AMD FirePro M4000 vs AMD Radeon R7 M340 Comparison

The AMD FirePro M4000 and the AMD Radeon R7 M340 are two end-of-life mobile GPUs separated by roughly three years of AMD roadmap positioning, yet the recorded data shows they land surprisingly close together in absolute performance. The FirePro M4000, a GCN 1.0 professional part from the FirePro Mobile generation, holds a clear edge in compute benchmarks, while the Radeon R7 M340, a GCN 3.0 part from the Gem System generation, counters with a newer feature set and twice the memory capacity. Both sit in the lower tier of the database, with percentile placements of 32 and 30 respectively against all GPUs. This comparison breaks down where each card wins and why the older professional part still comes out ahead in the numbers that matter most.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains one direct head-to-head result between these two GPUs, and it goes decisively to the FirePro M4000. In Geekbench OpenCL, the FirePro M4000 scores 5537 against 4932 for the Radeon R7 M340, a 12.3 percent advantage for the older card. That is a meaningful gap at this performance level, and it aligns with the raw specification differences: the M4000 carries 512 shading units against 320, 32 texture mapping units against 20, and 16 render output units against 8. The compute result tracks those hardware advantages almost exactly.

The FirePro's lead extends to theoretical throughput figures. Its FP32 compute is rated at 691.2 GFLOPS, versus 653.4 GFLOPS for the R7 M340, a modest edge on paper that the OpenCL benchmark amplifies considerably. Pixel fill rate favors the M4000 by a wider margin: 10.80 GPixel/s against 8.168 GPixel/s, reflecting the doubled ROP count. Texture fill rate is nearly a wash, with the M4000 at 21.60 GTexel/s and the M340 at 20.42 GTexel/s, because the M340's higher boost clock partially compensates for having fewer texture units.

The single most lopsided difference between the two is memory bandwidth. The FirePro M4000 pairs GDDR5 running at 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective) over a 128-bit bus for 64.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon R7 M340 uses DDR3 at 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective) over a 64-bit bus, delivering just 16.00 GB/s. That is a four-to-one bandwidth advantage for the M4000, and it is almost certainly the dominant reason the OpenCL gap reaches double digits. Bandwidth-heavy workloads punish the M340's narrow DDR3 subsystem severely.

The Radeon R7 M340 does have one benchmark the FirePro M4000 does not: a Geekbench Vulkan score of 5193. There is no directly comparable Vulkan result for the M4000 in the database, so this cannot be scored as a win, but it does mean the M340's average benchmark score of 5063 is drawn from two tests rather than one. Even so, the M4000's average of 5537 stands above it. In recorded head-to-head competition, the tally is one win for the FirePro M4000 and zero for the Radeon R7 M340.

Context from each card's rival set reinforces the picture. The FirePro M4000 scores within half a percent of the NVIDIA GeForce MX130 (5508), sits 0.7 percent above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M (5501), leads the AMD Radeon R7 M440 by 1 percent, and trails only the NVIDIA Quadro M500M (5604) by 1.2 percent in its neighborhood. The Radeon R7 M340 is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon R7 240 at an identical 5063 average, sits 0.6 percent above the AMD FirePro W4170M (5034), 0.9 percent above the AMD Radeon R5 M430 (5018), and 1.3 percent above the AMD Radeon R7 Graphics (4998). Both cards occupy tight clusters of similarly performing GPUs, and the M4000's cluster sits a step higher.

Where Each One Wins

The FirePro M4000 wins on measured compute performance, pure and simple. Its 12.3 percent OpenCL victory, backed by superior shading resources, ROP count, and a memory subsystem with four times the bandwidth, makes it the stronger card for GPU compute workloads, OpenCL-accelerated applications, and any workload where fill rate and bandwidth are the bottleneck. Professional heritage also matters here: as a FirePro Mobile part, it descends from a line aimed at workstation use, and its successor line is Radeon Pro Mobile. For buyers evaluating these cards on benchmark data alone, the M4000 is the pick when throughput is the priority.

The Radeon R7 M340 wins on memory capacity and platform features. It carries 2 GB of DDR3 against the M4000's 1024 MB of GDDR5, doubling the framebuffer. While the M340's bandwidth is dramatically lower, the larger capacity can matter in workloads that exceed 1 GB of texture and asset data, where the M4000 would be forced into spilling. The M340 also supports full DirectX 12 feature level 12_0, whereas the M4000 tops out at feature level 11_1 under DirectX 12. Its FP16 throughput matches its FP32 rate at 653.4 GFLOPS (1:1), a capability the M4000's record does not list. Finally, the M340 has a recorded Vulkan benchmark result, indicating modern API testing coverage the older card lacks.

The practical split is straightforward. For raw compute speed, pixel throughput, and bandwidth-bound tasks, the FirePro M4000 is the stronger GPU by every measurement in the database. For newer API feature levels, half-precision throughput, doubled memory capacity, and a more modern interface (PCIe 3.0 x8 rather than the M4000's MXM-A 3.0 module slot), the R7 M340 is the more current design, released in 2015 versus the M4000's 2012 launch.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in benchmarks?

A: The AMD FirePro M4000. It wins the Geekbench OpenCL head-to-head 5537 to 4932, a 12.3 percent lead over the Radeon R7 M340.

Q: How much more memory bandwidth does the FirePro M4000 have?

A: The M4000 delivers 64.00 GB/s from GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, compared with 16.00 GB/s from DDR3 on a 64-bit bus for the R7 M340, a fourfold advantage.

Q: Which card has more video memory?

A: The Radeon R7 M340, with 2 GB of DDR3 versus 1024 MB of GDDR5 on the FirePro M4000.

Q: How do these GPUs rank against all GPUs in the database?

A: The FirePro M4000 sits at the 32nd percentile and the Radeon R7 M340 at the 30th percentile, placing both in the lower tier of recorded GPUs but only two percentile points apart.

Q: Do both cards support DirectX 12?

A: Yes, but not identically. The R7 M340 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0, while the M4000 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 11_1. Both list OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.2.170.

Q: Are either of these GPUs still in production?

A: No. Both are marked end-of-life. The FirePro M4000 was succeeded by the Radeon Pro Mobile line, and the R7 M340 by Polaris Mobile.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification despite sharing a 28 nm TSMC process. The FirePro M4000 uses the Chelsea chip with 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die (12.2M per mm²), while the Radeon R7 M340 uses the Meso chip with 1,550 million transistors on a 125 mm² die (12.4M per mm²).

Compute resources favor the M4000 across the board: 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, against 320 shading units, 20 TMUs, and 8 ROPs for the M340. Clock behavior also differs. The M4000's record lists no base or boost clock, only memory speed. The M340 lists a 943 MHz base and 1021 MHz boost clock, which is how it keeps texture fill rate competitive despite fewer units.

Memory is the sharpest divergence: 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus at 64.00 GB/s for the M4000, versus 2 GB of DDR3 on a 64-bit bus at 16.00 GB/s for the M340. Power and form factor also split them: the M4000 is an MXM Module with a recorded 33 W TDP and MXM-A (3.0) bus interface, with no power connectors required, while the M340 uses PCIe 3.0 x8 and has no TDP or physical slot data recorded. Display outputs are listed as portable-device dependent for the M4000 and are unrecorded for the M340. Release dates differ by roughly three years: 2012 for the M4000 and 2015 for the M340.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs trace their lineage to AMD's Graphics Core Next family, but they sit two generations apart. The FirePro M4000 is GCN 1.0, the inaugural GCN design, built as a professional mobile part in the FirePro Mx000 generation. The Radeon R7 M340 is GCN 3.0, a later refinement, positioned in the Gem System R7 M300 generation for consumer mobile systems.

The generational gap shows up in features rather than raw speed. GCN 3.0 brings the M340 full DirectX 12 feature level 12_0 support and 1:1 FP16 throughput, while the older GCN 1.0 part tops out at feature level 11_1 and lists no half-precision figure. Yet the M4000's larger implementation of the older architecture, with 60 percent more shading units and double the ROPs, outperforms the newer but smaller Meso chip in the one recorded head-to-head test. Density is nearly identical between the two dies, at 12.2M and 12.4M transistors per square millimeter, confirming that the M4000's advantage comes from die allocation toward compute resources rather than any process edge.

The succession paths also diverge. The FirePro line continued into Radeon Pro Mobile, while the R7 M340's lineage continued into Polaris Mobile. Both lines have since reached end-of-life, and neither card carries a recorded launch MSRP in the database. For anyone choosing between them today on data alone, the verdict is simple: the FirePro M4000 is the faster GPU, and the Radeon R7 M340 is the more feature-complete one.