AMD FirePro M4150 vs AMD Radeon HD 6770 Comparison

The AMD FirePro M4150 and AMD Radeon HD 6770 represent two distinct generations of graphics architecture from the same manufacturer, separated by over two years of design evolution. The FirePro M4150, built on the GCN 1.0 architecture with the Opal chip, is a mobile workstation part from the FirePro Mobile (Mx100) generation, while the Radeon HD 6770 uses the older TeraScale 2 architecture with the Juniper chip from the Northern Islands (HD 6700) family. Both are end-of-life products, but their benchmark data reveals a surprising reversal of expectations based purely on architectural lineage.

Architecture Differences

The fundamental divergence lies in the process technology and core design philosophy. The FirePro M4150 is manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC, packing 950 million transistors into a compact 77 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.3 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the Radeon HD 6770 uses a 40 nm process, also from TSMC, with 1,040 million transistors spread across a much larger 166 mm² die, resulting in a significantly lower density of 6.3 million per square millimeter. The newer process gives the FirePro M4150 a clear efficiency advantage in terms of transistor packing.

The compute architectures are fundamentally different. The FirePro M4150 employs GCN 1.0 (Graphics Core Next), which uses a unified shader design with 384 shading units, 24 texture mapping units, and 8 raster operation units. The Radeon HD 6770 uses TeraScale 2, featuring 800 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. Despite having fewer than half the shading units, the FirePro M4150 achieves competitive performance through its newer instruction set and memory efficiency.

Memory configurations are similar in capacity but differ in bandwidth. Both cards feature 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, but the Radeon HD 6770 operates its memory at 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective), delivering 76.80 GB/s of bandwidth, while the FirePro M4150 runs at 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective), providing 64.00 GB/s. This 12.8 GB/s difference favors the older card in raw memory throughput.

The feature set and API support show the generational gap. The FirePro M4150 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the Radeon HD 6770 is limited to DirectX 11.2 (11_0), OpenGL 4.4, and has no Vulkan support. The FirePro M4150 also uses a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface, whereas the Radeon HD 6770 uses PCIe 2.0 x16. The physical form factors differ as well: the FirePro M4150 is an MXM module for portable devices, while the Radeon HD 6770 is a dual-slot desktop card measuring 198 mm (7.8 inches) in length with a 1x 6-pin power connector and a 300 W suggested power supply.

The power envelope tells a stark story. The Radeon HD 6770 carries a TDP of 108 W, while the FirePro M4150 has no listed TDP, reflecting its mobile design intent. The architectural differences also manifest in raw throughput: the Radeon HD 6770 delivers 1,360.0 GFLOPS of FP32 performance, 13.60 GPixel/s pixel rate, and 34.00 GTexel/s texture rate, versus the FirePro M4150's 549.1 GFLOPS, 5.720 GPixel/s, and 17.16 GTexel/s respectively. The Radeon HD 6770 is more than twice as fast in every raw throughput metric, yet the benchmark scores tell a different story.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The AMD FirePro M4150 scores 4013, which is 10% higher than the AMD Radeon HD 6770's score of 3649. This makes the FirePro M4150 the winner in the single head-to-head benchmark.

Q: How does the FirePro M4150 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The FirePro M4150 sits within 1.4% of its nearest competitors. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M by 0.5%, leads the AMD Radeon HD 6850 X2 by 0.9%, and surpasses both the NVIDIA Quadro K2000 and NVIDIA GeForce 830M by 1.2% and 1.4% respectively.

Q: What is the performance gap between the Radeon HD 6770 and its closest competitors?

A: The Radeon HD 6770's score of 3649 places it just 0.6% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, 0.9% above the NVIDIA GeForce GT 735M, and 1.5% above the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation, while trailing the NVIDIA GeForce 825M by 1.2%.

Q: Which card has better API support for modern applications?

A: The FirePro M4150 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the Radeon HD 6770 only supports DirectX 11.2 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.4, with no Vulkan support. This makes the FirePro M4150 the more capable card for newer software.

Q: How do the memory bandwidth figures compare between the two cards?

A: The Radeon HD 6770 has a 76.80 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is 12.8 GB/s higher than the FirePro M4150's 64.00 GB/s. Both cards use 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus.

Q: What do the percentile rankings indicate about these GPUs?

A: The FirePro M4150 ranks in the 24th percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon HD 6770 ranks in the 22nd percentile. This indicates that despite its lower raw throughput, the FirePro M4150 performs slightly better relative to the entire GPU landscape.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD FirePro M4150 wins the only benchmark test in the head-to-head comparison, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a score of 4013 against the Radeon HD 6770's 3649. This 10% advantage suggests that the GCN 1.0 architecture's instruction efficiency and newer API support translate into better compute performance, particularly in workloads that leverage modern OpenCL features. The FirePro M4150 also wins on API compatibility, supporting DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan, making it the only one of the two that can run applications requiring these newer standards.

The AMD Radeon HD 6770 wins decisively in raw hardware specifications. It offers more than double the FP32 compute throughput (1,360.0 GFLOPS vs 549.1 GFLOPS), higher pixel and texture fill rates (13.60 GPixel/s and 34.00 GTexel/s vs 5.720 GPixel/s and 17.16 GTexel/s), and greater memory bandwidth (76.80 GB/s vs 64.00 GB/s). It also has more shading units, TMUs, and ROPs. For workloads that are purely throughput-bound and do not benefit from architectural efficiency, the Radeon HD 6770's superior specification sheet would theoretically make it the stronger performer, even though the benchmark data does not confirm this.

The Radeon HD 6770 also wins on physical connectivity, offering 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.3a, and 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.1 outputs, whereas the FirePro M4150's display outputs are listed as portable device dependent, reflecting its mobile MXM form factor. The Radeon HD 6770 was released earlier on 2011-01-20, while the FirePro M4150 came later on 2013-10-15, and the Radeon HD 6770 has a known TDP of 108 W and a launch MSRP of 129 USD.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the AMD FirePro M4150 is the superior performer, winning the only available head-to-head test with a 10% margin. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 4013 places it in the 24th percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon HD 6770's 3649 score sits in the 22nd percentile. Users who need Vulkan support or DirectX 12 compatibility should choose the FirePro M4150, as the Radeon HD 6770 lacks these features entirely.

However, the Radeon HD 6770 has its own case for selection. Its raw specifications are overwhelmingly higher across every throughput metric, suggesting that in legacy applications optimized for TeraScale 2, it could outperform the newer GCN part. The Radeon HD 6770 also offers a complete set of desktop display outputs and is a dual-slot card, making it suitable for desktop systems, while the FirePro M4150 is an MXM module designed for portable devices.

For users with modern software that supports GCN 1.0's instruction set, the FirePro M4150 is the clear choice, offering better compute performance and broader API compatibility. For users constrained to older applications or needing maximum theoretical throughput in a desktop form factor, the Radeon HD 6770 remains a viable option, albeit one with lower benchmark scores. The data ultimately favors the FirePro M4150, but the context of the workload matters significantly.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single head-to-head benchmark result is decisive: the AMD FirePro M4150 achieves a Geekbench OpenCL score of 4013, defeating the AMD Radeon HD 6770's 3649 by exactly 10%. This margin is substantial and reverses the expectation set by the raw specification sheet, where the Radeon HD 6770 holds a 147.6% advantage in FP32 GFLOPS (1,360.0 vs 549.1). The FirePro M4150's GCN 1.0 architecture evidently extracts far more useful compute work per shader, as it delivers a 10% higher score with only 48% of the shading units (384 vs 800).

The benchmark landscape around these cards reinforces the FirePro M4150's position. Its score of 4013 places it between the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M (4033, 0.5% faster) and the AMD Radeon HD 6850 X2 (3977, 0.9% slower), indicating it competes with mid-range mobile and older desktop parts. The Radeon HD 6770's 3649 score puts it in a lower tier, comparable to the NVIDIA GeForce 825M (3694, 1.2% faster) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (3629, 0.6% slower).

The deltaPct values for the FirePro M4150's rivals show a tight cluster, with all four competitors within 1.4% of its score. This suggests that the FirePro M4150 sits at a competitive performance point despite its modest specification sheet. The Radeon HD 6770's rivals are similarly clustered, with the largest gap being 1.5% to the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation, indicating that the 6770 also occupies a well-defined performance tier, just one that is 10% lower than the FirePro M4150.

The wins tally is one to zero in favor of the FirePro M4150, and this single benchmark result is the only quantitative comparison available. Given the architectural differences, the FirePro M4150's victory in OpenCL compute is particularly noteworthy because it demonstrates that the newer GCN 1.0 design, with its emphasis on compute efficiency, can overcome a significant deficit in raw hardware resources. The Radeon HD 6770's higher memory bandwidth and double the ROPs did not translate into a benchmark win, suggesting that the Geekbench OpenCL workload favors the instruction efficiency of GCN 1.0 over the brute-force approach of TeraScale 2.