AMD FirePro M4150 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M and the AMD FirePro M4150 are both end-of-life mobile GPUs built on TSMC's 28 nm process, but they occupy entirely different tiers of the market. The GTX 970M is a Maxwell 2.0 gaming chip from the GeForce 900M generation, while the FirePro M4150 is a compact GCN 1.0 professional part from the FirePro Mobile line. The database shows a one-sided contest: the only test where both cards appear is Geekbench OpenCL, and the GTX 970M wins it by 372.1 percent. Everything else in the recorded data, from shader counts to memory bandwidth, points the same direction.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster overall?

A: The GTX 970M, decisively. Its average benchmark score in the database is 4628 versus 4013 for the FirePro M4150, and in the single shared head-to-head test, Geekbench OpenCL, it leads 18946 to 4013, a 372.1 percent gap.

Q: What architectures do these GPUs use?

A: The GTX 970M uses NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture on the GM204 chip. The FirePro M4150 uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture on the Opal chip. Both were fabricated at TSMC on a 28 nm process.

Q: How much memory does each GPU have?

A: The GTX 970M has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus, delivering 120.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro M4150 has 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 64.00 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: Which API support is newer?

A: The GTX 970M supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The FirePro M4150 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 11_1, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA part has the stronger DirectX and Vulkan support.

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

A: The GTX 970M sits at the 27th percentile, and the FirePro M4150 sits at the 24th percentile. Both are in the lower half of the overall distribution, with the GTX 970M slightly ahead.

Q: Which GPUs are their closest rivals?

A: The GTX 970M's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro M3000J at 0.2 percent, the AMD Radeon R5 M320 and Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB at -0.6 percent, and the Radeon R5 M230 at 1.1 percent. The FirePro M4150's rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M at -0.5 percent, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 X2 at 0.9 percent, the NVIDIA Quadro K2000 at 1.2 percent, and the GeForce 830M at 1.4 percent.

The Verdict

The data leaves no room for debate. Anyone choosing between these two for gaming, compute, or general graphics work should pick the GTX 970M. It wins the only shared benchmark by 372.1 percent, has roughly four times the shading units (1280 versus 384), nearly five times the ROPs (48 versus 8), and nearly double the memory bandwidth. Its FP32 throughput of 2.657 TFLOPS is close to five times the FirePro's 549.1 GFLOPS.

The FirePro M4150's case rests entirely on its professional pedigree: it belongs to the FirePro Mobile line, whose successor line is Radeon Pro Mobile, and it connects over PCIe 3.0 x8 rather than an MXM-B (3.0) bus. Note that the "closest rivals" data suggests the two cards are much nearer in average score than the single head-to-head implies, 4628 versus 4013, but that is because the averages pool different test sets. In the one test both cards actually ran, the gap is enormous.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only one benchmark appears in both cards' result sets: Geekbench OpenCL. The GTX 970M scored 18946; the FirePro M4150 scored 4013. The delta is 372.1 percent in NVIDIA's favor. That is not a close result, it is a different performance class.

For context within each card's own record: the GTX 970M also posts 18292 in Geekbench Vulkan, 5704 in PassMark G3D, 472 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), and 2289 in PassMark GPU Compute. The FirePro M4150 has no recorded results in any of those tests, so no direct comparison can be drawn there. The pattern is clear regardless: wherever the data overlaps, the Maxwell part dominates.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ on nearly every measurable field:

• Chip and architecture: GM204 (Maxwell 2.0) versus Opal (GCN 1.0)
• Transistors: 5,200 million versus 950 million
• Die size: 398 mm² versus 77 mm²
• Transistor density: 13.1M / mm² versus 12.3M / mm²
• Clocks: the GTX 970M runs a 924 MHz base and 1038 MHz boost with 5 Gbps effective memory; the FirePro's core clocks are unlisted, with 4 Gbps effective memory
• Memory: 6 GB on a 192-bit bus (120.3 GB/s) versus 1024 MB on a 128-bit bus (64.00 GB/s)
• Shading units: 1280 versus 384
• TMUs: 80 versus 24
• ROPs: 48 versus 8
• Pixel rate: 49.82 GPixel/s versus 5.720 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 83.04 GTexel/s versus 17.16 GTexel/s
• FP32 compute: 2.657 TFLOPS versus 549.1 GFLOPS
• Bus interface: MXM-B (3.0) versus PCIe 3.0 x8
• DirectX feature level: 12_1 versus 11_1
• Vulkan: 1.4 versus 1.2.170
• Release date: October 2014 versus October 2013
• Predecessor/successor lines: GeForce 800M to GeForce 10 Mobile versus FirePro Mobility to Radeon Pro Mobile

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs were made at TSMC on 28 nm, so the process is identical. Everything above the process node differs. Maxwell 2.0 in the GM204 chip packs 5,200 million transistors into a 398 mm² die, giving 13.1M transistors per mm². The Opal chip carries 950 million transistors in 77 mm² at 12.3M per mm², similar density in a die roughly one-fifth the area. In other words, NVIDIA simply built a far bigger engine on the same manufacturing node.

The feature-set gap also favors the GTX 970M. It supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1 versus 11_1 on the FirePro, and Vulkan 1.4 versus Vulkan 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6, so older OpenGL workloads are equally covered. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, which is expected of GPUs from this era.

Where Each One Wins

GTX 970M wins: everything measurable. Gaming, compute, and general graphics work all favor it, backed by the 372.1 percent Geekbench OpenCL win, roughly 8.7 times the pixel rate, close to five times the texture rate, and a memory subsystem with six times the capacity and nearly double the bandwidth. Its PassMark G3D score of 5704 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 18292 sit far beyond anything in the FirePro's record. Its average score of 4628 places it within a fraction of a percent of cards like the Quadro M3000J and Radeon R5 M320 in the database's cross-test averages.

FirePro M4150 wins: nothing in the benchmark data. Its only recorded score, 4013 in Geekbench OpenCL, loses head-to-head. Its advantages are physical and practical rather than performance-related: a 77 mm² die that is far smaller silicon, a PCIe 3.0 x8 host interface rather than an MXM module, and lineage in AMD's professional FirePro Mobile line. If a workload specifically requires that platform or that product family, the M4150 is the pick; on raw performance, the GTX 970M is the only sensible choice.