AMD FirePro W2100 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data splits these two cards into entirely different usage categories. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is a high-end desktop rendering and gaming part, while the AMD FirePro W2100 is a low-profile workstation display adapter. Their benchmark scores do not overlap in any meaningful way, and neither card wins a head-to-head matchup because no shared test results exist in the database.

The RTX 3080 12 GB posts a single recorded score in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 4791 points. That places it in the 28th percentile among all GPUs, meaning roughly three-quarters of the database's tested cards score higher. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon R5 M255 (4788, 0.1% ahead), the AMD Radeon R5 M335 (4752, 0.8% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (4844, 1.1% behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M (4855, 1.3% behind). This is a narrow band of competition, and the RTX 3080 12 GB sits essentially at parity with these much older mobile and entry-level parts in this specific workload. That is a surprising result for a card with this much hardware, but it is what the measurements show.

The AMD FirePro W2100 has two recorded scores: Geekbench OpenCL at 4093 and Geekbench Vulkan at 4497, with an average of 4295. That places it in the 25th percentile. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M (4282, 0.3% ahead), the AMD Radeon Vega 3 (4268, 0.6% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GDDR6 (4335, 0.9% behind), and the NVIDIA Quadro K3000M (4241, 1.3% ahead). Again, the FirePro W2100 sits in a tight cluster, trading blows with mobile GPUs from a completely different era. The RTX 3080 12 GB does not appear anywhere near the FirePro's rival list, and the FirePro does not appear near the RTX 3080's rival list. The database shows no direct comparison test between these two cards.

So the win condition is simple: the RTX 3080 12 GB wins in raw compute and memory bandwidth by orders of magnitude, but the FirePro W2100 wins in power efficiency and physical footprint. The RTX 3080 12 GB is for someone who needs serious GPU throughput. The FirePro W2100 is for someone who needs a display output in a tiny, low-power chassis. Neither card is a substitute for the other.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two is generational and fundamental. The RTX 3080 12 GB uses the GA102 chip built on Ampere architecture, fabricated by Samsung on an 8 nm process. It packs 28,300 million transistors onto a 628 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 45.1M per mm². The FirePro W2100 uses the Oland chip based on GCN 1.0, built by TSMC on a 28 nm process. It has only 950 million transistors on a 77 mm² die, with a density of 12.3M per mm². That is a 30x difference in transistor count and an 8x difference in die area. The RTX 3080 12 GB is a modern flagship-class chip; the FirePro W2100 is a small entry-level GPU from 2014.

The memory subsystems are equally divergent. The RTX 3080 12 GB has 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro W2100 has 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 28.80 GB/s. That is a 32x bandwidth advantage for the NVIDIA card. Clock speeds tell the same story: the RTX 3080 12 GB runs at a 1260 MHz base and 1710 MHz boost, while the FirePro W2100 runs at 630 MHz base and 680 MHz boost. The NVIDIA card boosts at more than double the FirePro's maximum clock.

Compute resources are not remotely comparable. The RTX 3080 12 GB has 8960 shading units, 280 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 70 RT cores, and 280 tensor cores. The FirePro W2100 has 320 shading units, 20 TMUs, and 8 ROPs, with no RT or tensor cores at all. The RTX 3080 12 GB delivers 30.64 TFLOPS FP32 and matches that with 30.64 TFLOPS FP16 at a 1:1 ratio. The FirePro W2100 delivers 435.2 GFLOPS FP32 and has no listed FP16 capability. Pixel rate is 164.2 GPixel/s versus 5.440 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 478.8 GTexel/s versus 13.60 GTexel/s. Every single compute metric favors the RTX 3080 12 GB by a factor of 30 to 70.

The FirePro W2100 does have one architectural advantage: power. Its TDP is 26 W, it needs no power connectors, and it runs on a 200 W suggested PSU. The RTX 3080 12 GB has a 350 W TDP, requires a single 12-pin connector, and needs a 750 W suggested PSU. The FirePro is a single-slot card at 168 mm long and 69 mm tall. The RTX 3080 12 GB is dual-slot at 285 mm long, 112 mm tall, and 40 mm wide. The FirePro also runs on PCIe 3.0 x8, while the RTX 3080 12 GB uses PCIe 4.0 x16.

FAQ

Q: Which card has more raw compute power?

A: The RTX 3080 12 GB delivers 30.64 TFLOPS FP32, while the FirePro W2100 delivers 435.2 GFLOPS FP32. The RTX 3080 12 GB is roughly 70 times stronger in raw FP32 throughput.

Q: Which card uses less power and fits in a smaller case?

A: The FirePro W2100 has a 26 W TDP, is single-slot, and is 168 mm long. The RTX 3080 12 GB has a 350 W TDP, is dual-slot, and is 285 mm long. The FirePro needs no external power connectors and suggests a 200 W PSU, while the RTX 3080 12 GB requires a 12-pin connector and a 750 W PSU.

Q: Does the RTX 3080 12 GB support ray tracing?

A: Yes. It has 70 RT cores and 280 tensor cores, and its API support includes DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). The FirePro W2100 has no RT or tensor cores and supports only DirectX 12 (11_1).

Q: How do their benchmark scores compare to their closest rivals?

A: The RTX 3080 12 GB scores 4791 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, sitting within 1.3% of its nearest rivals (R5 M255, R5 M335, 940MX, GTX 560M). The FirePro W2100 averages 4295 across Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan, sitting within 1.3% of its nearest rivals (GTX 460M, Vega 3, RTX 4070 GDDR6, Quadro K3000M).

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 3080 12 GB has 912.4 GB/s from 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus. The FirePro W2100 has 28.80 GB/s from 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus. That is a 32x difference.

Q: Are these cards comparable for modern gaming?

A: The RTX 3080 12 GB is a GeForce 30-series part with 8960 shading units and DirectX 12 Ultimate support. The FirePro W2100 is a workstation card from the GCN 1.0 era with 320 shading units and DirectX 12 (11_1) support. The database shows no shared gaming benchmark, but the architectural data strongly favors the RTX 3080 12 GB in any GPU-bound workload.

Specification Differences

| Field | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB | AMD FirePro W2100 |

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

| Architecture | Ampere | GCN 1.0 |

| Process node | 8 nm (Samsung) | 28 nm (TSMC) |

| Transistors | 28,300 million | 950 million |

| Die size | 628 mm² | 77 mm² |

| Transistor density | 45.1M / mm² | 12.3M / mm² |

| Base clock | 1260 MHz | 630 MHz |

| Boost clock | 1710 MHz | 680 MHz |

| Memory clock | 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective) | 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective) |

| Memory size | 12 GB | 2 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR6X | DDR3 |

| Memory bus | 384 bit | 128 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 912.4 GB/s | 28.80 GB/s |

| Shading units | 8960 | 320 |

| TMUs | 280 | 20 |

| ROPs | 96 | 8 |

| RT cores | 70 | None |

| Tensor cores | 280 | None |

| Pixel rate | 164.2 GPixel/s | 5.440 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 478.8 GTexel/s | 13.60 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 30.64 TFLOPS | 435.2 GFLOPS |

| FP16 | 30.64 TFLOPS (1:1) | None |

| TDP | 350 W | 26 W |

| Slot width | Dual-slot | Single-slot |

| Power connectors | 1x 12-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 750 W | 200 W |

| Bus interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x8 |

| Display outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | 2x DisplayPort 1.2 |

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

| Vulkan | 1.4 | 1.2.170 |

| Dimensions | 285 mm x 112 mm x 40 mm | 168 mm x 69 mm |

| Release date | 2022-01-10 | 2014-08-11 |

| Launch MSRP | 799 USD | None |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains no shared benchmark entries for these two cards, so a direct numerical comparison must rely on their individual recorded scores and the surrounding rival data. The RTX 3080 12 GB's single test is 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 4791. The FirePro W2100's tests are Geekbench OpenCL at 4093 and Geekbench Vulkan at 4497, averaging 4295. These are different workloads, so the numbers are not directly comparable, but the magnitude of the gap in every overlapping hardware specification makes the hierarchy clear.

The biggest win for the RTX 3080 12 GB is in memory bandwidth. It delivers 912.4 GB/s versus the FirePro's 28.80 GB/s, a 32x advantage that shows up in any bandwidth-limited task. The FP32 compute gap is even larger: 30.64 TFLOPS versus 435.2 GFLOPS is a 70x difference. The texture rate gap is 478.8 GTexel/s versus 13.60 GTexel/s, and the pixel rate gap is 164.2 GPixel/s versus 5.440 GPixel/s. These are not close numbers; they are from different product categories entirely.

The FirePro W2100's biggest win is power consumption. Its 26 W TDP is roughly 13 times lower than the RTX 3080 12 GB's 350 W TDP. It also needs no power connector and fits in a 168 mm single-slot frame, while the RTX 3080 12 GB is 285 mm long, dual-slot, and requires a 12-pin connector. The FirePro's suggested PSU is 200 W, versus 750 W for the RTX 3080 12 GB. For a compact office workstation or a legacy system, that is a decisive advantage.

The closest the two come to each other is in percentile ranking. The RTX 3080 12 GB sits at the 28th percentile, and the FirePro W2100 sits at the 25th percentile. That is only a 3 percentile point gap, which reflects how both cards sit in the lower-middle of the database's tested GPU population, despite their massive architectural differences. The RTX 3080 12 GB's nearest rivals are all low-end mobile GPUs, and the FirePro's nearest rivals include a modern RTX 4070 GDDR6 that scores only 0.9% higher. Neither card is near the top of the database's rankings.

The Verdict

Pick the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB if you need real GPU compute. It has 8960 shading units, 70 RT cores, 280 tensor cores, 12 GB of GDDR6X, and 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. Its 30.64 TFLOPS FP32 and 30.64 TFLOPS FP16 make it a legitimate workhorse for rendering, simulation, or any compute-heavy task. It will require a dual-slot chassis, a 12-pin power connection, and a 750 W PSU, and it runs at 350 W TDP. Its launch MSRP was 799 USD. The data shows it performs at parity with a cluster of much older mobile GPUs in the single recorded 3DMark test, but its raw specifications dwarf the FirePro W2100 in every compute category.

Pick the AMD FirePro W2100 if you need a low-profile display adapter with minimal power draw. It runs at 26 W TDP, needs no power connector, fits in a single slot, and is only 168 mm long. It has 2 GB of DDR3 and supports two DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. Its 435.2 GFLOPS FP32 is enough for basic 2D workstation tasks but nothing more. It sits at the 25th percentile, with its nearest rival being the RTX 4070 GDDR6 at only 0.9% higher, which shows how low its absolute performance is. The FirePro is end-of-life, as is the RTX 3080 12 GB, but the FirePro is from 2014 and the RTX 3080 12 GB from 2022.

There is no scenario where these two cards compete for the same buyer. The RTX 3080 12 GB is a high-power compute GPU that happens to have a low benchmark percentile in this database. The FirePro W2100 is a low-power display card that happens to have a similar percentile. If your priority is performance, the RTX 3080 12 GB is the only choice. If your priority is power efficiency and physical size, the FirePro W2100 is the only choice. The database's measurements do not put them in the same performance class, and the specification table confirms it.