaining systems that already use the card. Its 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and 162.6 GB/s bandwidth are severely limiting by modern standards. The card’s 2.176 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is less than one-sixteenth of the RX 7700 XT’s output. The FirePro D300’s single-slot design and four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs might appeal to multi-display workstation setups, but the performance penalty is too severe to recommend it for any new deployment.

Architecture Differences

The two cards represent opposite ends of AMD’s architectural timeline. The RX 7700 XT uses the Navi 32 chip built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, packing 28,100 million transistors into a 346 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 81.2 million per square millimeter. The architecture is RDNA 3.0, codenamed Wheat Nas, and it belongs to the Navi III (RX 7000) generation. The FirePro D300 uses the Pitcairn chip on a 28 nm process from the same foundry, with 2,800 million transistors on a 212 mm² die, giving a density of 13.2 million per square millimeter. The architecture is GCN 1.0, and it belongs to the FirePro Data Center (Dx00) generation.

The process node difference alone, 5 nm versus 28 nm, explains a substantial portion of the performance gap. The RX 7700 XT’s base clock is 1435 MHz, with a boost clock of 2544 MHz and a game clock of 2171 MHz. The FirePro D300 has no recorded base or boost clocks in the database, but its memory clock is 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective). The RX 7700 XT’s memory runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), and its 192-bit bus delivers 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth versus the FirePro D300’s 256-bit bus at 162.6 GB/s. Interestingly, the FirePro D300 has a wider memory bus, but the RX 7700 XT’s much faster memory clock more than compensates.

Compute resources tell a similar story. The RX 7700 XT has 3,456 shading units, 216 texture mapping units, 96 render output units, and 54 ray-tracing cores. The FirePro D300 has 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with no ray-tracing cores. Pixel rate is 244.2 GPixel/s for the RX 7700 XT versus 27.20 GPixel/s for the FirePro D300. Texture rate is 549.5 GTexel/s versus 68.00 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 35.17 TFLOPS versus 2.176 TFLOPS. The RX 7700 XT also supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, while the FirePro D300 has no recorded FP16 capability.

The cards differ in physical specifications as well. The RX 7700 XT is dual-slot, requires two 8-pin power connectors, and has a TDP of 245 W with a recommended 550 W power supply. It measures 267 mm in length, 135 mm in height, and 50 mm in width. The FirePro D300 is single-slot, has no recorded power connector requirement, and draws 150 W with a 450 W recommended PSU. It is 242 mm long and 9.5 inches, with no recorded height or width. The RX 7700 XT uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the FirePro D300 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs also diverge: the RX 7700 XT offers one HDMI 2.1a, two DisplayPort 2.1, and one USB Type-C, while the FirePro D300 offers four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

FAQ

Q: Which card performs better in OpenCL compute workloads?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is dramatically ahead, scoring 138,383 versus the FirePro D300’s 19,515 in Geekbench OpenCL, a 609.1% advantage.

Q: Does the FirePro D300 have any ray-tracing capability?

A: No. The FirePro D300 has no ray-tracing cores listed in the database, whereas the RX 7700 XT has 54 dedicated ray-tracing cores.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RX 7700 XT provides 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth from 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus. The FirePro D300 provides 162.6 GB/s from 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus.

Q: Are these cards from the same generation?

A: No. The RX 7700 XT is from the Radeon RX 7000 series using RDNA 3.0 architecture, released in September 2023. The FirePro D300 uses GCN 1.0 architecture and was released in January 2014.

Q: Which card has better Vulkan performance?

A: The RX 7700 XT scores 46,443 in Geekbench Vulkan, a 135% improvement over the FirePro D300’s 19,759.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The RX 7700 XT has a TDP of 245 W and recommends a 550 W power supply. The FirePro D300 has a TDP of 150 W and recommends a 450 W power supply.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT wins in every category where the database has comparative data. Its strengths are most pronounced in modern API workloads. The 609.1% OpenCL lead indicates that compute-heavy applications such as machine learning inference, video encoding, and scientific simulation will run drastically faster on the RX 7700 XT. The 135% Vulkan advantage matters for games and applications that use this low-level API, as well as for future-proofing against upcoming titles that may drop older API support.

The RX 7700 XT also wins on architectural features. Its ray-tracing cores enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which is absent on the FirePro D300. The 12 GB memory capacity allows for larger textures and datasets, and the 432.0 GB/s bandwidth supports high-resolution rendering and multi-monitor setups. The card’s PCIe 4.0 interface doubles the bandwidth available to the FirePro D300’s PCIe 3.0 connection, which can matter for data transfer in workstation scenarios.

The FirePro D300’s only theoretical advantages are physical and legacy-related. Its single-slot design and lower 150 W TDP make it easier to fit into space-constrained or power-limited systems. The four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs could drive up to four displays without adapters, whereas the RX 7700 XT’s output configuration is more modern but not as display-dense. The FirePro D300’s wider 256-bit memory bus is an interesting note, but the actual bandwidth is far lower due to slower memory clocks.

For any real-world use case involving modern software, the RX 7700 XT is the only rational choice. The FirePro D300’s performance level, as reflected in its average score of 19,637, is comparable to entry-level cards from several generations ago. Its production status is end-of-life, meaning no ongoing support or driver optimization is expected. The database’s percentile ranks, 67 versus 64, might suggest closeness, but that is an artifact of the FirePro D300’s limited benchmark count. The head-to-head results show the true scale of the difference.