AMD FirePro D700 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell Comparison
AMD FirePro D700
RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
Analysis: AMD FirePro D700 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell
The AMD FirePro D700 is a legacy workstation card built on GCN 1.0, while the NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell is a modern, active-generation solution. Benchmark data shows a decisive performance gap: the RTX PRO 2000 delivers roughly 4.5 times the OpenCL score and over 4 times the Vulkan score of the FirePro D700. With a 70th percentile ranking versus 71st for the FirePro, the RTX PRO 2000 achieves far higher raw performance while occupying a similar overall standing among all GPUs, reflecting the vastly different competitive landscapes of their respective eras.
FAQ
Q: Which GPU is faster in compute workloads?
A: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell is overwhelmingly faster. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 106,087 versus the FirePro D700’s 23,716, a 77.6% lead. In Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 113,865 versus 27,968, a 75.4% advantage.
Q: How do their memory subsystems compare?
A: The RTX PRO 2000 has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. The FirePro D700 has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, providing 263.0 GB/s. Despite the narrower bus, the newer GDDR7 memory gives the RTX PRO 2000 higher total bandwidth.
Q: What are their transistor counts and die sizes?
A: The RTX PRO 2000 packs 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die, using a 5 nm process. The FirePro D700 has 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, built on a 28 nm process. This gives the RTX PRO 2000 a transistor density of 121.0M / mm² versus 12.3M / mm².
Q: Which card has more shading units?
A: The RTX PRO 2000 has 4,352 shading units, more than double the FirePro D700’s 2,048. It also has 136 texture mapping units and 48 ROPs, compared to 128 TMUs and 32 ROPs on the FirePro.
Q: Do they support the same APIs?
A: No. The RTX PRO 2000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the FirePro D700 supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6.
Q: What are the power requirements?
A: The RTX PRO 2000 has a 70 W TDP and requires a 250 W suggested PSU, with no power connectors needed. The FirePro D700 has a 274 W TDP and requires a 600 W suggested PSU.
Architecture Differences
The architectural gap between these two cards is generational. The FirePro D700 is built on GCN 1.0 with the Tahiti chip, fabricated on TSMC’s 28 nm process. In contrast, the RTX PRO 2000 uses the GB206 chip with Blackwell 2.0 architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process at the same foundry.
Transistor integration tells the story of progress. The RTX PRO 2000 contains 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die, achieving a density of 121.0M / mm². The FirePro D700 holds 4,313 million transistors on a much larger 352 mm² die, with a density of just 12.3M / mm². This 10x density advantage enables the RTX PRO 2000 to fit far more compute resources into a smaller physical footprint.
The RTX PRO 2000 introduces dedicated hardware absent from the older card. It has 34 ray tracing cores and 136 tensor cores, features the FirePro D700 lacks entirely. These enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads, which the GCN-based FirePro cannot accelerate. The shading unit count also diverges sharply: 4,352 on the RTX PRO 2000 versus 2,048 on the FirePro D700, along with 136 TMUs versus 128 and 48 ROPs versus 32.
Memory architecture reflects different design philosophies. The FirePro D700 uses a wide 384-bit GDDR5 interface with 6 GB, while the RTX PRO 2000 opts for a narrower 128-bit GDDR7 bus with 16 GB. The newer memory type on the RTX PRO 2000 achieves higher bandwidth (288.0 GB/s) than the older, wider interface on the FirePro (263.0 GB/s). Clock behavior also differs: the RTX PRO 2000 has explicit base and boost clocks of 982 MHz and 1957 MHz, while the FirePro D700 lists only a memory clock of 1370 MHz / 5.5 Gbps effective.
Where Each One Wins
Based on the benchmark data, the RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell wins every measured category. The Geekbench OpenCL test shows a 77.6% delta favoring NVIDIA, and the Vulkan test shows a 75.4% delta. The FirePro D700 has zero wins in head-to-head comparisons.
The RTX PRO 2000’s advantages extend beyond raw compute. Its 16 GB memory capacity is more than double the FirePro’s 6 GB, suiting larger datasets and higher-resolution textures. The presence of RT and tensor cores opens up workloads the FirePro cannot handle at all, such as ray-traced rendering and AI inference. The RTX PRO 2000 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, enabling modern graphics features that the FirePro’s DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170 cannot.
The FirePro D700’s legacy is its wide memory bus and 6x mini-DisplayPort outputs, plus an SDI output, which may suit older multi-display setups. However, in every computational benchmark, the RTX PRO 2000 dominates. The data shows no scenario where the FirePro D700 outperforms its rival.
Specification Differences
The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The process node is 5 nm for the RTX PRO 2000 versus 28 nm for the FirePro D700. Transistor count is 21,900 million versus 4,313 million, and die size is 181 mm² versus 352 mm².
Clock speeds differ significantly. The RTX PRO 2000 has a base clock of 982 MHz and a boost clock of 1957 MHz, while the FirePro D700 has no listed base or boost clock. Memory clocks also differ: 1125 MHz / 18 Gbps effective on the RTX PRO 2000 versus 1370 MHz / 5.5 Gbps effective on the FirePro.
Memory capacity, type, and bus width all favor the newer card: 16 GB GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus versus 6 GB GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus. Bandwidth is 288.0 GB/s versus 263.0 GB/s. The RTX PRO 2000 has 4,352 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, while the FirePro has 2,048, 128, and 32, respectively. The RTX PRO 2000 adds 34 RT cores and 136 tensor cores; the FirePro has none.
Pixel and texture rates are far higher on the RTX PRO 2000: 93.94 GPixel/s and 266.2 GTexel/s versus 27.20 GPixel/s and 108.8 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 17.03 TFLOPS versus 3.482 TFLOPS, and the RTX PRO 2000 also offers FP16 at 17.03 TFLOPS (1:1), which the FirePro lacks.
Power and physical specs diverge wildly. The RTX PRO 2000 has a 70 W TDP, no power connectors, and a 250 W suggested PSU, while the FirePro D700 has a 274 W TDP and a 600 W suggested PSU. The RTX PRO 2000 is much smaller at 167 mm length, 69 mm height, and 20 mm width, versus the FirePro’s 279 mm length. Both are dual-slot. The RTX PRO 2000 uses PCIe 5.0 x8, while the FirePro uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are 4x mini-DisplayPort 2.1b on the RTX PRO 2000 versus 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 and 1x SDI on the FirePro.
Head-to-Head Benchmarks
The Geekbench OpenCL benchmark demonstrates a generational chasm. The RTX PRO 2000 scores 106,087, while the FirePro D700 manages 23,716. That is a 77.6% delta in favor of NVIDIA. In absolute terms, the RTX PRO 2000 achieves more than four times the compute score, reflecting its 4,352 shading units and 17.03 TFLOPS FP32 capability versus the FirePro’s 2,048 units and 3.482 TFLOPS.
Geekbench Vulkan shows similar dominance. The RTX PRO 2000 scores 113,865, compared to the FirePro D700’s 27,968, a 75.4% delta. The Vulkan API benefits from the RTX PRO 2000’s newer architecture and support for Vulkan 1.4, while the FirePro is limited to Vulkan 1.2.170. The RTX PRO 2000’s score is over four times higher, again consistent with its 4.9x advantage in FP32 throughput.
Beyond the head-to-head tests, the RTX PRO 2000 has additional benchmark data points. It scores 20,049 in Passmark G3D, 8,396 in Passmark GPU Compute, and 1,303 in Passmark G2D. Its DirectX 12 score is 80, DirectX 11 is 174, DirectX 10 is 122, and DirectX 9 is 241. The FirePro D700 has no additional benchmark scores beyond the two Geekbench tests.
The nearest rivals for each card put the results in context. The FirePro D700’s average benchmark score of 25,842 sits close to the AMD FirePro W7100 (25,856, -0.1%), AMD Radeon R9 M395X (25,891, -0.2%), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile (25,740, +0.4%). The RTX PRO 2000’s average of 25,269 is slightly lower than its nearest rivals, including the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25,633, -1.4%) and AMD Radeon Pro W5700 (25,726, -1.8%). This shows that while the RTX PRO 2000 crushes the FirePro D700, it does not lead its own contemporary pack in average score.
The Verdict
The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell is the superior GPU for any modern workload. It delivers more than four times the compute performance in both OpenCL and Vulkan, offers more than double the memory capacity, and adds dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores that the FirePro D700 cannot match. Its 17.03 TFLOPS FP32 performance dwarfs the FirePro’s 3.482 TFLOPS, and its memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s exceeds the FirePro’s 263.0 GB/s despite a narrower bus.
The FirePro D700 is an end-of-life product from 2014, built on a 28 nm process with GCN 1.0 architecture. Its 6 GB of GDDR5 memory and 2,048 shading units are insufficient for contemporary demands. The only areas where the FirePro shows any advantage are its wider 384-bit memory bus and additional display outputs (6x mini-DisplayPort plus SDI), which may appeal to niche legacy multi-monitor configurations.
For any user choosing between these two, the RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell is the clear pick. It is an active product with modern API support, lower power consumption (70 W versus 274 W), a smaller footprint, and vastly superior benchmark scores. The RTX PRO 2000’s 70th percentile ranking versus the FirePro’s 71st suggests they occupy similar relative standing among all GPUs, but the absolute performance difference is enormous. The FirePro D700 should only be considered for legacy system compatibility, and even then, its performance limitations are severe. The verdict is straightforward: the RTX PRO 2000 wins decisively in every benchmark category.