AMD FirePro W4190M vs AMD Radeon R5 M335 Comparison

The AMD Radeon R5 M335 and AMD FirePro W4190M are both end-of-life mobile graphics solutions built on the same fundamental GCN 1.0 architecture, yet they are positioned for different workloads. The R5 M335 is a consumer-oriented part with a 5.3% lead in the single available head-to-head benchmark, while the FirePro W4190M is a professional mobile workstation GPU with a wider memory bus and more shading units. The data shows two nearly matched performers where the differentiators lie in memory technology, clock behavior, and the intended use case.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon R5 M335 has an average benchmark score of 4752, which places it in the 28th percentile of all GPUs. The AMD FirePro W4190M has an average score of 4505, placing it in the 26th percentile.

Q: What is the performance difference in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The Radeon R5 M335 scores 4745, while the FirePro W4190M scores 4505. This gives the Radeon a 5.3% advantage in the head-to-head comparison, marking its only benchmark win.

Q: Do these GPUs support the same modern APIs?

A: Yes, both GPUs support DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The API feature sets are identical, meaning software compatibility is not a differentiating factor.

Q: How do the memory subsystems differ between the two?

A: The Radeon R5 M335 uses 2 GB of DDR3 memory on a 64-bit bus, yielding 14.40 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro W4190M uses 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 64.00 GB/s of bandwidth — over 4.4 times higher.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and texture units?

A: The FirePro W4190M has 384 shading units and 24 texture mapping units (TMUs). The Radeon R5 M335 has fewer, with 320 shading units and 20 TMUs, despite having a higher pixel rate.

Q: What are the closest rivals for each GPU based on average score?

A: For the Radeon R5 M335, the closest rival is the AMD Radeon R8 M445DX, which is only 0.5% slower. For the FirePro W4190M, the AMD Radeon R7 M260 is the nearest competitor, with a negligible 0.1% performance difference.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data provides a single point of comparison, but the architectural specifications reveal distinct areas where each GPU holds an advantage. The Radeon R5 M335 wins the only direct performance test, the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark, with a 5.3% higher score. This suggests that in compute workloads that scale with shader efficiency and clock speed, the R5 M335 has a slight edge. Its pixel rate of 8.240 GPixel/s is also higher than the FirePro's 7.200 GPixel/s, which could translate to better fill-rate-bound scenarios in older games or simple 2D compositing tasks.

Conversely, the FirePro W4190M wins in memory bandwidth by a wide margin. Its 64.00 GB/s of bandwidth versus the R5 M335's 14.40 GB/s is a decisive advantage for workloads that are memory-intensive, such as large texture streaming, high-resolution framebuffers, or professional CAD applications that frequently access large datasets. The FirePro also has more shading units (384 vs. 320) and TMUs (24 vs. 20), giving it a theoretical edge in raw parallel arithmetic throughput. Its texture rate of 21.60 GTexel/s is slightly higher than the R5 M335's 20.60 GTexel/s, and its FP32 compute of 691.2 GFLOPS exceeds the R5 M335's 659.2 GFLOPS. While the FirePro loses the single benchmark, its hardware specifications suggest it may be better suited for sustained professional workloads that rely on memory bandwidth and parallel processing rather than bursty consumer benchmarks.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs are built on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.0 architecture, manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC. They share the same transistor density of 12.3M per square millimeter, but the chips themselves differ in size and complexity. The Radeon R5 M335 uses the "Exo" chip, which contains 690 million transistors on a 56 mm² die. The FirePro W4190M uses the "Opal" chip, which is larger at 77 mm² and packs 950 million transistors.

This transistor count difference is the root of the architectural variance. The Opal chip in the FirePro allocates its extra transistors to more compute resources: 384 shading units and 24 TMUs versus the Exo's 320 shading units and 20 TMUs. Both chips have 8 ROPs, but the FirePro's memory controller is wider. The R5 M335 has a 64-bit memory interface, while the FirePro has a 128-bit interface, which is why the FirePro can leverage GDDR5 memory effectively. The R5 M335 is limited to DDR3, a slower memory type that pairs poorly with a narrow bus. The fundamental architecture is the same, but the FirePro is a more fully realized implementation of GCN 1.0, with the R5 M335 representing a cut-down die designed for lower power consumption and simpler manufacturing.

Specification Differences

The most striking differences between the two GPUs are in memory and clock specifications. The Radeon R5 M335 has a memory clock of 900 MHz, translating to 1800 Mbps effective, while the FirePro W4190M runs its memory at 1000 MHz, or 4 Gbps effective. Combined with the bus width difference, this results in a bandwidth gap of 49.60 GB/s in favor of the FirePro. The FirePro also has explicit base and boost clocks of 825 MHz and 900 MHz, whereas the R5 M335 does not list base or boost clocks, only the memory clock.

The FP32 performance tells a similar story: the FirePro delivers 691.2 GFLOPS versus the R5 M335's 659.2 GFLOPS, a 4.9% difference. Pixel rate is the one specification where the R5 M335 leads, posting 8.240 GPixel/s compared to the FirePro's 7.200 GPixel/s, despite the FirePro having more ROPs at the same count. The R5 M335 also has a different form factor context, as the FirePro is explicitly listed as an "MXM Module" while the R5 M335's slot width is not specified. Both use PCIe 3.0 x8 and have no power connectors, indicating they are designed for integration into laptops or small form factor systems. The release dates are close, with the R5 M335 on October 20, 2015, and the FirePro on November 11, 2015, suggesting they were contemporaries. The R5 M335 is part of the "Gem System (R5 M300)" generation, while the FirePro belongs to the "FirePro Mobile (Wx100M)" generation.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test. In this test, the AMD Radeon R5 M335 scores 4745, defeating the AMD FirePro W4190M's score of 4505. This is a 5.3% delta in favor of the R5 M335, which is a meaningful margin for GPUs in this performance class. The R5 M335's win is notable because the FirePro has superior theoretical compute specifications, including 20% more shading units and 4.9% higher FP32 throughput. The fact that the R5 M335 still wins suggests that its higher pixel rate of 8.240 GPixel/s and possibly more efficient clock management contribute to better real-world OpenCL execution, or that the benchmark is not fully utilizing the FirePro's memory bandwidth advantage.

Looking at the nearest rivals for context, the R5 M335's score of 4745 sits just 0.5% above the AMD Radeon R8 M445DX, which scores 4727. It is also 0.7% below the AMD Radeon R5 M255. The FirePro W4190M's score of 4505 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon R7 M260, which scores 4499, with only a 0.1% difference. This places the FirePro in a slightly lower performance tier, as its 4505 score is 1.2% below the Intel HD Graphics P530. The R5 M335, by contrast, is competitive with the NVIDIA Quadro P400, which scores 4684, putting the R5 M335 1.5% ahead. The benchmark results indicate that while the FirePro has the hardware for professional workloads, its compute execution in this specific test lags behind the consumer-oriented R5 M335, which achieves a higher score despite fewer resources.

The Geekbench Vulkan score for the R5 M335 is 4758, which is nearly identical to its OpenCL score, indicating consistent performance across different compute APIs. No Vulkan score is available for the FirePro, so a direct comparison in that API is not possible. The single benchmark win for the R5 M335, combined with its higher percentile ranking (28th vs. 26th), reinforces its position as the slightly stronger performer in general-purpose compute tasks. However, the FirePro's massive memory bandwidth advantage remains a critical factor for any workload where data movement, rather than arithmetic, is the bottleneck.