AMD FirePro W600 vs NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Comparison

AMD FirePro W600 and NVIDIA Quadro P2000 are both end-of-life professional workstation cards, but the benchmark data shows a decisive generational gap. The Quadro P2000 wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark by a massive margin, and its broader test suite reveals strengths across compute and graphics workloads. The FirePro W600, while older and less capable in raw compute, offers a unique multi-display configuration that the P2000 does not match.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 is the clear performance winner in every measurable category from the data. In the sole shared benchmark, Geekbench OpenCL, the P2000 scores 20,125 against the FirePro W600's 6,223 — a delta of 69.1% in favor of NVIDIA. This is not a marginal victory; it is a fundamental performance tier difference. The P2000 also has a substantial suite of Passmark results: 6,956 in G3D, 2,933 in GPU compute, 626 in G2D, and DirectX scores of 124 (DX9), 47 (DX11), 34 (DX10), and 28 (DX12). The FirePro W600 has no comparable Passmark entries, so its only recorded strength is the 6,223 Geekbench OpenCL score, which is 3.2x lower than the P2000's.

The FirePro W600's unique advantage is its display output configuration. It features 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, while the P2000 offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. For a workstation scenario requiring six simultaneous displays — such as a financial trading wall or a multi-monitor command center — the FirePro W600 is the only option that supports that count natively. The P2000's four outputs are more modern (DisplayPort 1.4a vs 1.2), but they are fewer in number. No other benchmark data exists where the FirePro W600 wins, so the decision hinges on whether the user prioritizes raw compute throughput or display count.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 scores 20,125, which is 69.1% higher than the AMD FirePro W600's 6,223. The P2000's score is more than three times that of the W600.

Q: How many display outputs does each card provide?

A: The AMD FirePro W600 has 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 has 4x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The W600 supports two more displays natively.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 has 5 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the AMD FirePro W600 has 2 GB of GDDR5. The P2000 also has a wider 160-bit memory bus versus the W600's 128-bit bus.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count and smaller process node?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 uses 4,400 million transistors on a 16 nm TSMC process. The AMD FirePro W600 uses 1,500 million transistors on a 28 nm TSMC process. The P2000 is built on a more advanced node.

Q: Does the Quadro P2000 support DirectX 12 (12_1)?

A: Yes, the P2000 lists DirectX 12 (12_1) support. The FirePro W600 lists DirectX 12 (11_1), which is a lower feature level.

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

A: The AMD FirePro W600 has an average benchmark score of 6,223, based on its single Geekbench OpenCL result. The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 has an average score of 6,049, which is calculated across multiple benchmarks including Geekbench and several Passmark tests.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and it is not close. The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 produces a score of 20,125, while the AMD FirePro W600 reaches only 6,223. The delta percentage is 69.1% in favor of NVIDIA, meaning the P2000 is roughly 3.2 times faster in this OpenCL compute workload. This single result dominates the head-to-head comparison, giving the P2000 a 1–0 win tally.

Looking at the broader benchmark suite for the P2000, its Passmark scores provide context for its strengths. The G3D score of 6,956 and GPU compute score of 2,933 indicate solid DirectX and compute performance relative to its average score of 6,049. The DirectX 9 score of 124 is notably higher than the DirectX 12 score of 28, which suggests the P2000 is more efficient in legacy graphics APIs. The FirePro W600 lacks any Passmark data, so its only recorded benchmark is the Geekbench OpenCL result, which is far below the P2000's. The data shows no workload where the FirePro W600 outperforms the P2000, even in older DirectX tests.

The nearest rival data for the FirePro W600 places it near the NVIDIA Quadro K620 (6,282 average score, 0.9% delta) and the AMD Radeon HD 6950 (6,210, 0.2% delta), confirming its position as an older, lower-performance part. The P2000's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 760M (6,019, 0.5% delta) and the NVIDIA RTX A400 (6,078, 0.5% delta), which are much closer to its average score but still lower. The P2000's single Geekbench OpenCL score of 20,125 is far above its average, indicating that the Passmark tests pull its overall average down, but the OpenCL compute advantage over the W600 remains overwhelming.

Specification Differences

The memory subsystem is a major differentiator. The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 has 5 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 160-bit bus, delivering 140.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD FirePro W600 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, with 64.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The P2000 offers 2.5 times the memory capacity and more than double the bandwidth.

Compute resources also differ significantly. The P2000 has 1,024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 40 render output units. The W600 has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The P2000 doubles the shading units and TMUs, and has 2.5 times the ROPs. Clock speeds are recorded only for the P2000, with a base of 1076 MHz and a boost of 1480 MHz; the W600 has no base or boost clock data, only a memory clock of 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective) versus the P2000's 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective).

The FP32 compute output reinforces the performance gap: the P2000 delivers 3.031 TFLOPS, while the W600 delivers 768.0 GFLOPS. Pixel rate is 59.20 GPixel/s for the P2000 versus 12.00 GPixel/s for the W600, and texture rate is 94.72 GTexel/s versus 24.00 GTexel/s. The P2000 also has a recorded FP16 performance of 47.36 GFLOPS (1:64), which the W600 lacks entirely. Physical dimensions differ slightly: the W600 is 168 mm long, while the P2000 is 196 mm long; both are 111 mm tall, and the W600 is 20 mm wide with no width listed for the P2000.

Architecture Differences

The AMD FirePro W600 is built on GCN 1.0 architecture using the Cape Verde chip, fabricated on a 28 nm TSMC process. It contains 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.2M per mm². The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 uses the Pascal architecture with the GP106 chip, manufactured on a 16 nm TSMC process. It packs 4,400 million transistors onto a 200 mm² die, achieving a density of 22.0M per mm². The P2000's process node is two generations ahead, allowing nearly three times the transistor count in less than double the die area.

The FirePro W600 belongs to the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation and was released on 2012-06-12. Its predecessor is FirePro Terascale and its successor is Radeon Pro Polaris. The P2000 is from the Quadro Pascal (Px000) generation, released on 2017-02-05, with Quadro Maxwell as its predecessor and Quadro Volta as its successor. The P2000 is five years newer, which explains its architectural advantages.

API support differs notably. The P2000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The W600 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The P2000's Vulkan version is newer, and its DirectX feature level is higher. Display outputs also reflect the generational gap: the W600 has 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2, while the P2000 has 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. The P2000's display standard is newer, supporting higher resolutions and refresh rates per output, but the W600 offers more physical connections. Both cards are single-slot, require no power connectors, and have a 75 W TDP with a suggested 250 W power supply.

The Verdict

The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 is the superior choice for virtually any compute or graphics workload, based on the benchmark data. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 20,125 is 69.1% higher than the FirePro W600's 6,223, and it adds a full suite of Passmark results (G3D 6,956, GPU compute 2,933, G2D 626) that the W600 cannot match. The P2000 also offers 5 GB of memory versus 2 GB, 3.031 TFLOPS versus 768.0 GFLOPS, and a 16 nm process versus 28 nm. For users needing raw performance in CAD, rendering, or compute tasks, the P2000 is the only rational pick.

The AMD FirePro W600's sole advantage is its 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, which exceed the P2000's 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. If the primary requirement is driving six displays simultaneously without additional hardware, the W600 is the only card in this comparison that does so natively. However, this is a narrow use case. The W600's 2 GB memory and 64.00 GB/s bandwidth are half of the P2000's capacity and bandwidth, and its DirectX 12 (11_1) support is lower than the P2000's 12_1. The data does not support choosing the W600 for any performance reason; it is strictly a display-count decision. For all other professional tasks, the P2000's threefold lead in OpenCL compute and its comprehensive Passmark results make it the definitive winner.