AMD FirePro W7000 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti records an average benchmark score of 24236, placing it in the 70th percentile of all GPUs. The AMD FirePro W7000 scores 19905 on average, which puts it in the 65th percentile.

Q: How do the two cards compare in OpenCL performance?

A: The GeForce GTX 780 Ti scores 27326 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the FirePro W7000 scores 17808. This gives the NVIDIA card a 53.4% advantage in that workload.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The GTX 780 Ti has 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 336.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro W7000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: Which card has higher power requirements?

A: The GTX 780 Ti has a TDP of 250 W and requires a 600 W suggested PSU with 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin connectors. The FirePro W7000 has a 150 W TDP, a 450 W suggested PSU, and needs only a single 6-pin connector.

Q: Do both cards support the same API levels?

A: Both support DirectX 12 (11_1) and OpenGL 4.6. The GTX 780 Ti supports Vulkan 1.2.175, while the FirePro W7000 supports Vulkan 1.2.170, a minor version difference.

Q: What is the release timeline for these products?

A: The AMD FirePro W7000 launched in June 2012, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti launched in November 2013. Both are now end-of-life products.

Architecture Differences

The two cards represent fundamentally different architectural approaches from their respective manufacturers. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti is built on the Kepler architecture using the GK110B chip, a 28 nm design fabricated by TSMC. The AMD FirePro W7000 uses the GCN 1.0 architecture with the Pitcairn chip, also on TSMC's 28 nm process. Both share the same process node and foundry, but the silicon implementations diverge sharply in scale and complexity.

The GK110B die is substantially larger at 561 mm² with 7,080 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 12.6 million per mm². The Pitcairn die measures 212 mm² with 2,800 million transistors, giving it a slightly higher transistor density of 13.2 million per mm². The NVIDIA chip uses more silicon area to pack in a significantly larger compute array: 2,880 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. The AMD chip fields 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. This is a 2.25x advantage in shader count and a 3x advantage in TMUs for the NVIDIA part.

Clock behavior also differs notably. The GTX 780 Ti has a base clock of 875 MHz with a boost clock of 928 MHz, while the FirePro W7000 has no listed base or boost clocks. The memory clocks diverge as well: the NVIDIA card runs its GDDR5 at 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective) versus 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective) on the AMD card. These clock differences compound the architectural gap.

The memory subsystem reflects the different positioning of the two cards. The GTX 780 Ti uses a 384-bit bus with 3 GB of GDDR5, delivering 336.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro W7000 uses a 256-bit bus with 4 GB of GDDR5, delivering 153.6 GB/s. The NVIDIA card has more than double the memory bandwidth, while the AMD card offers one additional gigabyte of capacity. The pixel rate for the GTX 780 Ti is 55.68 GPixel/s versus 30.40 GPixel/s for the FirePro W7000. Texture rate is 222.7 GTexel/s versus 76.00 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 5.345 TFLOPS versus 2.432 TFLOPS, a 2.2x difference.

Physical design also separates the two. The GTX 780 Ti is a dual-slot card measuring 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 38 mm in width. The FirePro W7000 is a single-slot card at 242 mm length and 111 mm height, with no listed width. The display outputs differ as well: the NVIDIA card provides 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2, while the AMD card provides 4x DisplayPort 1.2. Both use PCIe 3.0 x16.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains two direct benchmark comparisons between these cards, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti wins both. The first test is Geekbench OpenCL, where the GTX 780 Ti scores 27326 against the FirePro W7000's 17808. This is a 53.4% delta in favor of NVIDIA, the largest performance gap recorded between the two cards. The OpenCL result aligns with the raw compute specifications: the GTX 780 Ti's 5.345 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 336.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth give it a substantial theoretical advantage over the FirePro W7000's 2.432 TFLOPS and 153.6 GB/s.

The second test is Geekbench Vulkan, where the GTX 780 Ti scores 27238 and the FirePro W7000 scores 22001. The delta here is 23.8% in favor of NVIDIA. Notably, the Vulkan gap is smaller than the OpenCL gap, suggesting the FirePro W7000 narrows the distance in this API. The AMD card's Vulkan score of 22001 is actually its stronger result relative to its OpenCL score of 17808, while the GTX 780 Ti's Vulkan score of 27238 is nearly identical to its OpenCL score of 27326. This indicates the AMD architecture handles Vulkan workloads comparatively better, though it still trails the NVIDIA part by a wide margin.

The average benchmark score for the GTX 780 Ti is 24236, which includes a Geekbench Metal result of 18144 that the FirePro W7000 cannot match since it has no Metal benchmark recorded. The FirePro W7000's average of 19905 is derived from its two benchmark results. The GTX 780 Ti sits in the 70th percentile of all GPUs, while the FirePro W7000 sits in the 65th percentile. The NVIDIA card also holds a 2-0 record in head-to-head wins.

In context of the broader database, the GTX 780 Ti's average score of 24236 places it within 0.2% of the GeForce GTX 1630 (24277), 0.3% ahead of the RTX 2080 SUPER (24170), 0.7% ahead of the Radeon RX 6800S (24063), and 0.8% behind the Radeon RX 6600 XT (24442). The FirePro W7000's 19905 average is 0.1% ahead of the Tesla K40m (19885), 0.7% ahead of the Radeon RX 6650 XT (19765), 1.4% ahead of the FirePro D300 (19637), and 1.5% ahead of the Quadro K5200 (19602). These comparisons show both cards clustering with their respective peer groups despite the large gap between them.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every measured specification. The GTX 780 Ti uses the GK110B chip on the Kepler architecture from the GeForce 700 generation, while the FirePro W7000 uses the Pitcairn chip on GCN 1.0 from the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation. The transistor counts are 7,080 million versus 2,800 million, and the die sizes are 561 mm² versus 212 mm². Transistor density is 12.6M per mm² for NVIDIA and 13.2M per mm² for AMD.

Clock specifications differ: the GTX 780 Ti lists a base clock of 875 MHz and a boost clock of 928 MHz, while the FirePro W7000 has no base or boost clock listed. Memory clock is 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective) for NVIDIA versus 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective) for AMD. Memory capacity is 3 GB versus 4 GB, bus width is 384-bit versus 256-bit, and bandwidth is 336.6 GB/s versus 153.6 GB/s.

Compute resources differ substantially: shading units are 2880 versus 1280, TMUs are 240 versus 80, and ROPs are 48 versus 32. Pixel rate is 55.68 GPixel/s versus 30.40 GPixel/s, texture rate is 222.7 GTexel/s versus 76.00 GTexel/s, and FP32 is 5.345 TFLOPS versus 2.432 TFLOPS. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, and neither lists FP16 performance.

Power and physical specifications also diverge. TDP is 250 W versus 150 W. The GTX 780 Ti is dual-slot with 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connectors and a 600 W suggested PSU. The FirePro W7000 is single-slot with 1x 6-pin and a 450 W suggested PSU. Length is 267 mm versus 242 mm, height is the same at 111 mm, and width is 38 mm for NVIDIA with no width listed for AMD. Display outputs are 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 1x DisplayPort 1.2 for NVIDIA versus 4x DisplayPort 1.2 for AMD. Both use PCIe 3.0 x16 and support DirectX 12 (11_1) and OpenGL 4.6, but Vulkan support differs slightly: 1.2.175 versus 1.2.170.

Release dates are June 2012 for the FirePro W7000 and November 2013 for the GTX 780 Ti. The AMD card's predecessor is FirePro Terascale and its successor is Radeon Pro Polaris. The NVIDIA card's predecessor is GeForce 600 and its successor is GeForce 900.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti wins in raw compute performance across both shared benchmark tests. Its 53.4% OpenCL advantage and 23.8% Vulkan advantage make it the clear choice for compute-heavy workloads that can leverage its 2.2x FP32 throughput, 2.2x memory bandwidth, and 2.25x shader count. The GTX 780 Ti also holds a 70th percentile ranking versus the FirePro W7000's 65th percentile, and its average benchmark score of 24236 is 21.8% higher than the AMD card's 19905. For users prioritizing raw performance in OpenCL or Vulkan applications, the data consistently favors the NVIDIA card.

The AMD FirePro W7000 wins in areas outside raw speed. It offers 4 GB of memory versus 3 GB, which provides additional headroom for workloads with large working sets. It is a single-slot card with a 150 W TDP and a 450 W suggested PSU, compared to the GTX 780 Ti's dual-slot footprint, 250 W TDP, and 600 W suggested PSU. This makes the FirePro W7000 easier to integrate into dense multi-GPU configurations or systems with tighter power and space constraints. Its 4x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs exceed the GTX 780 Ti's single DisplayPort 1.2, making it more suitable for multi-display professional setups. The FirePro W7000 also launched earlier, giving it a longer deployment history in the field.

The Vulkan results show the AMD card is comparatively stronger in that API. The FirePro W7000's Vulkan score of 22001 is 23.5% higher than its OpenCL score of 17808, while the GTX 780 Ti's Vulkan score of 27238 is essentially flat against its OpenCL score of 27326. This suggests the GCN 1.0 architecture extracts relatively more performance from Vulkan than from OpenCL, narrowing the gap to 23.8% instead of 53.4%. Still, the GTX 780 Ti remains ahead in absolute terms.

For use-case selection, the data points to the GTX 780 Ti for performance-sensitive compute tasks in OpenCL, Vulkan, and Metal workloads where power consumption and physical size are secondary concerns. The FirePro W7000 fits scenarios where memory capacity, single-slot density, lower power draw, and multiple DisplayPort outputs matter more than peak throughput. Given the 2-0 head-to-head record and the magnitude of the performance deltas, the GTX 780 Ti is the stronger compute card overall, while the FirePro W7000 offers a more specialized feature set for particular professional environments.