AMD FirePro W5000 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark records paint a one-sided picture in this comparison. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 claims the only direct head-to-head benchmark victory, winning the Geekbench OpenCL test by a substantial margin. The database shows the GTX 980 scoring 34,676 points against the AMD FirePro W5000's 9,803 points, a delta of 71.7 percent in favor of the NVIDIA card. This places the FirePro W5000 at a clear disadvantage in raw compute throughput as measured by OpenCL workloads.

However, the use-case split is not merely about which card scores higher. The FirePro W5000 belongs to AMD's professional workstation line, while the GTX 980 is a consumer gaming product. The data indicates the FirePro W5000 sits at the 47th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the GTX 980 occupies the 43rd percentile. This close percentile ranking despite the massive OpenCL score gap suggests the database's average benchmark score calculation weights the GTX 980's multiple test results differently. The GTX 980 has eleven recorded benchmarks spanning DirectX 9 through DirectX 12, Metal, Vulkan, OpenCL, and 2D workloads, while the FirePro W5000 has only a single OpenCL entry. The FirePro's average benchmark score of 9,803 equals its sole OpenCL result, whereas the GTX 980's average of 8,167 pulls from all eleven tests, many of which score lower than its OpenCL result.

For users prioritizing OpenCL compute performance, the GTX 980 is the clear choice based on recorded data. For workloads that rely on the professional feature set of AMD's FirePro line, the database shows no benchmark evidence of superiority, but the FirePro W5000's single-slot form factor and lack of external power connectors indicate a different design philosophy. The GTX 980 requires a dual-slot footprint and two 6-pin power connectors, making it unsuitable for space-constrained workstation builds where the FirePro could fit more easily.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from fundamentally different architectural generations and design intents. The AMD FirePro W5000 uses the Pitcairn chip built on GCN 1.0 architecture, a first-generation Graphics Core Next design that established AMD's compute-oriented GPU architecture. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 uses the GM204 chip with Maxwell 2.0 architecture, the second iteration of NVIDIA's Maxwell design that focused on efficiency and performance per watt.

Both cards are fabricated on TSMC's 28 nm process node, and their transistor densities are nearly identical: the FirePro W5000 packs 2,800 million transistors into a 212 mm² die, yielding 13.2 million transistors per square millimeter, while the GTX 980 crams 5,200 million transistors into a 398 mm² die, achieving 13.1 million per square millimeter. The GTX 980's die is nearly twice the physical size and carries nearly twice the transistor count.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The FirePro W5000 has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operations pipelines. The GTX 980 has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, giving it 2.67 times the shader count, 2.67 times the texture units, and exactly double the ROP count. The GTX 980's base clock of 1,127 MHz and boost clock of 1,216 MHz are not directly comparable to the FirePro W5000, which has no base or boost clock listed in the database, only a memory clock of 800 MHz with 3.2 Gbps effective data rate.

Memory configurations also differ substantially. The FirePro W5000 carries 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 980 doubles the capacity to 4 GB of GDDR5 on the same 256-bit bus width, but achieves 224.4 GB/s of bandwidth due to its 1,753 MHz memory clock with 7 Gbps effective rate. The GTX 980's memory bandwidth is more than double that of the FirePro W5000.

Feature support shows generational differences as well. The FirePro W5000 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 11_1, while the GTX 980 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1, representing a newer feature set. Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the GTX 980 lists Vulkan 1.4 support while the FirePro W5000 lists Vulkan 1.2.170, a slightly older version of the Vulkan API specification.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score in the database?

A: The AMD FirePro W5000 has an average benchmark score of 9,803, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 has an average of 8,167. However, the FirePro W5000 has only one recorded benchmark (Geekbench OpenCL), whereas the GTX 980 has eleven recorded benchmarks across multiple test suites.

Q: How do the two cards compare in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The GTX 980 scores 34,676 points compared to the FirePro W5000's 9,803 points, a delta of 71.7 percent in favor of the GTX 980. This is the only direct head-to-head benchmark recorded in the database.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The FirePro W5000 has a TDP of 75 W with no external power connectors and a suggested power supply of 250 W. The GTX 980 has a TDP of 165 W, requires two 6-pin power connectors, and needs a suggested power supply of 450 W.

Q: Which card offers more memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The GTX 980 provides 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with 224.4 GB/s of bandwidth, while the FirePro W5000 provides 2 GB of GDDR5 with 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth. Both use a 256-bit memory bus.

Q: What are the physical dimensions of each card?

A: The FirePro W5000 measures 183 mm in length and 111 mm in height, occupying a single slot. The GTX 980 measures 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 40 mm in width, requiring a dual-slot configuration.

Q: Which card has better DirectX feature level support?

A: The GTX 980 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1, while the FirePro W5000 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 11_1. The GTX 980's feature level represents a more capable DirectX 12 implementation.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification category in the database. The FirePro W5000 uses the Pitcairn chip with GCN 1.0 architecture, while the GTX 980 uses the GM204 chip with Maxwell 2.0 architecture. The FirePro W5000 belongs to the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation, while the GTX 980 belongs to the GeForce 900 generation. Both use TSMC's 28 nm process, but the GTX 980's die is 398 mm² versus 212 mm² for the FirePro W5000, and the transistor counts are 5,200 million versus 2,800 million, respectively. Transistor density is nearly equal at 13.1M per mm² for the GTX 980 and 13.2M per mm² for the FirePro W5000.

Clock speeds differ significantly. The GTX 980 has a base clock of 1,127 MHz and a boost clock of 1,216 MHz, while the FirePro W5000 has no base or boost clock listed. Memory clocks are 1,753 MHz with 7 Gbps effective for the GTX 980 versus 800 MHz with 3.2 Gbps effective for the FirePro W5000. Memory capacity is 4 GB versus 2 GB, bandwidth is 224.4 GB/s versus 102.4 GB/s, and both use GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus.

Compute resources show the GTX 980's advantage: 2,048 shading units versus 768, 128 TMUs versus 48, and 64 ROPs versus 32. Pixel rate is 77.82 GPixel/s versus 26.40 GPixel/s, texture rate is 155.6 GTexel/s versus 39.60 GTexel/s, and FP32 performance is 4.981 TFLOPS versus 1,267.2 GFLOPS. Neither card has ray tracing cores or tensor cores listed.

Power and physical specifications diverge sharply. The FirePro W5000 has a 75 W TDP, single-slot design, no power connectors, and a 250 W suggested PSU. The GTX 980 has a 165 W TDP, dual-slot design, two 6-pin power connectors, and a 450 W suggested PSU. The FirePro W5000 is 183 mm long, while the GTX 980 is 267 mm long; both are 111 mm tall, and the GTX 980 is 40 mm wide. Display outputs are 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2 for the FirePro W5000, versus 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.2 for the GTX 980.

API support differences include DirectX 12 (11_1) for the FirePro W5000 versus DirectX 12 (12_1) for the GTX 980, OpenGL 4.6 for both, and Vulkan 1.2.170 versus Vulkan 1.4. The FirePro W5000 was released on August 6, 2012, while the GTX 980 was released on September 18, 2014. The FirePro W5000's successor is Radeon Pro Polaris, while the GTX 980's successor is GeForce 10. Both cards are end-of-life.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records exactly one head-to-head benchmark between these two cards, and it is decisive. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 scores 34,676 points, while the AMD FirePro W5000 scores 9,803 points. The delta percentage of 71.7 percent means the GTX 980 outperforms the FirePro W5000 by a factor of roughly 3.5 times. This is the largest margin recorded anywhere in the comparison, and it aligns with the raw specification differences: the GTX 980 has 2,048 shading units versus 768, 4 GB of memory versus 2 GB, and 224.4 GB/s of bandwidth versus 102.4 GB/s.

The FirePro W5000's nearest rivals in the database provide context for its OpenCL score. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 scores 9,780, a 0.2 percent delta from the FirePro W5000, making these two nearly identical in OpenCL performance. The NVIDIA Quadro M2000M scores 9,832, a 0.3 percent delta, and the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 scores 9,846, a 0.4 percent delta. The NVIDIA Tesla M10 scores 9,724, a 0.8 percent delta. The FirePro W5000's OpenCL result is squarely in the mid-range of this cluster, within one percent of all four rivals.

The GTX 980's nearest rivals tell a different story. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M scores 8,135, a 0.4 percent delta from the GTX 980's average of 8,167. The AMD Radeon R9 M360 scores 8,129, a 0.5 percent delta, and the NVIDIA GeForce 945M scores 8,099, a 0.8 percent delta. The NVIDIA GRID K2 scores 8,080, a 1.1 percent delta. These rivals are all lower-end or mobile parts, indicating that the GTX 980's average benchmark score, which includes low DirectX 9 and DirectX 12 scores, pulls its average down relative to its OpenCL peak.

The GTX 980's individual benchmark results show significant variation. Its Passmark G3D score of 11,095 and Passmark GPU Compute score of 4,753 are strong, while its Passmark DirectX 9 score of 164, DirectX 11 score of 83, DirectX 10 score of 53, and DirectX 12 score of 46 reflect the age of the architecture relative to modern API workloads. Its Geekbench Metal score of 15,163 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 22,543 demonstrate solid performance in those APIs, while its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 474 is modest. The FirePro W5000 has no comparable multi-API benchmark results, so the GTX 980's broader test coverage cannot be directly compared beyond the single OpenCL head-to-head.

The data shows the GTX 980 winning the only recorded head-to-head test with a margin that dwarfs the differences seen among either card's nearest rivals. The FirePro W5000's closest rival, the Quadro 6000, is only 0.4 percent away, while the GTX 980's closest rival, the GTX 950M, is 0.4 percent away. Neither card's nearest-rival cluster approaches the 71.7 percent gap between the two cards themselves.