GPU Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell and AMD FirePro D700 represent two distinct eras of workstation graphics, separated by over a decade of architectural evolution. The data shows a generational chasm: the RTX PRO 4000 delivers a 594.3% higher Geekbench Vulkan score, yet the FirePro D700 still holds a respectable 71st percentile ranking among all GPUs, showing how well GCN 1.0 aged in legacy workloads. Where the RTX PRO 4000 is an active, single-slot modern powerhouse built on a 5 nm process, the FirePro D700 is an end-of-life, dual-slot relic from the 28 nm era, originally designed for Mac Pro systems.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell than the AMD FirePro D700 in Vulkan?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell scores 194,168 in Geekbench Vulkan, which is 594.3% higher than the FirePro D700’s 27,968. This is the only shared benchmark between the two cards, making it the definitive head-to-head comparison.

Q: Which card has more memory and bandwidth?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell has 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro D700 has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a wider 384-bit bus, but only achieves 263.0 GB/s.

Q: What are the architectural generations of these two GPUs?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell uses the GB203 chip based on Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on TSMC’s 5 nm process. The FirePro D700 uses the Tahiti chip based on GCN 1.0 architecture, built on TSMC’s 28 nm process.

Q: Which card has better raw compute specifications?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell has 8,960 shading units and delivers 36.83 TFLOPS FP32 performance. The FirePro D700 has 2,048 shading units and delivers 3.482 TFLOPS FP32, meaning the newer card has over 10x the raw FP32 throughput.

Q: How do their overall benchmark averages compare?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell has an average benchmark score of 27,135, placing it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. The FirePro D700 has an average score of 25,842, placing it in the 71st percentile, a remarkably close overall ranking despite the massive generational gap.

Q: What are the power and physical requirements?

A: The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell has a 140 W TDP, is single-slot, and requires a 300 W PSU with a 1x 16-pin connector. The FirePro D700 has a 274 W TDP, is dual-slot, and requires a 600 W PSU, though its power connector type is not listed.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is immense, reflecting an 11-year evolution in graphics technology. The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell is built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, packing 45,600 million transistors into a 378 mm² die for a density of 120.6 million transistors per mm². The FirePro D700 uses the aging 28 nm process, with 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, achieving just 12.3 million transistors per mm², a roughly 10x density advantage for the newer card.

The Blackwell architecture brings dedicated hardware that simply did not exist in GCN 1.0. The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell has 70 RT cores for ray tracing and 280 tensor cores for AI acceleration, while the FirePro D700 has none. This is a fundamental feature divergence: the Blackwell card can accelerate modern workloads like real-time ray tracing and neural rendering, whereas the FirePro D700 is purely a traditional rasterization GPU.

The memory subsystem is also radically different. The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell uses 24 GB of GDDR7 memory with 672.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the FirePro D700 has 6 GB of GDDR5 with 263.0 GB/s. Interestingly, the FirePro D700 uses a wider 384-bit bus versus the Blackwell’s 192-bit bus, but the newer GDDR7 memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) compared to the older GDDR5 at 1370 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective), more than compensating for the narrower bus.

The feature sets reflect their respective eras. The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and has 4x DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, plus PCIe 5.0 x16 connectivity. The FirePro D700 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_1), Vulkan 1.2.170, and has 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 plus 1x SDI outputs, running on PCIe 3.0 x16. The Blackwell card is single-slot and 241 mm long, while the FirePro is dual-slot and 279 mm long.

The Verdict

The data overwhelmingly favors the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell for virtually any modern workload. Its 594.3% lead in Geekbench Vulkan is not incremental, it is transformative. The 24 GB GDDR7 memory with 672.0 GB/s bandwidth provides 4x the capacity and over 2.5x the bandwidth of the FirePro D700’s 6 GB GDDR5. The 36.83 TFLOPS FP32 performance versus 3.482 TFLOPS is a 10.6x advantage, and the addition of RT and tensor cores opens entirely new compute domains the FirePro cannot access.

The AMD FirePro D700 is a legacy product, now end-of-life, with its successor listed as Radeon Instinct. Its only saving grace is its 71st percentile ranking, which shows it still performs respectably for its age, particularly in OpenCL workloads where it scores 23,716 in Geekbench OpenCL (a test the RTX PRO 4000 does not have a listed score for). However, its 6 GB memory capacity is a hard limitation for modern datasets, and its 274 W TDP with a 600 W PSU recommendation makes it less efficient than the 140 W Blackwell card.

For any buyer choosing between these two today, the RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell is the only rational choice. It is active in production, smaller, more power-efficient, and vastly more capable. The FirePro D700 should only be considered for legacy system compatibility or specific OpenCL workloads where its 6x mini-DisplayPort outputs and SDI connectivity might be required, but even then, its end-of-life status and dual-slot footprint are significant drawbacks.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell | AMD FirePro D700 |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Blackwell 2.0 | GCN 1.0 |

| Process Node | 5 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 45,600 million | 4,313 million |

| Die Size | 378 mm² | 352 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 120.6M / mm² | 12.3M / mm² |

| Memory Size | 24 GB | 6 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR7 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus | 192 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 672.0 GB/s | 263.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 8,960 | 2,048 |

| TMUs | 280 | 128 |

| ROPs | 96 | 32 |

| RT Cores | 70 | None |

| Tensor Cores | 280 | None |

| Pixel Rate | 197.3 GPixel/s | 27.20 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 575.4 GTexel/s | 108.8 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 36.83 TFLOPS | 3.482 TFLOPS |

| TDP | 140 W | 274 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Dual-slot |

| Power Connector | 1x 16-pin | Not listed |

| Suggested PSU | 300 W | 600 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 5.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | 4x DisplayPort 2.1b | 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2, 1x SDI |

| DirectX Support | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (11_1) |

| Vulkan Support | 1.4 | 1.2.170 |

| Production Status | Active | End-of-life |

| Release Date | 2025-03-17 | 2014-01-17 |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only one benchmark test is shared between these two GPUs, but it is decisive. In Geekbench Vulkan, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell scores 194,168, while the AMD FirePro D700 scores 27,968. This represents a 594.3% advantage for the Blackwell card, a gap so large it reflects not just faster clocks or more cores, but a completely different compute paradigm. The RTX PRO 4000 can execute Vulkan workloads nearly seven times faster, which translates directly to faster rendering, compute, and AI inference in any modern application that leverages this API.

Beyond the shared benchmark, the individual benchmark suites tell a complementary story. The RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell shows strong results across the Passmark suite, scoring 28,427 in G3D, 14,805 in GPU Compute, 1,265 in G2D, and 354 in DirectX 9. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 4,648. The FirePro D700 has no listed Passmark or 3DMark results, so those comparisons cannot be drawn, but the Vulkan result alone is sufficient to establish hierarchy.

The FirePro D700 does have one unique data point: a Geekbench OpenCL score of 23,716. This suggests that in OpenCL-specific workloads, the older card retains some utility, though without a comparable RTX PRO 4000 result, the relative performance is unknown. Given the 594.3% Vulkan deficit and the 10.6x FP32 gap, it is reasonable to infer that the Blackwell card would dominate OpenCL as well, but the data does not explicitly confirm this.

In terms of overall standing, the RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell’s average benchmark score of 27,135 puts it 1.7% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A4000 (26,683) and only 1.1% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (27,425). The FirePro D700’s average of 25,842 places it 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 (25,726), showing that the older card still competes with much newer mid-range GPUs in aggregate scoring. However, the single Vulkan benchmark where they directly compare leaves no ambiguity: the RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell is in a different performance class entirely.