AMD FirePro W5000 vs AMD Radeon R9 M375 Comparison

The AMD Radeon R9 M375 and AMD FirePro W5000 are both end-of-life mobile and workstation graphics solutions built on the same GCN 1.0 architecture. Despite sharing a common design philosophy, the benchmark data reveals a clear, albeit modest, performance hierarchy between the two. The R9 M375 leads in the available compute benchmark, while the FirePro W5000 counters with a significantly different memory subsystem and physical design. This analysis compares their measured performance, architectural makeup, and specification differences based strictly on the provided data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the AMD Radeon R9 M375 posts a score of 10,457 against the AMD FirePro W5000’s 9,803. This gives the R9 M375 a 6.7% lead, a decisive margin that places it clearly ahead in raw compute throughput as measured by this workload. The R9 M375 also holds a secondary Geekbench Vulkan score of 9,682, which is not directly compared but indicates its API versatility. The FirePro W5000 has no corresponding Vulkan result in the data, meaning its OpenCL score of 9,803 is its sole benchmark entry.

Contextualizing these scores against their respective nearest rivals shows how each card sits in the broader GPU landscape. The R9 M375’s average benchmark score is 10,070, which places it 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M (10,043) and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M (10,013). It also edges out the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M (9,959) by 1.1%. However, it trails the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A (10,273) by 2%. This positions the R9 M375 as a solid mid-pack performer, sitting just above several older high-end mobile parts but slightly below a contemporary GTX-class chip.

The FirePro W5000, with an average score of 9,803, is nearly identical to its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, which scores 9,780 — a negligible 0.2% difference. It is also within 0.3% of the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M (9,832) and 0.4% of the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 (9,846). The FirePro W5000 does outperform the NVIDIA Tesla M10 (9,724) by 0.8%. This tight clustering indicates that the W5000’s raw compute performance is competitive with a range of professional and consumer GPUs from its era, though it lacks the headroom shown by the R9 M375.

The 6.7% delta in the head-to-head is the most significant statistical gap in the entire comparison. It is larger than any delta seen between either card and its nearest rivals, suggesting that the R9 M375’s advantage over the W5000 is more pronounced than the typical variance between similar-tier GPUs. The data shows the R9 M375 winning the only benchmark where both are present, and its overall percentile ranking of 48 versus the W5000’s 47 reinforces this slight but consistent edge in measured performance.

The Verdict

From a pure performance standpoint, the data unequivocally favors the AMD Radeon R9 M375. Its 6.7% lead in Geekbench OpenCL, combined with its higher average benchmark score of 10,070 versus 9,803, makes it the stronger choice for any workload that relies on general-purpose compute or shader throughput. The R9 M375 also offers Vulkan support with a score of 9,682, while the FirePro W5000 has no such result, indicating a broader API feature set for modern applications.

The AMD FirePro W5000 is not without its merits, but they lie outside raw benchmark scores. It is a single-slot card with a 75 W TDP, requires no power connectors, and is rated for a 250 W suggested PSU. This makes it a far more accessible installation for compact or legacy workstations. Its memory configuration is also fundamentally different, and while that does not translate into a benchmark win here, it points toward a different use case. The W5000’s launch MSRP is 599 USD, a figure that reflects its professional positioning at release, whereas the R9 M375 has no listed launch price.

For a user prioritizing compute performance in a headless or benchmark-driven environment, the R9 M375 is the obvious pick based on the numbers. For a user constrained by physical space, power delivery, or who requires specific display outputs — the W5000 offers 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2 — the FirePro W5000 is the more practical option, despite its lower score. The verdict is not a sweeping endorsement of either; it is a split decision where the R9 M375 wins on performance and the FirePro W5000 wins on form factor and power efficiency.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The AMD Radeon R9 M375 scores 10,457, which is 6.7% higher than the AMD FirePro W5000’s 9,803.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The R9 M375 has an average benchmark score of 10,070, while the FirePro W5000’s average is 9,803.

Q: How does the R9 M375 compare to its closest rival, the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M?

A: The R9 M375 is 0.3% ahead of the Quadro K5100M, which has an average score of 10,043.

Q: Does the FirePro W5000 support Vulkan?

A: The data does not list a Vulkan benchmark for the FirePro W5000. The R9 M375 has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 9,682.

Q: What are the power requirements for the FirePro W5000?

A: The FirePro W5000 has a 75 W TDP, requires no power connectors, and has a suggested PSU of 250 W.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the FirePro W5000?

A: The launch MSRP is 599 USD.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in several fundamental specifications beyond their benchmark scores. The R9 M375 uses 2 GB of DDR3 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 28.80 GB/s. The FirePro W5000 uses 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a substantially higher bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. This is a 3.5x difference in memory bandwidth, favoring the W5000, though it does not translate into a compute win in the available data.

Clock speeds also differ. The R9 M375 has a base clock of 1000 MHz and a boost clock of 1015 MHz, with memory running at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective). The FirePro W5000 has no listed base or boost clocks, but its memory runs at 800 MHz (3.2 Gbps effective). The R9 M375’s higher core clocks contribute to its pixel rate of 16.24 GPixel/s and texture rate of 40.60 GTexel/s, while the W5000 achieves 26.40 GPixel/s and 39.60 GTexel/s despite its lower clock, due to having more ROPs and TMUs.

Physical dimensions are only provided for the FirePro W5000, which measures 183 mm (7.2 inches) in length and 111 mm (4.4 inches) in height. The W5000 is a single-slot card with no power connectors and a 75 W TDP, whereas the R9 M375 has no listed TDP, slot width, or power connector information. The W5000 also specifies display outputs as 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2, while the R9 M375 has no display output data. Both cards use a PCIe 3.0 x16 bus interface.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs are built on GCN 1.0 architecture using a 28 nm process at TSMC, but they use different chips. The R9 M375 uses the Tropo chip, while the FirePro W5000 uses the Pitcairn chip. This leads to a significant difference in transistor count and die size: the Tropo has 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, while the Pitcairn has 2,800 million transistors on a 212 mm² die. The transistor density is 12.2M / mm² for the R9 M375 and 13.2M / mm² for the FirePro W5000, indicating the W5000 packs transistors more densely.

The compute unit configuration also differs. The R9 M375 has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The FirePro W5000 has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. This gives the W5000 a 20% advantage in shading units and a 100% advantage in ROPs, which explains its higher pixel rate of 26.40 GPixel/s versus the R9 M375’s 16.24 GPixel/s. The texture rates are nearly identical, with the W5000 at 39.60 GTexel/s and the R9 M375 at 40.60 GTexel/s, despite the W5000 having more TMUs, because the R9 M375’s higher clocks compensate.

FP32 performance is close, with the R9 M375 achieving 1,299.2 GFLOPS and the FirePro W5000 achieving 1,267.2 GFLOPS. Neither card has FP16, ray tracing, or tensor core data. The generation names differ, with the R9 M375 belonging to the Gem System (R9 M300) and the W5000 belonging to the FirePro GCN (Wx000). Their production status is end-of-life for both, with the R9 M375 released in 2015 and the W5000 in 2012. The R9 M375’s predecessor is Solar System and successor is Polaris Mobile, while the W5000’s predecessor is FirePro Terascale and successor is Radeon Pro Polaris. Both support DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170.