AMD FirePro W5000 vs NVIDIA Tesla C2070 Comparison

AMD FirePro W5000 vs NVIDIA Tesla C2070: the benchmark data shows a narrow but decisive victory for the AMD card, which edges out the Tesla in the sole OpenCL test by 0.9%. Both cards sit at the 47th percentile of all GPUs, making them effectively peers in raw compute, but their architectural philosophies and physical requirements diverge sharply. The FirePro W5000 achieves its score with a modern 28 nm GCN design, while the Tesla C2070 relies on the older, power-hungry Fermi architecture. This head-to-head is less about a knockout punch and more about efficiency, feature support, and form factor, where the AMD card consistently demonstrates advantages that matter for real-world deployment.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the included benchmark comparison?

A: The AMD FirePro W5000 wins the Geekbench OpenCL test, scoring 9803 against the NVIDIA Tesla C2070's 9716. The performance delta is a slim 0.9% in favor of the AMD card.

Q: How do the two cards compare in terms of memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 offers substantially more memory, with 6 GB across a 384-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 143.4 GB/s. The AMD FirePro W5000 has 2 GB on a 256-bit bus, providing 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The Tesla's advantage here is 40% more bandwidth and triple the capacity.

Q: What are the significant power and physical design differences?

A: The AMD FirePro W5000 has a 75 W TDP, is single-slot, requires no power connectors, and has a suggested PSU of 250 W. In contrast, the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 has a 238 W TDP, is dual-slot, needs one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector, and suggests a 550 W power supply.

Q: Which GPU supports more modern software interfaces?

A: The AMD FirePro W5000 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6 but has no Vulkan support listed in the data.

Q: How does the AMD FirePro W5000's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The FirePro W5000 scores 0.2% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, 0.8% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla M10, but is 0.3% and 0.4% behind the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M and Quadro 6000, respectively. All of these deltas are within the margin of a rounding error.

Q: What is the performance percentile for both cards relative to all GPUs?

A: Both the AMD FirePro W5000 and the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 are placed at the 47th percentile when compared to all GPUs in the database. This places them in the same performance tier, despite their architectural differences.

Architecture Differences

The fundamental divide between these two cards is the manufacturing process and core design. The AMD FirePro W5000 is built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, packing 2,800 million transistors into a 212 mm² die. This results in a transistor density of 13.2 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 uses the older 40 nm node, also from TSMC, and houses 3,100 million transistors on a massive 529 mm² die, yielding a density of only 5.9 million per square millimeter. The AMD card is clearly the more modern, denser design.

The compute architectures are entirely different generations. The FirePro W5000 uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture with the "Pitcairn" chip, belonging to the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation. The Tesla C2070 uses NVIDIA's Fermi architecture with the GF100 chip, part of the Tesla Fermi (x20xx) generation. This architectural shift is reflected in the compute unit counts: the AMD card has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the NVIDIA card has 448 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. AMD emphasizes raw shader throughput, while NVIDIA pairs fewer shaders with more texture and pixel processing hardware.

Clock speeds and memory frequencies also tell a story of different design priorities. The AMD card's memory runs at 800 MHz (3.2 Gbps effective), while the NVIDIA card's memory runs slightly slower at 747 MHz (3 Gbps effective). However, the Tesla C2070 compensates with a wider 384-bit bus versus the FirePro's 256-bit bus. The process node difference is the root cause of the power draw gap: the 28 nm AMD chip sips power at 75 W, while the 40 nm NVIDIA chip requires 238 W, a massive difference that impacts cooling and system requirements.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test. In this single metric, the AMD FirePro W5000 scores 9803, while the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 scores 9716. The delta is 0.9% in favor of the AMD card, which is a narrow win but a win nonetheless. This result aligns with the fact that the FirePro W5000 has a higher theoretical FP32 throughput of 1,267.2 GFLOPS compared to the Tesla C2070's 1,027.7 GFLOPS—a 23% advantage in raw floating-point capability that does not fully translate to the OpenCL benchmark.

The benchmark result places both cards in a tight cluster of performance. The AMD FirePro W5000's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (score 9780, delta 0.2%) and the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M (score 9832, delta -0.3%). The NVIDIA Tesla C2070's closest competitors are the NVIDIA Tesla M10 (score 9724, delta -0.1%) and the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 (score 9665, delta 0.5%). The data suggests that in OpenCL compute, these two cards are essentially interchangeable in performance, with the AMD card holding a marginal edge.

It is notably the AMD card achieves its win with significantly less memory bandwidth (102.4 GB/s vs 143.4 GB/s) and less memory capacity (2 GB vs 6 GB). This indicates that the FirePro W5000's newer architecture is more efficient at utilizing its available resources, as it overcomes those deficits to score higher. The Tesla C2070's higher pixel rate (26.40 GPixel/s for AMD vs 16.07 GPixel/s for NVIDIA) and texture rate (39.60 GTexel/s vs 32.14 GTexel/s) on the AMD side further support the conclusion that the GCN architecture extracts more performance per watt and per byte of memory.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every physical and technical specification. The AMD FirePro W5000 is built on a 28 nm process, while the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 uses a 40 nm process. Transistor counts differ, with AMD at 2,800 million and NVIDIA at 3,100 million, but the die sizes are wildly different: 212 mm² for AMD versus 529 mm² for NVIDIA. Transistor density is 13.2M / mm² for AMD and 5.9M / mm² for NVIDIA.

Memory is a major differentiator. The AMD card has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA card has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 143.4 GB/s bandwidth. The memory clock is 800 MHz (3.2 Gbps effective) on AMD versus 747 MHz (3 Gbps effective) on NVIDIA. The compute unit counts also differ: AMD has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while NVIDIA has 448 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 48 ROPs.

The cards have opposite power profiles. The AMD FirePro W5000 has a TDP of 75 W, is single-slot, requires no power connectors, and has a suggested PSU of 250 W. The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 has a TDP of 238 W, is dual-slot, requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector, and has a suggested PSU of 550 W. The bus interface also differs: PCIe 3.0 x16 on AMD versus PCIe 2.0 x16 on NVIDIA. Display outputs are limited on both, but the AMD card offers 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2, while the NVIDIA card offers only 1x DVI.

Software API support is another clear split. The AMD card supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6, but has no Vulkan support. Physical dimensions favor the AMD card, which is 183 mm (7.2 inches) long and 111 mm (4.4 inches) tall, while the NVIDIA card is 248 mm (9.8 inches) long. The AMD card also has a launch MSRP of 599 USD, while the NVIDIA card has no launch MSRP listed.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD FirePro W5000 wins in every efficiency metric. Its 75 W TDP versus the Tesla's 238 W means it can be deployed in systems with a 250 W suggested PSU, whereas the Tesla demands a 550 W unit. The single-slot design with no power connectors makes the FirePro far easier to install in dense workstations. The AMD card also wins on modern software support, offering Vulkan 1.2.170 and a more recent DirectX 12 (11_1) feature level, which the Tesla lacks. In the raw benchmark, the AMD card wins the OpenCL test by 0.9%, and it has higher theoretical pixel and texture rates (26.40 GPixel/s vs 16.07 GPixel/s, and 39.60 GTexel/s vs 32.14 GTexel/s).

The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 wins decisively in memory capacity and bandwidth. With 6 GB versus 2 GB, it can handle datasets three times larger without spilling to system memory. Its 143.4 GB/s bandwidth is 40% higher than the AMD card's 102.4 GB/s, which is critical for memory-bound workloads. The Tesla also has more ROPs (48 vs 32) and TMUs (56 vs 48), suggesting better performance in specific rasterization or texture-heavy tasks. The NVIDIA card's larger die and transistor count (3,100 million vs 2,800 million) indicate a more complex design, even if it is less efficient.

The use case split is clear: the AMD FirePro W5000 is the choice for modern, power-constrained environments that need current API support and a compact form factor. The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 is the choice for compute workloads that prioritize large memory pools and high bandwidth over power efficiency, particularly in legacy systems built around PCIe 2.0.

The Verdict

The benchmark data points to the AMD FirePro W5000 as the better overall card for most users. It wins the only head-to-head test, uses a fraction of the power, supports more modern APIs, and fits in a single slot. The 0.9% performance win in OpenCL is marginal, but it is reinforced by the AMD card's superior architecture efficiency: it achieves a higher score despite having one-third the memory capacity and 28% less bandwidth. For any system where power draw, cooling, or physical space is a constraint, the FirePro W5000 is the obvious choice.

The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 is not without merit, but its advantages are specific to memory-bound scenarios. The 6 GB frame buffer is three times larger than the AMD card's, and the 143.4 GB/s bandwidth is significantly higher. If the workload involves large datasets that fit in GPU memory, the Tesla C2070 will avoid costly memory swaps and potentially outperform the AMD card in real-world tasks, despite losing the synthetic benchmark. However, this comes at the cost of a 238 W TDP, dual-slot size, and the need for a 550 W power supply.

For a modern deployment, the AMD FirePro W5000 is the recommendation. It offers comparable compute performance, better API support, and a dramatically lower system footprint. The Tesla C2070 is a legacy part that excels only in memory capacity, making it suitable for specific compute tasks that require large in-memory data processing. The data shows that the AMD card is the more balanced and forward-looking product, while the NVIDIA card is a niche tool for memory-heavy workloads. Pick the FirePro for general compute and modern software; pick the Tesla only if 6 GB of memory is an absolute requirement.