AMD FirePro W7100 vs AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 Comparison

The AMD FirePro W7100 and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 are both end-of-life professional GPUs from AMD, but they represent different eras and different design philosophies. The FirePro W7100, built on the Tonga chip with GCN 3.0 architecture, holds a clear lead in the recorded benchmark data: it wins both head-to-head tests, the Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan runs, and sits at the 71st percentile across all GPUs in the database versus the Vega 16's 68th percentile. The Radeon Pro Vega 16, a GCN 5.0 part on the Vega 12 chip, counters with higher memory bandwidth, a more modern process node, and dramatically lower power draw. The data shows a straightforward compute win for the older card and a mobility and efficiency story for the newer one.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The FirePro W7100 sweeps the shared test suite, and the margins are substantial rather than marginal.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the FirePro W7100 scores 24182 against the Radeon Pro Vega 16's 18268. That is a 32.4 percent advantage for the W7100, a gap large enough that the two cards effectively occupy different performance tiers for general GPU compute workloads. OpenCL results tend to track raw shading throughput and memory subsystem behavior, and both factors favor the W7100 here: it carries 1792 shading units and 112 TMUs, against the Vega 16's 1024 shading units and 64 TMUs.

Geekbench Vulkan tells a similar story. The W7100 posts 27529 while the Vega 16 manages 21832, a 26.1 percent delta in the W7100's favor. The Vulkan gap is somewhat narrower than the OpenCL gap, which is consistent with the Vega 16's more modern API support (Vulkan 1.3 versus the W7100's Vulkan 1.2.170) letting the newer architecture extract more from the driver stack, but not nearly enough to close the hardware throughput deficit.

The Vega 16 does have one recorded result the W7100 cannot match: a Geekbench Metal score of 29650. This test appears only in the Vega 16's record, a consequence of its Radeon Pro Mac generation and Metal being the graphics API on that platform. It cannot be compared directly against the W7100, which has no Metal entry, but it is the single highest score either card posts in any test, and it indicates the Vega 16 performs at its best in its native Mac environment.

Context from the database reinforces the overall picture. The W7100's average benchmark score of 25856 places it in a cluster with the AMD FirePro D700 (25842, within 0.1 percent), the AMD Radeon R9 M395X (25891, within 0.1 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile (25740, within 0.5 percent), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 (25726, within 0.5 percent). The Vega 16's average of 23250 puts it alongside the NVIDIA P106-100 (23249, effectively identical), the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23273), the AMD Radeon R9 M290X (23276), and the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 (23315), all within 0.3 percent. The two averages sit roughly 11 percent apart, smaller than either head-to-head margin because the Vega 16's Metal result lifts its mean.

The tally is decisive: two wins for the FirePro W7100, zero for the Radeon Pro Vega 16 in directly comparable tests.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in benchmarks?

A: The FirePro W7100. It wins Geekbench OpenCL by 32.4 percent (24182 vs 18268) and Geekbench Vulkan by 26.1 percent (27529 vs 21832), and its average benchmark score of 25856 exceeds the Vega 16's 23250.

Q: Which card has more memory?

A: The FirePro W7100, with 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus. The Vega 16 has 4 GB, but of HBM2 on a much wider 1024-bit bus.

Q: Which card has higher memory bandwidth?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 16, at 307.2 GB/s versus 160.0 GB/s for the W7100, nearly double, thanks to HBM2 memory running at 1200 MHz (2.4 Gbps effective) over a 1024-bit interface.

Q: Which card uses less power?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 16, with a TDP of 75 W and no power connectors, since it is an integrated graphics part. The W7100 has a 150 W TDP and requires a 6-pin connector, with a suggested PSU of 450 W.

Q: Do either of these cards support ray tracing or AI acceleration hardware?

A: No. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores listed in the database. Both predate that hardware category.

Q: Are these cards still in production?

A: No. Both are marked end-of-life. The W7100 was released in August 2014 and the Vega 16 in November 2018.

Architecture Differences

These GPUs sit four years and two major architecture generations apart. The FirePro W7100 uses the Tonga chip on GCN 3.0, fabricated on TSMC's 28 nm process, with 5000 million transistors packed into a 366 mm² die, a density of 13.7M per mm². The Radeon Pro Vega 16 uses the Vega 12 chip on GCN 5.0, fabricated on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process. The database records no transistor count or die size for the Vega 16, but the node jump from 28 nm to 14 nm is the defining architectural divide between them and is what enables the Vega 16's 75 W envelope.

The compute-resource picture favors the W7100 in raw raster and shading hardware. It has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, producing 3.297 TFLOPS of FP32, a texture rate of 103.0 GTexel/s, and a pixel rate of 29.44 GPixel/s. The Vega 16 has 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and the same 32 ROPs, delivering 2.437 TFLOPS FP32 and 76.16 GTexel/s of texture throughput. Interestingly, the Vega 16 wins on pixel fill rate at 38.08 GPixel/s against the W7100's 29.44 GPixel/s, a product of its higher boost clock of 1190 MHz, while the W7100's clock speeds are not recorded in the database.

FP16 behavior diverges sharply. The W7100 runs FP16 at 1:1 with FP32, giving 3.297 TFLOPS in both formats. The Vega 16 runs FP16 at a 2:1 rate, doubling to 4.874 TFLOPS, which actually exceeds the W7100's half-precision output. Workloads that lean on half-precision math therefore favor the Vega 16 despite its smaller FP32 engine.

Memory subsystems reflect opposite philosophies. The W7100 uses conventional GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective) over a 256-bit bus for 160.0 GB/s, but doubles the capacity at 8 GB. The Vega 16 uses HBM2 at 1200 MHz (2.4 Gbps effective) over a 1024-bit bus for 307.2 GB/s, but only 4 GB. Software API support is newer on the Vega side: DirectX 12 (12_1) versus 12 (12_0), and Vulkan 1.3 versus 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Form factor separates them completely. The W7100 is a single-slot discrete card on PCIe 3.0 x16, measuring 241 mm long and 111 mm tall, with four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The Vega 16 is an IGP with portable-device-dependent display output, likewise on PCIe 3.0 x16. Within AMD's own lineage, the W7100 succeeded the FirePro Terascale generation and was itself followed by the Radeon Pro Polaris generation; the Vega 16 belongs to the Radeon Pro Mac line, and the database lists no predecessor or successor for it.

The Verdict

The recorded data supports a clear split. For GPU compute and graphics performance, the FirePro W7100 is the stronger card: two head-to-head wins, margins of 32.4 and 26.1 percent, a higher average score, a higher percentile placement, twice the memory capacity, and roughly 35 percent more FP32 throughput. Anyone prioritizing OpenCL or Vulkan benchmark results between these two should pick the W7100.

The Radeon Pro Vega 16 makes its case on entirely different axes. It delivers nearly double the memory bandwidth, a higher pixel fill rate, double-rate FP16 throughput that surpasses the W7100 in half precision, newer API support including Vulkan 1.3 and DirectX 12 (12_1), and it does all of this at half the power, 75 W versus 150 W, with no auxiliary power connector at all. Its best recorded score, 29650 in Geekbench Metal, is also the highest number either card posts, relevant specifically for Mac-based workflows. For bandwidth-sensitive or power-constrained environments, the Vega 16 is the rational choice despite losing every direct comparison.

Neither card is a current product, and neither offers ray tracing or tensor hardware. The W7100 wins on measured performance; the Vega 16 wins on efficiency, bandwidth, and modern features.

Specification Differences

• Chip: Tonga (W7100) vs Vega 12 (Vega 16)
• Architecture: GCN 3.0 vs GCN 5.0
• Generation: FirePro GCN (Wx100) vs Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series)
• Process node: 28 nm (TSMC) vs 14 nm (GlobalFoundries)
• Transistors: 5,000 million vs not recorded
• Die size: 366 mm² vs not recorded
• Clocks: not recorded for the W7100; 815 MHz base and 1190 MHz boost for the Vega 16
• Memory size: 8 GB vs 4 GB
• Memory type: GDDR5 vs HBM2
• Memory speed: 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective) vs 1200 MHz (2.4 Gbps effective)
• Bus width: 256 bit vs 1024 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 160.0 GB/s vs 307.2 GB/s
• Shading units: 1792 vs 1024
• TMUs: 112 vs 64
• ROPs: 32 vs 32 (identical)
• Pixel rate: 29.44 GPixel/s vs 38.08 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 103.0 GTexel/s vs 76.16 GTexel/s
• FP32: 3.297 TFLOPS vs 2.437 TFLOPS
• FP16: 3.297 TFLOPS (1:1) vs 4.874 TFLOPS (2:1)
• TDP: 150 W vs 75 W
• Slot width: Single-slot vs IGP
• Power connectors: 1x 6-pin vs none
• Suggested PSU: 450 W vs not specified
• Display outputs: 4x DisplayPort 1.2 vs portable device dependent
• DirectX: 12 (12_0) vs 12 (12_1)
• Vulkan: 1.2.170 vs 1.3
• Dimensions: 241 mm length, 111 mm height vs not recorded
• Release date: August 2014 vs November 2018
• Predecessor: FirePro Terascale vs none listed
• Successor: Radeon Pro Polaris vs none listed