AMD FirePro W7000 vs NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 Comparison

The Verdict

The data presents a decisive outcome: the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 is the superior workstation card by every measurable benchmark in the database. In the two recorded head-to-head tests, the FirePro W7000 does not register a single win. The Quadro RTX 4000 takes both, with massive margins. For any workload relying on OpenCL or Vulkan compute, the choice is clear.

The AMD FirePro W7000 is the older, less capable part. Its average benchmark score of 19,905 places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, while the Quadro RTX 4000 sits at 17,789 in the 61st percentile. This is a curious inversion: the newer card has a lower average score, yet it wins the two specific compute tests that matter here by a wide margin. The explanation lies in the test mix, as the Quadro RTX 4000 has many more recorded benchmarks, including some very low DirectX scores that drag its average down.

Who should pick the AMD FirePro W7000? Only a user with a legacy requirement for a 2012-era card with four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs and a 28 nm GCN 1.0 part. It is end-of-life, and its benchmark results do not support a recommendation for modern compute tasks. The Quadro RTX 4000, despite also being end-of-life, offers Turing architecture features, ray tracing cores, tensor cores, and nearly three times the FP32 throughput. The verdict is straightforward: for any new deployment, the NVIDIA card is the only rational choice based on the recorded data. The AMD card is strictly a fallback for older software or specific display-output needs.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different eras and different design philosophies. The AMD FirePro W7000 uses the Pitcairn chip on the GCN 1.0 architecture, built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 2,800 million transistors on a 212 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.2 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 uses the TU104 chip on the Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 13,600 million transistors on a 545 mm² die, for a density of 25.0 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA chip is nearly five times larger in transistor count and more than twice the die size.

Memory configurations differ sharply. The FirePro W7000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth at a memory clock of 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective). The Quadro RTX 4000 doubles capacity to 8 GB of GDDR6 on the same 256-bit bus, but bandwidth jumps to 416.0 GB/s thanks to a 1625 MHz memory clock (13 Gbps effective). That is roughly 2.7 times the memory bandwidth, a critical advantage for large datasets.

Compute resources also favor NVIDIA. The FirePro W7000 has 1,280 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The Quadro RTX 4000 has 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The NVIDIA card also includes 36 ray tracing cores and 288 tensor cores, features absent entirely from the AMD part. Pixel rate is 30.40 GPixel/s versus 98.88 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 76.00 GTexel/s versus 222.5 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 2.432 TFLOPS versus 7.119 TFLOPS, and the Quadro RTX 4000 adds FP16 capability at 14.24 TFLOPS (2:1), which the FirePro lacks.

Power and physical specs are similar. The FirePro W7000 has a 150 W TDP with a single 6-pin connector, while the Quadro RTX 4000 has a 160 W TDP with a single 8-pin connector. Both are single-slot cards, both use PCIe 3.0 x16, and both recommend a 450 W power supply. Dimensions are nearly identical: the AMD card is 242 mm long and 111 mm high, while the NVIDIA card is 241 mm long and 111 mm high. API support differs: the FirePro W7000 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the Quadro RTX 4000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Display outputs also differ: the AMD card has four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, while the NVIDIA card has three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs plus one USB Type-C port. Both cards are end-of-life. The FirePro W7000 was released in June 2012, with a launch MSRP of 899 USD. The Quadro RTX 4000 was released in November 2018, also with a launch MSRP of 899 USD.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on the recorded head-to-head data, the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 wins every benchmark. There are no wins registered for the AMD FirePro W7000. The Geekbench OpenCL test shows the Quadro RTX 4000 scoring 74,540 versus 17,808 for the FirePro, a delta of 76.1% in NVIDIA's favor. The Geekbench Vulkan test shows 78,844 versus 22,001, a delta of 72.1%. These are not close contests.

The use-case split is therefore one-sided. For OpenCL compute workloads, such as general-purpose GPU computing in productivity applications, the Quadro RTX 4000 is the clear winner. For Vulkan workloads, which include modern graphics APIs and some compute tasks, the same conclusion holds. The FirePro W7000 does have an advantage in one area not measured by these two tests: its four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs versus the Quadro RTX 4000's three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs plus one USB Type-C. If a user needs four independent display outputs of the older DisplayPort standard, the AMD card offers that capability. But the database contains no benchmark evidence that the FirePro W7000 wins any performance test.

The Quadro RTX 4000 also benefits from features that do not appear in the head-to-head tests but are present in its specifications: ray tracing cores and tensor cores. These enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-accelerated workflows, capabilities the AMD card cannot offer at all. For professional workloads involving rendering with ray tracing or machine learning inference, the NVIDIA card is the only option between the two.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD FirePro W7000 has an average benchmark score of 19,905, while the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 has an average of 17,789. The AMD card also sits in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, versus the 61st percentile for the NVIDIA card.

Q: Why does the Quadro RTX 4000 have a lower average score yet win the head-to-head tests?

A: The Quadro RTX 4000 has many more recorded benchmarks, including low DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 scores (205, 108, 128, and 52 respectively) and a Passmark G2D score of 846. These drag its average down. The FirePro W7000 has only two recorded benchmarks, both of which it loses to NVIDIA.

Q: Does the AMD FirePro W7000 support ray tracing?

A: No. The FirePro W7000 has no ray tracing cores. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 includes 36 ray tracing cores and 288 tensor cores.

Q: How much memory does each card have?

A: The AMD FirePro W7000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with 416.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: Are both cards the same physical size?

A: Almost. The FirePro W7000 is 242 mm long and 111 mm high. The Quadro RTX 4000 is 241 mm long and 111 mm high. Both are single-slot cards.

Q: What is the power connector requirement for each card?

A: The FirePro W7000 requires a single 6-pin power connector, while the Quadro RTX 4000 requires a single 8-pin connector. Both have a suggested power supply rating of 450 W.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records exactly two head-to-head comparisons between these cards, and both are decisive NVIDIA victories.

The first test is Geekbench OpenCL. The AMD FirePro W7000 scores 17,808. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 scores 74,540. The delta is 76.1% in NVIDIA's favor. This is the largest margin in the dataset. OpenCL is a cross-platform compute API, and this result suggests the Quadro RTX 4000 delivers more than four times the compute throughput in this specific workload. The FirePro W7000's 2.432 TFLOPS of FP32 performance versus the Quadro RTX 4000's 7.119 TFLOPS provides a plausible explanation, though the benchmark gap is even larger than the raw FP32 ratio.

The second test is Geekbench Vulkan. The FirePro W7000 improves to 22,001, but the Quadro RTX 4000 also rises, to 78,844. The delta is 72.1% in NVIDIA's favor. Vulkan is a modern graphics and compute API, and the Quadro RTX 4000's support for Vulkan 1.4 (versus 1.2.170 on the AMD card) may contribute to the result. The NVIDIA card also has the advantage of 64 ROPs versus 32, and a pixel rate of 98.88 GPixel/s versus 30.40 GPixel/s.

The wins total is 2 for NVIDIA, 0 for AMD. There are no other shared benchmark tests in the database. The Passmark and 3DMark results exist only for the Quadro RTX 4000, so they cannot be compared directly. Those unpaired scores include a Passmark G3D score of 15,117, a GPU compute score of 6,176, and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1,873. They contribute to the NVIDIA card's average but do not factor into the head-to-head comparison.

For context, the nearest rivals to the FirePro W7000 in the database are the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (average score 19,885, delta 0.1%), the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (19,765, delta 0.7%), the AMD FirePro D300 (19,637, delta 1.4%), and the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (19,602, delta 1.5%). All of these are within 1.5% of the FirePro W7000's average, indicating that the AMD card sits in a tight cluster of similar-performing GPUs.

The nearest rivals to the Quadro RTX 4000 are the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17,666, delta 0.7%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (17,639, delta 0.9%), the AMD Radeon 780M (17,588, delta 1.1%), and the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17,551, delta 1.4%). These are also close, but the cluster is at a lower average score level. The two head-to-head tests, however, tell a different story: when both cards run the same OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, the NVIDIA card is dramatically faster. The average scores are skewed by the different test suites available for each card, but the direct comparisons are unambiguous.