AMD FirePro W4300 vs NVIDIA Tesla K20c Comparison

The NVIDIA Tesla K20c and AMD FirePro W4300 are two very different professional GPU designs, separated by three years of architecture evolution and aimed at opposite ends of the workstation spectrum. The data shows a tightly contested OpenCL benchmark race, but the underlying hardware tells a story of divergent design philosophies where raw compute density meets efficiency and connectivity.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and it is a narrow victory for the NVIDIA Tesla K20c. The Tesla logs a score of 11,479 points against the FirePro W4300’s 11,225 points, a delta of just 2.3 percent. That is a slim margin, well within the noise of typical workload variation, yet it confirms that the older, larger Kepler part retains a slight edge in raw compute throughput.

Context from the nearest rivals sharpens this picture. The Tesla K20c sits just 0.4 percent behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (11,528 points) and 1.3 percent behind the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (11,627 points). It also trails the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 by 1.7 percent (11,680 points). However, it beats the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M by 1.9 percent (11,261 points). The FirePro W4300, meanwhile, is effectively tied with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 (11,228 points, 0 percent delta) and trails the GTX 780M by just 0.3 percent. It actually pulls ahead of the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q and the RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q by 1.2 percent each, both of which score 11,088 points.

The percentile rankings reflect this middle-of-the-pack positioning. The Tesla K20c sits at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, while the FirePro W4300 is at the 50th percentile. These are near-identical standings, placing both cards squarely in the mid-range of the benchmark database. What is striking is that the FirePro, with a fraction of the silicon and a much lower power envelope, manages to hang within 2.3 percent of a card that was designed for high-performance computing clusters. That reflects architectural efficiency, but the Tesla’s win is still a win, and it comes with a substantially different feature set.

Where Each One Wins

The Tesla K20c wins the only benchmark on record, and that victory is supported by its sheer compute resources. With 2,496 shading units, 208 texture mapping units, and 40 ROPs, the Kepler chip delivers a raw FP32 throughput of 3.524 TFLOPS. Its memory subsystem is equally imposing: 5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320-bit bus yields 208.0 GB/s of bandwidth, 4.8 GB/s more than the FirePro’s entire memory budget. Pixel fill rate is 36.71 GPixel/s and texture rate is 146.8 GTexel/s, both roughly 2.5 times the FirePro’s figures. This is a card built to grind through large compute workloads, and the benchmark data confirms it edges out the newer part in raw OpenCL performance.

The FirePro W4300 wins in every other practical category a workstation buyer might care about, even if it loses the compute benchmark. Its 50 W TDP is a fraction of the Tesla’s 225 W, and it requires no external power connectors, drawing everything from the PCIe slot. The Tesla needs a 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin connector and a suggested 550 W power supply, versus 250 W for the FirePro. Physical size is another clear win: the FirePro is a single-slot card at 171 mm (6.7 inches) long and 69 mm (2.7 inches) tall, while the Tesla is a dual-slot 267 mm (10.5 inches) behemoth. The FirePro also has four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, while the Tesla has none whatsoever. For any multi-monitor or space-constrained deployment, the FirePro is the only viable option.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is substantial. The Tesla K20c uses the GK110 chip, built on the Kepler architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 28 nm process. That chip packs 7,080 million transistors into a 561 mm² die, for a transistor density of 12.6M per mm². The FirePro W4300 uses the Bonaire chip, based on GCN 2.0, also on TSMC’s 28 nm node. But Bonaire is a much smaller design: 2,080 million transistors on a 160 mm² die, with a slightly higher transistor density of 13.0M per mm². The density difference is minor, but the scale difference is enormous — the Tesla has 3.4 times the transistors and 3.5 times the die area.

Memory architecture diverges sharply. The Tesla runs its GDDR5 at 1,300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective) across a 320-bit bus, while the FirePro runs its GDDR5 at 1,500 MHz (6 Gbps effective) across a narrower 128-bit bus. The Tesla’s wider bus delivers 208.0 GB/s of bandwidth, more than double the FirePro’s 96.00 GB/s. The FirePro compensates with a newer PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, while the Tesla is stuck on PCIe 2.0 x16, which halves the theoretical host transfer rate. For workloads that stream data from system memory, the FirePro’s interface advantage could offset some of its bandwidth deficit.

Feature support is a mixed bag. Both cards support DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.6, but the Tesla’s DirectX support is limited to 11_0 feature level, while the FirePro reaches 12_0. Vulkan support is marginally newer on the Tesla (1.2.175 vs 1.2.170). Neither card has ray tracing or tensor cores. The Tesla’s display outputs are absent entirely, marking it as a pure compute accelerator, while the FirePro’s four mini-DisplayPort outputs make it a functional workstation graphics card. The FirePro’s GCN 2.0 architecture is also a generation newer than Kepler, which shows in its superior API feature level despite being a smaller chip.

The Verdict

The data directs different buyers to each card. The NVIDIA Tesla K20c is for compute-first environments where OpenCL performance is the sole metric. Its 2.3 percent benchmark lead over the FirePro, combined with 3.524 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput and 208.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, makes it the stronger raw compute engine. The 51st percentile ranking, just above the FirePro’s 50th, confirms the edge. Buyers who need a dual-slot accelerator with massive memory bandwidth and do not care about display output will prefer the Tesla.

The AMD FirePro W4300 is for workstation users who need a card that can actually drive monitors. Its four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, single-slot profile, 171 mm length, and 50 W power draw make it a drop-in solution for compact systems or multi-card arrays. The 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and 96.00 GB/s bandwidth are modest, but the card still manages to score within 2.3 percent of the Tesla in OpenCL, sitting at the 50th percentile. It also supports PCIe 3.0 and DirectX 12_0, features the Tesla lacks. For a professional who needs a quiet, low-power, multi-monitor card that can also handle compute tasks, the FirePro is the rational pick.

There is no universal winner. The benchmark data shows a near-tie in compute, but the cards are built for different jobs. The Tesla is a server-grade compute accelerator with no video outputs and a massive power appetite. The FirePro is a workstation card that prioritizes efficiency and connectivity. Anyone selecting between them should let their workload decide: pure compute favors the Tesla, everything else favors the FirePro.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K20c scores 11,479, which is 2.3 percent higher than the AMD FirePro W4300’s 11,225.

Q: How does the Tesla K20c compare to its closest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M?

A: The Tesla K20c is 0.4 percent behind the Radeon Pro 5500M, which scores 11,528, making the two effectively performance equals.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference between the two cards?

A: The Tesla K20c delivers 208.0 GB/s over a 320-bit bus, while the FirePro W4300 provides 96.00 GB/s over a 128-bit bus, a difference of 112 GB/s in favor of the Tesla.

Q: Does the AMD FirePro W4300 have display outputs?

A: Yes, it has 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, while the NVIDIA Tesla K20c has no display outputs at all.

Q: What is the power consumption of each card?

A: The Tesla K20c has a 225 W TDP and requires a 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connector, while the FirePro W4300 has a 50 W TDP and needs no external power connectors.

Q: How do the two cards rank among all GPUs?

A: The Tesla K20c is at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, and the FirePro W4300 is at the 50th percentile, placing them in the mid-range of the database.