AMD FirePro W4300 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Comparison

# AMD FirePro W4300 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q

These two workstation cards sit at opposite ends of the professional GPU spectrum, separated by nearly a decade of silicon evolution. The AMD FirePro W4300 is a 2015-era entry-level board built for basic CAD and multi-display setups, while the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is a 2025 flagship designed for AI, rendering, and massive datasets. The benchmark data shows a curious result: in the single available test for each card, the older AMD card actually posts a slightly higher raw score (11,225 in Geekbench OpenCL) than the NVIDIA card's 3DMark Steel Nomad score (11,088), but these tests measure completely different workloads. The real story is in architectural capability, memory capacity, and feature support.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD FirePro W4300 wins in the narrow category of legacy compatibility and low-power workstation duties. Its 50W TDP means it can run in systems with a 250W suggested PSU, requires no auxiliary power connector, and fits in a single-slot, 171mm short-length profile. For a multi-monitor office or basic 2D CAD environment, this card provides four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, which is practical for driving multiple 1080p or 4K displays without needing a bulky dual-slot cooler. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 11,225 places it at the 50th percentile of all GPUs, essentially matching the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 (11,228, 0% delta) and slightly edging out the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M (11,261, -0.3% delta).

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q wins everywhere else. It delivers a 96GB GDDR7 memory pool with a 512-bit bus and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth — a 24x increase in capacity and an 18.6x increase in bandwidth over the W4300's 4GB GDDR5 at 96 GB/s. It packs 24,064 shading units, 188 RT cores, and 752 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI inference that the AMD card simply cannot do. Its FP32 throughput of 109.7 TFLOPS dwarfs the W4300's 1,428.5 GFLOPS (about 77x higher). In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, it scores 11,088, which ties the RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q (0% delta) and slightly beats the AMD Radeon RX 550 (11,075, 0.1% delta). The NVIDIA card also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the AMD card caps out at DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.2.170.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is enormous. The FirePro W4300 uses the Bonaire chip built on GCN 2.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 28nm process. It houses 2,080 million transistors on a 160 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.0M per mm². This is a compute-unified architecture from 2015, designed before ray tracing or tensor operations were mainstream. It has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs, with no dedicated RT or tensor cores. The card's memory controller is 128-bit wide, and it relies on 6 Gbps effective GDDR5.

The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q uses the GB202 chip on Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on TSMC's 5nm process. It packs 92,200 million transistors — 44x more than the Bonaire — on a 750 mm² die, with a transistor density of 122.9M per mm². That is nearly 9.5x the density of the older chip. The Blackwell architecture includes 24,064 shading units, 752 TMUs, 192 ROPs, 188 RT cores, and 752 tensor cores. Its memory subsystem is a 512-bit interface running GDDR7 at 28 Gbps effective, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The card also supports FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, meaning both operate at 109.7 TFLOPS, which is critical for mixed-precision AI workloads.

The feature set differences are stark. The W4300 lacks any hardware ray tracing or tensor acceleration, so any RT or AI workload must run on general-purpose shaders, which is impractically slow. The RTX PRO 6000 has dedicated hardware for both, plus support for PCIe 5.0 x16 versus the W4300's PCIe 3.0 x16, doubling the available host interface bandwidth. Display output also advances from DisplayPort 1.2 on the AMD card to DisplayPort 2.1b on the NVIDIA card, which supports higher resolutions and refresh rates. The NVIDIA card's dual-slot design and 267mm length reflect its 300W TDP and 700W suggested PSU requirement, versus the W4300's fanless-friendly 50W single-slot profile.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Direct head-to-head benchmark results are not available in the data, so the comparison relies on each card's own benchmark score and its nearest rivals. The AMD FirePro W4300 scores 11,225 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it at the 50th percentile of all GPUs. Its closest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 at 11,228 (0% delta), then the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M at 11,261 (-0.3% delta), and notably, the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q at 11,088 (1.2% delta, meaning the W4300 is 1.2% ahead). This tells us that in a pure OpenCL compute workload, the old AMD card performs on par with a mid-range laptop GPU from the same era — respectable for its class but nowhere near modern flagship territory.

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q scores 11,088 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, also at the 50th percentile. Its nearest rivals include the RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q at 11,088 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 550 at 11,075 (0.1% delta), and the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER at 11,047 (0.4% delta). The fact that this flagship card's Steel Nomad score lands near the W4300's OpenCL score is misleading — Steel Nomad is a modern DX12 gaming workload with ray tracing and mesh shaders, while Geekbench OpenCL is a legacy compute test. The NVIDIA card is being compared against itself in a test that stresses its RT and tensor cores, which the W4300 cannot even run. The 1.2% delta in the W4300's rival list is a statistical artifact of different test suites, not a performance equivalence.

The data shows that the W4300's 1,428.5 GFLOPS FP32 and 44.64 GTexel/s texture rate are orders of magnitude below the RTX PRO 6000's 109.7 TFLOPS and 1,714.6 GTexel/s. Pixel rate similarly jumps from 14.88 GPixel/s to 437.8 GPixel/s. These are not incremental improvements; they represent a generational leap of roughly 77x in compute throughput, 38x in texturing, and 29x in pixel fill rate.

FAQ

Q: Which card has more VRAM, and does it matter?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has 96GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, versus 4GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus for the FirePro W4300. That 24x capacity difference matters for datasets that exceed 4GB — modern AI models, large 3D scenes, and multi-layer compositing all exceed 4GB easily, while the W4300 will run out of memory on any such workload.

Q: Can the FirePro W4300 do ray tracing or AI inference?

A: No. The W4300 has zero RT cores and zero tensor cores, so hardware-accelerated ray tracing and tensor-based AI inference are impossible. The RTX PRO 6000 has 188 RT cores and 752 tensor cores specifically for those tasks. Any ray tracing on the W4300 would run entirely on its 768 shaders, which is impractically slow.

Q: Why do both cards have a 50th percentile score despite the massive spec difference?

A: The percentile is based on each card's own benchmark result relative to all GPUs in the database. The W4300's Geekbench OpenCL score of 11,225 lands at the midpoint of the distribution, and the RTX PRO 6000's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 11,088 also lands at the midpoint — but these are different tests with different workloads, so the percentiles are not directly comparable.

Q: What is the power draw difference?

A: The FirePro W4300 has a 50W TDP and requires no auxiliary power connector, with a 250W suggested PSU. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has a 300W TDP, requires a 16-pin power connector, and needs a 700W suggested PSU. This makes the AMD card suitable for small form factor systems, while the NVIDIA card demands a serious power supply.

Q: Which card supports newer display standards?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 uses four DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, supporting higher bandwidth and refresh rates. The W4300 uses four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, which cap at 4K 60Hz without compression. For multi-monitor 4K or 8K setups, the NVIDIA card is the clear choice.

Q: Which card is still in production?

A: The FirePro W4300 is end-of-life, released in late 2015, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is active and was released in early 2025. The successor to the FirePro GCN line is the Radeon Pro GCN family, whereas the RTX PRO 6000's predecessor is the Workstation Ada line.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD FirePro W4300 | NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q |

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

| Architecture | GCN 2.0 | Blackwell 2.0 |

| Process Node | 28 nm | 5 nm |

| Transistors | 2,080 million | 92,200 million |

| Die Size | 160 mm² | 750 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 13.0M / mm² | 122.9M / mm² |

| Memory Size | 4 GB | 96 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR7 |

| Memory Bus | 128 bit | 512 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 96.00 GB/s | 1.79 TB/s |

| Shading Units | 768 | 24,064 |

| TMUs | 48 | 752 |

| ROPs | 16 | 192 |

| RT Cores | None | 188 |

| Tensor Cores | None | 752 |

| Pixel Rate | 14.88 GPixel/s | 437.8 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 44.64 GTexel/s | 1,714.6 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 1,428.5 GFLOPS | 109.7 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | Not specified | 109.7 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 50 W | 300 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 16-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 250 W | 700 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 5.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 | 4x DisplayPort 2.1b |

| DirectX | 12 (12_0) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan | 1.2.170 | 1.4 |

| Length | 171 mm | 267 mm |

| Release Date | 2015-11-30 | 2025-03-17 |

| Production Status | End-of-life | Active |

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split. The AMD FirePro W4300 is for legacy systems that need a low-power, single-slot card for basic multi-display output and light 2D workloads. Its 50W TDP, no power connector requirement, and 250W PSU ceiling make it a drop-in solution for older workstations. It is end-of-life, but its Geekbench OpenCL score of 11,225 shows it still handles general compute tasks at a level comparable to the Radeon Pro WX 3200, which is fine for its era. Anyone still running one should not expect ray tracing, tensor acceleration, or any workload exceeding 4GB of VRAM.

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is for professionals who need maximum capacity and modern features. Its 96GB GDDR7, 188 RT cores, 752 tensor cores, and 109.7 TFLOPS of FP32/FP16 compute make it a workstation-class tool for AI training, rendering, simulation, and massive scene assembly. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 11,088 ties the RTX PRO 6000D variant and edges out the RX 550, but the real value is in the memory and architecture, not any single benchmark. The 700W PSU requirement and dual-slot form factor are reasonable trade-offs for this level of performance. If the workload fits in 4GB and runs on OpenCL, the W4300 suffices. For anything modern — especially AI or ray-traced rendering — the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is the only viable choice in this pairing.