AMD FirePro W600 vs NVIDIA Quadro K4000M Comparison

The AMD FirePro W600 and NVIDIA Quadro K4000M are both end-of-life professional workstation GPUs from 2012, built on the same 28 nm TSMC process, yet they target fundamentally different physical and performance profiles. The data shows a narrow but decisive victory for the AMD card: the FirePro W600 scores 6223 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 4% ahead of the Quadro K4000M’s 5986. While both cards sit in the lower third of all GPUs (36th and 34th percentiles respectively), their architectural and specification differences create distinct use cases that go beyond raw score.

The Verdict

The AMD FirePro W600 is the clear choice for users needing a fixed, desktop-bound workstation with multi-display output, based on its benchmark edge and its 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 configuration. The data shows a 4% OpenCL performance advantage over the Quadro K4000M (6223 vs 5986), which, while modest, is consistent across the single head-to-head benchmark. The W600 also offers a lower 75 W TDP versus the K4000M’s 100 W, and it requires no power connectors, making it simpler to integrate into a standard desktop chassis with a suggested 250 W PSU. Its single-slot, 168 mm length design is a compact, predictable form factor.

The NVIDIA Quadro K4000M is the appropriate pick only when the form factor dictates it: it is an MXM Module (MXM-B 3.0 interface), meaning it is designed for portable or modular systems where the display outputs are "Portable Device Dependent." The K4000M compensates for its 3.9% performance deficit in OpenCL with a significantly larger memory footprint: 4 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus versus the W600’s 2 GB on a 128-bit bus. This yields 89.60 GB/s of bandwidth versus 64.00 GB/s, which is a 40% advantage in memory throughput. For workloads that are memory-capacity-bound rather than compute-bound, the K4000M’s 4 GB frame buffer is the only substantive reason to choose it over the faster W600.

Neither card is competitive by modern standards; the W600’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti SUPER with an average score of 6270, just 0.7% higher, while the K4000M sits within 0.2% of the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server (5996). These comparisons suggest that both cards are clustered tightly with a wide range of unrelated GPUs, indicating that their absolute performance is low but that the delta between them is real. Choose the W600 for raw compute and desktop workstation use; choose the K4000M only if the MXM form factor or 4 GB memory capacity is non-negotiable.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The AMD FirePro W600 scores 6223, which is 4% higher than the NVIDIA Quadro K4000M’s 5986.

Q: How much memory does each card have, and what is the bandwidth difference?

A: The Quadro K4000M has 4 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, yielding 89.60 GB/s, while the FirePro W600 has 2 GB GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 64.00 GB/s. The K4000M has a 40% bandwidth advantage.

Q: Which card requires a higher power supply or has a higher TDP?

A: The Quadro K4000M has a 100 W TDP, whereas the FirePro W600 is rated at 75 W. The W600 suggests a 250 W PSU, while the K4000M has no suggested PSU listed due to its MXM module design.

Q: Are these cards still in production?

A: No, both are marked as "End-of-life" in the data. The FirePro W600 was released on 2012-06-12, and the Quadro K4000M was released on 2012-05-31.

Q: What are the closest rivals by benchmark score for each card?

A: The FirePro W600’s nearest rival is the AMD Radeon HD 6950 (6210, 0.2% lower). The Quadro K4000M’s nearest rival is the AMD FirePro W4100 (5987, 0% difference).

Q: Which card has more shading units and texture units?

A: The Quadro K4000M has 960 shading units and 80 TMUs, while the FirePro W600 has 512 shading units and 32 TMUs. The K4000M has nearly double the shading units.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures despite sharing the same 28 nm TSMC process node. The AMD FirePro W600 uses the Cape Verde chip based on GCN 1.0 architecture, part of the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation. It packs 1,500 million transistors into a 123 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 12.2M per mm². In contrast, the NVIDIA Quadro K4000M uses the GK104 chip based on Kepler architecture, part of the Quadro Kepler-M (Kx000M) generation. The GK104 is a much larger chip: 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, yielding a nearly identical transistor density of 12.0M per mm².

The functional block counts differ dramatically. The K4000M features 960 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the W600 has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. This gives the NVIDIA part a 2x advantage in texture units and a 2x advantage in ROPs. However, the pixel rates are nearly identical: 12.00 GPixel/s for the W600 versus 12.02 GPixel/s for the K4000M. The texture rate tells a different story: the K4000M achieves 48.08 GTexel/s versus the W600’s 24.00 GTexel/s, exactly double. In FP32 compute, the K4000M delivers 1,153.9 GFLOPS versus 768.0 GFLOPS, a 50% advantage. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, and both lack FP16 support.

The memory architectures are also divergent. The W600 uses a 128-bit bus with 2 GB GDDR5 at 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective), while the K4000M uses a 256-bit bus with 4 GB GDDR5 at 700 MHz (2.8 Gbps effective). The wider bus on the NVIDIA part more than compensates for its lower clock speed, resulting in 89.60 GB/s versus 64.00 GB/s. The K4000M’s base and boost clocks are both locked at 601 MHz, while the W600 has no base or boost clock listed, only its memory clock. This suggests the W600’s core clock is either fixed or not disclosed, but its lower FP32 output indicates a lower core frequency.

Specification Differences

The primary specification differences are stark. The FirePro W600 has a 75 W TDP and is a single-slot card with dimensions of 168 mm length, 111 mm height, and 20 mm width. It uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 bus interface and provides 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The Quadro K4000M is an MXM Module with an MXM-B (3.0) interface, has a 100 W TDP, and its display outputs are described as "Portable Device Dependent." The K4000M has no listed dimensions, and its power connectors are listed as "None" just like the W600.

Memory specifications differ: 2 GB GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus (64.00 GB/s) versus 4 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus (89.60 GB/s). Clock speeds also differ: the W600’s memory runs at 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective), while the K4000M’s runs at 700 MHz (2.8 Gbps effective). The K4000M has a locked 601 MHz base and boost core clock, while the W600 has no core clock listed. The API support is nearly identical: both support DirectX 12 (11_1 for W600, 11_0 for K4000M), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan (1.2.170 for W600, 1.2.175 for K4000M). The transistor counts and die sizes differ as noted: 1,500M/123 mm² for W600 versus 3,540M/294 mm² for K4000M. The launch MSRP for the W600 is 599 USD; the K4000M has no launch MSRP listed.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only head-to-head benchmark available is Geekbench OpenCL, and it shows a 4% win for the AMD FirePro W600. The W600 scores 6223, while the Quadro K4000M scores 5986. This 237-point gap is small but consistent with the percentile rankings: the W600 sits at the 36th percentile of all GPUs, and the K4000M sits at the 34th. In the context of their nearest rivals, the W600 is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 6950 (6210) and 0.9% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K620 (6282, which is actually higher, so the W600 is 0.9% behind that specific rival). The K4000M is exactly tied with the AMD FirePro W4100 (5987, 0% delta) and is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K4000 (5982).

The deltaPct values reveal how close these cards are to a broad range of unrelated GPUs. The W600’s nearest rival list includes the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER AD102 (6270, -0.7%) and the RTX 5070 Ti SUPER (6270, -0.7%), showing that a 2012 workstation card scores within 1% of modern flagship-adjacent GPUs. The K4000M is similarly clustered with the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server (5996, -0.2%) and the GeForce GTX 770M (6000, -0.2%). This clustering suggests that the benchmark is not sensitive to the architectural differences between these cards; the W600’s 4% lead is the only meaningful separation.

The spec sheet suggests the K4000M should win on paper: it has 960 versus 512 shading units, 80 versus 32 TMUs, 1,153.9 versus 768.0 GFLOPS FP32, and 89.60 versus 64.00 GB/s bandwidth. Yet the W600 wins the OpenCL test. This inversion implies that the W600’s GCN architecture extracts higher real-world compute efficiency from its lower raw specs, or that the K4000M’s locked 601 MHz clock is a bottleneck despite its larger chip. The pixel rates are nearly identical (12.00 vs 12.02 GPixel/s), confirming that the ROP count difference (16 vs 32) does not translate to fill-rate advantage in this workload.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD FirePro W600 wins in raw compute benchmarks, with a 4% higher Geekbench OpenCL score (6223 vs 5986). It also wins on power efficiency: 75 W TDP versus 100 W, and it has a smaller physical footprint at 168 mm length versus the MXM module form factor of the K4000M. The W600’s 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs make it the clear winner for multi-monitor desktop workstations, as the K4000M’s outputs are dependent on the host portable device. The W600 also has a lower suggested PSU requirement of 250 W, whereas the K4000M has none listed, implying it relies on the host system’s power delivery. Its single-slot design and lack of power connectors make it a drop-in solution for a standard desktop.

The NVIDIA Quadro K4000M wins decisively in memory capacity and bandwidth: 4 GB versus 2 GB, and 89.60 GB/s versus 64.00 GB/s, a 40% bandwidth advantage. It also wins on raw shading resources: 960 shading units versus 512, 80 TMUs versus 32, and 1,153.9 GFLOPS versus 768.0 GFLOPS FP32. For workloads that are texture-heavy or memory-bound — such as large dataset processing, high-resolution texture mapping, or compute tasks that exceed 2 GB — the K4000M’s architectural headroom is its selling point. Its MXM-B (3.0) interface makes it the only choice for laptops or modular systems that require a replaceable GPU module, where the W600’s PCIe slot form factor is physically impossible. The K4000M also leads in texture rate (48.08 GTexel/s vs 24.00 GTexel/s) and supports a slightly newer Vulkan version (1.2.175 vs 1.2.170). Ultimately, the W600 is the faster GPU in the benchmark that matters, but the K4000M is the one to pick when capacity, bandwidth, and form factor flexibility outweigh a 4% compute score deficit.