AMD FirePro W5170M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK and the AMD FirePro W5170M are two 28 nm GPUs from 2014 aimed at entirely different markets, one a flagship desktop GeForce card and the other a mobile workstation MXM module, and the recorded data reflects that gulf in positioning even though both now sit in the 44th to 46th percentile range against all GPUs in the database. The TITAN BLACK carries an average benchmark score of 9474 against 8595 for the W5170M, and it swept both shared head-to-head tests. The following analysis walks through the measurements, the architecture and specification differences, and who each card suits based strictly on the data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two tests exist where both GPUs have recorded results, and the TITAN BLACK won both decisively.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the TITAN BLACK scored 27218 versus 8140 for the FirePro W5170M, a margin of 234.4 percent. Geekbench Vulkan tells a nearly identical story: 29561 versus 9050, a 226.6 percent gap. These are not close contests. In compute-oriented workloads the desktop card delivers roughly three to four times the throughput of the mobile module, which is consistent with the raw specification spread: 2880 shading units against 640, and 5.645 TFLOPS FP32 against 1,184.0 GFLOPS.

The wider benchmark set for the TITAN BLACK adds context on its own standing. Its Passmark G3D score of 9184 and GPU compute score of 3726 place it near rivals such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (average score 9458, within 0.2 percent), the AMD Radeon R7 M380 (9313, 1.7 percent behind), the NVIDIA Quadro K5000 (9637, 1.7 percent ahead), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (9645, 1.8 percent ahead). In other words, the TITAN BLACK performs like a solid mid-tier card by database averages, not like the flagship its launch specifications once implied.

The W5170M's rival cluster is telling in a different way: it sits essentially even with the Intel Arc A380 (8558, 0.4 percent behind it), the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 (8686, 1.1 percent ahead), the AMD Radeon HD 8870M (8462, 1.6 percent behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 (8458, 1.6 percent behind). Despite the lopsided head-to-head, its 8595 average keeps it within the same broad percentile band as the TITAN BLACK, at the 44th versus the 46th percentile against all GPUs. The averages compress the gap because they aggregate different test suites, but the direct comparisons leave no ambiguity about which GPU is faster where they overlap.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split by use case.

For any workload measured here, compute or graphics, the TITAN BLACK is the stronger performer. It won every shared benchmark by margins exceeding 226 percent, and its 6 GB of memory on a 384-bit bus with 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth dwarfs the W5170M's 2 GB, 128-bit, 72.00 GB/s configuration. Anyone running OpenCL or Vulkan compute workloads, or anything memory-bound, should expect the desktop card to finish far ahead.

The W5170M's case rests entirely on form factor and platform. It is an MXM module drawing board power with no external connectors, designed for mobile workstations where a 250 W dual-slot desktop card with 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors simply cannot fit. Its dimensions are device-dependent, while the TITAN BLACK measures 267 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 38 mm wide. In other words: the TITAN BLACK wins on performance, the W5170M wins on feasibility inside a laptop. There is no scenario in the recorded data where the W5170M outperforms the TITAN BLACK.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs were fabricated at TSMC on a 28 nm process, but nearly everything above the node diverges.

The TITAN BLACK uses NVIDIA's Kepler architecture on the GK110B chip, part of the GeForce 700 generation. It packs 7,080 million transistors into a 561 mm² die, yielding a density of 12.6M per mm². The W5170M uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture on the Tropo chip, part of the FirePro Mobile (Wx100M) generation for workstation laptops, with 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die at 12.2M per mm². The TITAN BLACK's die is roughly four and a half times larger and holds nearly five times the transistors.

Functional-unit counts follow the same pattern. The TITAN BLACK fields 2880 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 48 ROPs; the W5170M has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. Neither GPU has RT cores or tensor cores. The resulting throughput rates are 58.80 GPixel/s and 235.2 GTexel/s for the TITAN BLACK versus 14.80 GPixel/s and 37.00 GTexel/s for the W5170M, advantages of roughly 4x in pixel fill and over 6x in texture fill for the NVIDIA card.

API support is closely matched. Both report DirectX 12 with feature level 11_1, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan in the 1.2 family, with the TITAN BLACK at 1.2.175 and the W5170M at 1.2.170. Neither GPU is end-of-life in the database's status field in a way that favors the other: both are marked End-of-life. The TITAN BLACK succeeded GeForce 600 and was followed by GeForce 900; the W5170M succeeded FirePro Mobility and was followed by Radeon Pro Mobile.

Specification Differences

• Clocks: The TITAN BLACK runs an 889 MHz base and 980 MHz boost clock; the W5170M runs 900 MHz base and 925 MHz boost. Base clocks are nearly identical, so the performance gap comes from resources, not frequency.
• Memory: Both use GDDR5, but the TITAN BLACK has 6 GB on a 384-bit bus at 7 Gbps effective for 336.0 GB/s; the W5170M has 2 GB on a 128-bit bus at 4.5 Gbps effective for 72.00 GB/s.
• FP32 compute: 5.645 TFLOPS for the TITAN BLACK versus 1,184.0 GFLOPS for the W5170M.
• Power and form factor: The TITAN BLACK is a dual-slot desktop card with a 250 W TDP, 6-pin plus 8-pin power connectors, and a 600 W suggested PSU; the W5170M is an MXM module with no power connectors and no recorded TDP or PSU recommendation.
• Interface: PCIe 3.0 x16 for the TITAN BLACK versus MXM-A (3.0) for the W5170M.
• Display outputs: The TITAN BLACK offers 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2; the W5170M's outputs are portable-device-dependent.
• Release and MSRP: The TITAN BLACK launched on 2014-02-17 with a launch MSRP of 999 USD; the W5170M launched on 2014-08-24 with no launch MSRP recorded.

Fields where the two match or nearly match: 28 nm TSMC process, GDDR5 memory type, DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, End-of-life status, and transistor density within 0.4M per mm².

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the shared benchmarks?

A: The TITAN BLACK won both head-to-head tests: Geekbench OpenCL 27218 to 8140 (234.4 percent) and Geekbench Vulkan 29561 to 9050 (226.6 percent).

Q: Do the two cards sit in similar percentile positions despite the gap?

A: Yes. The TITAN BLACK ranks in the 46th percentile against all GPUs and the W5170M in the 44th, because the percentile measure compares each card against the full database rather than against each other.

Q: How does memory capacity and bandwidth compare?

A: The TITAN BLACK has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth; the W5170M has 2 GB on a 128-bit bus with 72.00 GB/s.

Q: Can the TITAN BLACK fit in a laptop?

A: No. It is a dual-slot desktop card, 267 mm long, with a 250 W TDP and both 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors, and it requires a 600 W suggested PSU. The W5170M is an MXM-A (3.0) module designed for mobile workstations.

Q: Are their clock speeds similar?

A: Base clocks are close, 889 MHz versus 900 MHz, and boosts are 980 MHz versus 925 MHz. The large performance difference comes from the TITAN BLACK's much larger resource count: 2880 shading units versus 640.

Q: Which GPUs are their closest rivals by average score?

A: The TITAN BLACK is within 0.2 percent of the GeForce GTX 760, 1.7 percent of the Radeon R7 M380, 1.7 percent of the Quadro K5000, and 1.8 percent of the GTX 960M. The W5170M is within 0.4 percent of the Arc A380, 1.1 percent of the Quadro P2200, 1.6 percent of the Radeon HD 8870M, and 1.6 percent of the GeForce MX330.