AMD FirePro D700 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile Comparison

The AMD FirePro D700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile represent two vastly different eras of GPU design, and the benchmark data reflects a decisive generational shift. While the FirePro D700 was a professional workstation card from 2014 built on GCN 1.0, the RTX 3080 Mobile is a 2021 Ampere-based laptop part with modern features like ray tracing and tensor cores. In the two shared benchmarks, the NVIDIA GPU dominates by a wide margin, yet the AMD card still holds its own in the 71st percentile of all GPUs, showing that its legacy compute strengths remain relevant.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data shows a complete sweep for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile in the only two benchmark tests where both cards have results. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3080 Mobile scores 104,831, while the FirePro D700 manages just 23,716. This represents a delta of -77.4% for the AMD card, meaning the NVIDIA GPU is roughly 4.4 times faster in this compute workload. The gap is substantial but not unexpected given the architectural differences: the RTX 3080 Mobile packs 6,144 shading units against the FirePro’s 2,048, and its 18.98 TFLOPS of FP32 performance dwarfs the AMD card’s 3.482 TFLOPS.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, though with a slightly smaller margin. The RTX 3080 Mobile scores 104,066 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the FirePro D700 posts 27,968 — a delta of -73.1%. This 3.7x advantage for the NVIDIA part highlights how well Ampere scales across different API workloads. Interestingly, the FirePro D700’s Vulkan score is actually higher than its OpenCL score, suggesting that GCN 1.0’s Vulkan implementation was relatively efficient for its time, even if the absolute numbers are far behind.

The RTX 3080 Mobile’s average benchmark score of 23,628 puts it in the 69th percentile of all GPUs, while the FirePro D700’s average of 25,842 lands it in the 71st percentile. This is a curious inversion: despite losing both head-to-head tests by enormous margins, the FirePro D700 has a higher average score and percentile ranking. This is because the AMD card’s average is pulled up by its two strong results, while the RTX 3080 Mobile’s average includes several lower-scoring Passmark tests, such as 120 in DirectX 10 and 72 in DirectX 12, which drag its mean down. The data suggests that the RTX 3080 Mobile excels in modern compute-heavy workloads but has weaker legacy DirectX performance relative to its peak capabilities.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3080 Mobile wins decisively in raw compute throughput, particularly in OpenCL and Vulkan, where it outperforms the FirePro D700 by 77.4% and 73.1%, respectively. This makes it the clear choice for general-purpose GPU computing, machine learning inference, and any workload that leverages modern APIs. Its 18.98 TFLOPS of FP32 and matching FP16 performance (18.98 TFLOPS, 1:1 ratio) indicate strong performance in both single-precision and half-precision tasks, which is critical for AI and scientific workloads. The presence of 192 tensor cores and 48 RT cores further extends its capability into ray-traced rendering and tensor-accelerated applications, areas where the FirePro D700 has no equivalent hardware.

The FirePro D700, despite its age, still wins in one important metric: consistency across its benchmark results. Its two scores — 23,716 in OpenCL and 27,968 in Vulkan — are relatively close, showing that GCN 1.0 delivers stable performance across different API environments. In contrast, the RTX 3080 Mobile’s Passmark scores vary wildly, from 170 in DirectX 9 to just 72 in DirectX 12, with a high of 16,321 in G3D. This suggests the NVIDIA card’s performance is more workload-dependent, potentially due to driver optimization or power management characteristics in mobile form factors. For users with legacy applications that rely on older DirectX versions, the FirePro D700’s more even performance profile might be preferable, though its absolute numbers are far lower.

The FirePro D700 also wins on display connectivity, offering 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 and 1x SDI outputs, which is a professional feature set designed for multi-monitor setups and broadcast environments. The RTX 3080 Mobile, being a laptop part, has display outputs that are "Portable Device Dependent," meaning they vary by the specific laptop design. For workstation users needing multiple simultaneous high-resolution displays, the FirePro D700’s dedicated output configuration is a clear advantage.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is enormous, reflecting seven years of GPU development. The FirePro D700 uses the Tahiti chip based on GCN 1.0 architecture, manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It contains 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, giving it a transistor density of 12.3 million per mm². The RTX 3080 Mobile, by contrast, uses the GA104 chip based on Ampere architecture, manufactured on an 8 nm process at Samsung. This newer node allows for 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 44.4 million per mm² — a 3.6x improvement in packing density.

The memory architectures differ fundamentally as well. The FirePro D700 uses 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 263.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3080 Mobile uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, but thanks to faster memory clocks (14 Gbps effective versus 5.5 Gbps effective), it achieves 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth — a 70% improvement despite the narrower bus. This bandwidth advantage is critical for high-resolution textures and compute workloads that are memory-bound.

The compute pipelines are also vastly different. The FirePro D700 has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 27.20 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 108.8 GTexel/s. The RTX 3080 Mobile triples the shading units to 6,144, nearly doubles TMUs to 192, and triples ROPs to 96. This results in a pixel rate of 148.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 296.6 GTexel/s — 5.5x and 2.7x the FirePro’s respective rates. The RTX 3080 Mobile also adds specialized hardware that the FirePro lacks entirely: 48 RT cores for ray tracing and 192 tensor cores for AI acceleration.

Specification Differences

The most striking specification difference is in power consumption. The FirePro D700 has a TDP of 274 W and requires a 600 W suggested PSU, making it a power-hungry desktop workstation card. The RTX 3080 Mobile has a TDP of just 115 W and uses no power connectors, reflecting its mobile design. This 159 W difference is remarkable given the RTX 3080 Mobile’s vastly superior performance, showcasing the efficiency gains from the 8 nm process and modern architecture.

The bus interface also differs: the FirePro D700 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the RTX 3080 Mobile uses the newer PCIe 4.0 x16 standard. This doubles the theoretical bandwidth available to the GPU for data transfer with the host system. The FirePro D700 is a dual-slot card measuring 279 mm (11 inches) in length, while the RTX 3080 Mobile has no listed dimensions, as it is designed for integration into laptops.

The API support reflects their respective eras. The FirePro D700 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The RTX 3080 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The DirectX 12 Ultimate designation indicates support for the full feature set, including ray tracing and mesh shaders, which the older DirectX 12 (11_1) on the FirePro cannot provide. Both cards are end-of-life, but the FirePro D700 was released in January 2014, while the RTX 3080 Mobile arrived in January 2021.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile is dramatically faster, scoring 104,831 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 23,716 for the AMD FirePro D700, a 77.4% advantage. In Vulkan, the RTX 3080 Mobile scores 104,066 versus 27,968, a 73.1% lead.

Q: How do their memory bandwidths compare?

A: The RTX 3080 Mobile has 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth from 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, while the FirePro D700 has 263.0 GB/s from 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus. The NVIDIA card delivers 70% more bandwidth despite a narrower bus.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The FirePro D700 has a TDP of 274 W and needs a 600 W PSU, whereas the RTX 3080 Mobile has a TDP of just 115 W and requires no power connectors. The NVIDIA GPU is far more power-efficient.

Q: Does the FirePro D700 have any advantages?

A: Yes, it offers 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 and 1x SDI outputs for professional display setups, and its average benchmark score of 25,842 places it in the 71st percentile, higher than the RTX 3080 Mobile’s 69th percentile.

Q: What specialized hardware does the RTX 3080 Mobile have?

A: It includes 48 RT cores for ray tracing and 192 tensor cores for AI acceleration, neither of which exist on the FirePro D700. It also has 6,144 shading units versus 2,048 on the AMD card.

Q: How do their transistor counts and process nodes differ?

A: The RTX 3080 Mobile uses 17,400 million transistors on an 8 nm Samsung process with a die size of 392 mm² and density of 44.4M/mm². The FirePro D700 uses 4,313 million transistors on a 28 nm TSMC process with a die size of 352 mm² and density of 12.3M/mm².