AMD FirePro W7000 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The direct comparison between these two cards is limited to two recorded benchmark tests, and the results reveal a striking split. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a score of 112,821, which is 84.2% higher than the AMD FirePro W7000's 17,808. This is a massive margin, reflecting the generational gap between the two products. The RTX 3070's raw compute throughput in this API is overwhelming, and the data indicates that the FirePro W7000 is simply outclassed in this particular workload.

However, the second test, Geekbench Vulkan, flips the script. Here, the AMD FirePro W7000 scores 22,001, which is 4.7% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070's 21,022. While the absolute difference is modest, it is a meaningful result. The older GCN architecture, despite its age, manages to outperform the much newer Ampere architecture in this specific Vulkan workload. This suggests that driver optimization or architectural quirks play a significant role, as the raw compute advantage of the RTX 3070 does not translate into a Vulkan victory.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the average scores tell a different story. The AMD FirePro W7000 has an average benchmark score of 19,905, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla K40m at 19,885 (0.1% behind), the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT at 19,765 (0.7% behind), the AMD FirePro D300 at 19,637 (1.4% behind), and the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 at 19,602 (1.5% behind). This places the FirePro W7000 in a competitive position among older professional and mid-range cards, with its average score being essentially neck-and-neck with the Tesla K40m.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, in contrast, has an average benchmark score of 17,208, placing it in the 61st percentile. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Tesla K40c at 17,468 (1.5% ahead of the RTX 3070), the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT at 17,083 (0.7% behind), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 at 17,037 (1.0% behind), and the AMD Radeon HD 7970M at 17,019 (1.1% behind). The RTX 3070's average is dragged down by its performance in certain legacy DirectX tests, where it scores particularly low, such as 150 in Passmark DirectX 10 and 85 in Passmark DirectX 12. These low scores are likely due to driver overhead or the test methodology not favoring modern architectures.

The head-to-head data shows one win for each card, but the magnitude of the OpenCL win is far larger. The RTX 3070's 84.2% lead in OpenCL dwarfs the FirePro W7000's 4.7% lead in Vulkan. This means that in any workload that primarily leverages OpenCL, the RTX 3070 is the clear victor by a wide margin. In Vulkan-based applications, the FirePro W7000 holds a slight edge, but the practical significance of that edge is limited given the small delta.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD FirePro W7000's victory in Geekbench Vulkan indicates that it has a niche in Vulkan-based compute or rendering tasks. This could include certain game engines, CAD visualization tools, or scientific applications that use Vulkan for general-purpose compute. The 4.7% advantage over the RTX 3070 suggests that, in these specific scenarios, the older card is not obsolete. However, this is a narrow use case. The FirePro W7000's overall profile, with its 2.432 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 153.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, is that of a workstation card from 2012. It would be suitable for legacy professional applications that rely on OpenGL 4.6 or DirectX 12 (11_1), but its performance ceiling is low compared to modern hardware.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, on the other hand, is the dominant choice for almost any modern workload. Its OpenCL score of 112,821 is not just a win; it is a demolition. The card's FP32 throughput of 20.31 TFLOPS, combined with 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, makes it a powerhouse for compute-heavy tasks like machine learning inference, video rendering, and scientific simulations. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth provides ample memory bandwidth for large datasets. The RTX 3070 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and has 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, making it suitable for ray tracing and AI-accelerated workloads. In contrast, the FirePro W7000 has no RT or tensor cores and is limited to DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170.

The Passmark results for the RTX 3070 are mixed, with a G3D score of 22,214 and a GPU compute score of 11,195. The G3D score is strong, but the compute score is lower than expected, likely due to the test's age. The FirePro W7000 does not have Passmark scores recorded, so a direct comparison in that suite is unavailable. For gaming, the RTX 3070 is clearly the better choice, given its modern feature set and higher raw performance. The FirePro W7000, with its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, would struggle with modern game titles that require more VRAM.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 wins decisively with a score of 112,821, which is 84.2% higher than the AMD FirePro W7000's 17,808.

Q: Does the AMD FirePro W7000 win any benchmark against the RTX 3070?

A: Yes, the FirePro W7000 wins in Geekbench Vulkan, scoring 22,001 versus the RTX 3070's 21,022, a 4.7% difference.

Q: What is the average benchmark score difference between the two?

A: The FirePro W7000 has an average score of 19,905, while the RTX 3070 has an average of 17,208. The FirePro W7000 is approximately 13.5% higher on average, despite losing the OpenCL test badly.

Q: How do these cards rank against their nearest rivals?

A: The FirePro W7000's nearest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla K40m with an average score of 19,885, a 0.1% difference. The RTX 3070's nearest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla K40c with an average score of 17,468, which is 1.5% ahead of the RTX 3070.

Q: What are the memory specifications for each card?

A: The FirePro W7000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 153.6 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card has a higher FP32 performance?

A: The RTX 3070 has 20.31 TFLOPS, while the FirePro W7000 has 2.432 TFLOPS. The RTX 3070 is roughly 8.4 times higher.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in almost every measurable specification, reflecting their different release eras. The AMD FirePro W7000 uses a 28 nm process node from TSMC, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 uses an 8 nm node from Samsung. The transistor count is dramatically different: the FirePro W7000 has 2,800 million transistors on a 212 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 13.2M per mm². The RTX 3070 has 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die, with a density of 44.4M per mm². This means the RTX 3070 has more than six times the transistors and more than double the die area.

Memory configurations also differ significantly. The FirePro W7000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus and 153.6 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, nearly three times the bandwidth. The memory clock on the FirePro W7000 is 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective), while the RTX 3070's memory clock is 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The RTX 3070 also has base and boost clocks of 1500 MHz and 1725 MHz, respectively, while the FirePro W7000 has no recorded base or boost clocks.

The compute units differ vastly: the FirePro W7000 has 1280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the RTX 3070 has 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The pixel rate of the FirePro W7000 is 30.40 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 76.00 GTexel/s. The RTX 3070's pixel rate is 165.6 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 317.4 GTexel/s. Power consumption differs as well: the FirePro W7000 has a TDP of 150 W with a single 6-pin power connector, while the RTX 3070 has a TDP of 220 W with a single 12-pin connector. The suggested PSU for the FirePro W7000 is 450 W, while the RTX 3070 needs 550 W.

The bus interface is also different: the FirePro W7000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the RTX 3070 uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs are another point of divergence: the FirePro W7000 has 4x DisplayPort 1.2, while the RTX 3070 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The FirePro W7000 is single-slot, while the RTX 3070 is dual-slot. The dimensions are nearly identical, with both being 242 mm in length and 111-112 mm in height. The FirePro W7000 was released on 2012-06-12 with a launch MSRP of 899 USD, while the RTX 3070 was released on 2020-08-31 with a launch MSRP of 499 USD.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is enormous. The AMD FirePro W7000 is built on the GCN 1.0 architecture, using the Pitcairn chip. GCN 1.0 was AMD's first generation of Graphics Core Next, designed for compute-heavy workloads but lacking modern features like hardware ray tracing or tensor cores. The FirePro W7000 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. Its FP32 performance is 2.432 TFLOPS, and it has no FP16 support. It is part of the FirePro GCN (Wx000) generation, with a predecessor in FirePro Terascale and a successor in Radeon Pro Polaris.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture, using the GA104 chip. Ampere is a much newer design, featuring dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for AI workloads. It has 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS. The RTX 3070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Its FP32 performance is 20.31 TFLOPS, and it also has FP16 performance of 20.31 TFLOPS (1:1). The card is part of the GeForce 30 series, with a predecessor in GeForce 20 and a successor in GeForce 40.

The process nodes reflect the generational difference: the FirePro W7000 is on 28 nm, while the RTX 3070 is on 8 nm. This allows the RTX 3070 to pack far more transistors into a smaller relative area, though its die is actually larger at 392 mm² versus 212 mm². The RTX 3070's transistor density of 44.4M per mm² is 3.4 times higher than the FirePro W7000's 13.2M per mm². This density advantage enables the RTX 3070 to achieve much higher clock speeds and compute throughput while maintaining a reasonable TDP of 220 W.

The RTX 3070 also benefits from a more modern memory architecture, with GDDR6 memory providing 448.0 GB/s bandwidth versus the FirePro W7000's 153.6 GB/s. The RTX 3070's PCIe 4.0 interface doubles the bandwidth available for data transfer compared to the FirePro W7000's PCIe 3.0. The display outputs are also more advanced on the RTX 3070, with HDMI 2.1 supporting higher resolutions and refresh rates than the FirePro W7000's DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

In summary, the RTX 3070 is a modern, feature-rich GPU designed for gaming and compute, while the FirePro W7000 is a legacy workstation card from the early 2010s. The architectural differences explain the massive performance gap in most workloads, with the notable exception of the Vulkan test where the FirePro W7000's older driver stack or architecture-specific optimizations give it a slight edge. The data clearly shows that the RTX 3070 is the superior performer in nearly every measurable way, but the FirePro W7000 retains a niche in Vulkan-based applications.