AMD FirePro W7100 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Comparison

The Verdict

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the overwhelming choice in this comparison. The data shows it wins both recorded head-to-head benchmark tests, with the GeForce 20-series card taking the Geekbench OpenCL test by 430% and the Vulkan test by 382.9%. Its average benchmark score of 29,783 places it at the 75th percentile of all GPUs, while the AMD FirePro W7100 sits at the 71st percentile with an average score of 25,856. The RTX 2080 Ti is positioned alongside modern competitors like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (delta -0.5%) and AMD Radeon RX 6800 (delta -1%), meaning it trades blows with much newer hardware.

For professionals who need raw compute throughput, the RTX 2080 Ti is the only real option here. Its 13.45 TFLOPS FP32 performance dwarfs the FirePro W7100's 3.297 TFLOPS. The FirePro W7100, however, was designed for a different era: a 2014 workstation card with GCN 3.0 architecture, 28 nm process, and 8 GB of GDDR5 memory. It remains competitive against its own peers, sitting within 0.5% of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 and 0.1% of the AMD FirePro D700 in average score. But against the Turing-based RTX 2080 Ti, the gap is insurmountable.

The verdict is simple: choose the RTX 2080 Ti for any workload where compute performance matters. The FirePro W7100 makes sense only if you need its specific feature set: four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, single-slot cooling, and a 150 W TDP with a single 6-pin power connector. For everything else, the RTX 2080 Ti wins by an order of magnitude.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 2080 Ti wins every single benchmark in the database. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 128,171 versus 24,182 for the FirePro W7100, a 430% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the margin is 382.9%, with scores of 132,930 versus 27,529. Beyond those head-to-head tests, the RTX 2080 Ti has a full suite of Passmark results: G3D score of 21,548, GPU Compute score of 10,056, and DirectX 11 score of 190. The FirePro W7100 has no recorded Passmark results, suggesting its performance profile was never validated in those tests.

Where the FirePro W7100 does have a claim is in physical form factor and power delivery. It is a single-slot card at 241 mm long, 111 mm tall, with no specified width. The RTX 2080 Ti is a dual-slot card at 267 mm long, 116 mm tall, 35 mm wide. The FirePro W7100 draws 150 W TDP with a single 6-pin connector and a suggested 450 W PSU, while the RTX 2080 Ti demands 250 W TDP, dual 8-pin connectors, and a 600 W PSU. For dense workstation builds where slot count and power budget are constraints, the FirePro W7100 has a structural advantage, not a performance one.

The FirePro W7100 also offers four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, which can drive multiple displays directly. The RTX 2080 Ti provides one HDMI 2.0, three DisplayPort 1.4a, and one USB Type-C output, which is more versatile but requires adapters for multi-display setups. Neither card supports ray tracing on the FirePro side, while the RTX 2080 Ti includes 68 RT cores and 544 Tensor cores, features the Tonga chip entirely lacks.

Architecture Differences

The RTX 2080 Ti uses the TU102 chip built on a 12 nm TSMC process, packing 18,600 million transistors into a 754 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 24.7 million per mm². The FirePro W7100 uses the Tonga chip on a 28 nm TSMC process, with 5,000 million transistors on a 366 mm² die, for a density of 13.7 million per mm². The generational leap is stark: the RTX 2080 Ti crams over 3.7 times the transistors into roughly double the die area.

Memory configurations differ significantly. The RTX 2080 Ti has 11 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 352-bit bus, delivering 616.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The FirePro W7100 has 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 2080 Ti's memory clock is 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), while the FirePro runs at 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective). That is nearly 4 times the bandwidth in favor of the NVIDIA card.

Compute resources follow the same pattern. The RTX 2080 Ti has 4,352 shading units, 272 TMUs, and 88 ROPs. The FirePro W7100 has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Pixel rate is 136.0 GPixel/s versus 29.44 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 420.2 GTexel/s versus 103.0 GTexel/s. The RTX 2080 Ti also supports FP16 at 26.90 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the FirePro does FP16 at 3.297 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio, identical to FP32).

API support differs as well. The RTX 2080 Ti supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The FirePro W7100 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The RTX 2080 Ti's newer API levels reflect its 2018 release versus the FirePro's 2014 debut. Both cards are end-of-life, with the RTX 2080 Ti succeeding the GeForce 10 series and preceding GeForce 30, while the FirePro W7100 follows FirePro Terascale and precedes Radeon Pro Polaris.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better raw compute performance?

A: The RTX 2080 Ti. It delivers 13.45 TFLOPS FP32 versus 3.297 TFLOPS for the FirePro W7100, and the Geekbench OpenCL test shows a 430% advantage for the NVIDIA card.

Q: Can the FirePro W7100 handle modern gaming or DirectX 12 Ultimate workloads?

A: No. It supports only DirectX 12 (12_0), not the 12_2 feature level of the RTX 2080 Ti. It also lacks RT cores and Tensor cores, so hardware ray tracing and AI acceleration are unavailable.

Q: How do the memory systems compare?

A: The RTX 2080 Ti has 11 GB GDDR6 on a 352-bit bus with 616.0 GB/s bandwidth. The FirePro W7100 has 8 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA card offers nearly 4 times the bandwidth.

Q: Is the FirePro W7100 better for multi-display setups?

A: It depends on the display type. The FirePro W7100 provides four DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The RTX 2080 Ti offers one HDMI 2.0, three DisplayPort 1.4a, and one USB Type-C. The FirePro has more DisplayPorts natively, but the RTX 2080 Ti supports newer DisplayPort versions.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The RTX 2080 Ti has a 250 W TDP, requires dual 8-pin power connectors, and suggests a 600 W PSU. The FirePro W7100 has a 150 W TDP, uses a single 6-pin connector, and suggests a 450 W PSU. The FirePro is significantly lighter on power draw.

Q: How does the RTX 2080 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in the database?

A: Its average score of 29,783 is within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile (29,928, delta -0.5%), the RTX 3070 Ti (29,945, delta -0.5%), and the AMD Radeon RX 6800 (30,095, delta -1%). It sits 2% above the AMD FirePro W8000 (29,211).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records only two head-to-head tests between these cards, and both are decisive wins for the RTX 2080 Ti. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA card scores 128,171 against 24,182 for the FirePro W7100. That is a 430% delta, meaning the RTX 2080 Ti delivers more than 5 times the OpenCL compute throughput. This test stresses general-purpose GPU compute, and the results align with the raw specifications: 4,352 shading units versus 1,792, and 13.45 TFLOPS versus 3.297 TFLOPS FP32.

The Geekbench Vulkan test shows a similar story. The RTX 2080 Ti scores 132,930, while the FirePro W7100 manages 27,529. The delta is 382.9%. Vulkan is a low-level graphics and compute API, and the RTX 2080 Ti's Turing architecture with its dedicated RT and Tensor cores likely contributes to the advantage, even in non-ray-traced workloads. The FirePro W7100's GCN 3.0 architecture, released in 2014, simply cannot keep pace.

Beyond the head-to-head tests, the RTX 2080 Ti has a broader benchmark footprint. Its Passmark G3D score of 21,548 places it in a different performance class entirely. The FirePro W7100 has no Passmark entries, so its DirectX 9, 10, 11, 12, and G2D performance is unrecorded. The RTX 2080 Ti's Passmark DirectX 11 score of 190 and DirectX 12 score of 84 show solid API-specific performance, while its GPU Compute score of 10,056 reinforces its compute leadership.

The delta between these cards is so large that it almost defies comparison. A 430% lead in OpenCL means that a task taking the FirePro W7100 5 hours would complete in roughly 1 hour on the RTX 2080 Ti, assuming perfect scaling. In Vulkan, the 382.9% lead translates to similar time savings. The FirePro W7100's nearest rivals, such as the AMD FirePro D700 (delta 0.1%) and AMD Radeon R9 M395X (delta -0.1%), show it is competitive within its own generation. But the RTX 2080 Ti sits among much newer hardware, trading within 1% of the RTX 3070 Ti and RX 6800. That is the real story: the RTX 2080 Ti is a modern-class performer, while the FirePro W7100 is a legacy workstation part that has been left behind.