AMD FirePro W8000 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is decisively faster than the AMD FirePro W8000, dominating both shared benchmark tests by margins exceeding 300%. While the FirePro W8000 holds its own in its respective performance percentile, the data clearly shows an insurmountable generational gap, with the RTX 3070 Ti delivering a level of compute and graphics performance that the older workstation card cannot approach.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison is stark, with only two shared benchmark results available for both cards. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti decisively wins both, demonstrating an overwhelming performance advantage. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX 3070 Ti scores 119,718, while the FirePro W8000 manages only 24,440. This represents a massive 389.8% lead for the NVIDIA card, indicating a compute performance gap of nearly four times. The RTX 3070 Ti's advantage is not merely incremental; it fundamentally changes what workloads are feasible on the hardware.

The results are equally lopsided in the Geekbench Vulkan test. The RTX 3070 Ti posts a score of 139,541, compared to the FirePro W8000's 33,981. This translates to a 310.6% performance advantage, showcasing a similar magnitude of superiority in graphics API workloads. This consistency across both compute and graphics-oriented tests suggests the RTX 3070 Ti is not just faster in one specific area, but is a comprehensively more powerful piece of hardware. The FirePro W8000, despite being a professional workstation card, is completely outclassed by the newer consumer-focused GPU in these metrics.

When evaluating the broader benchmark context, the RTX 3070 Ti's average benchmark score of 29,945 places it in the 75th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which it beats by 0.5%, and the AMD Radeon RX 6800, which is 0.5% ahead. This places it in a highly competitive performance tier. The FirePro W8000 also holds a 75th percentile ranking with an average score of 29,211, but its nearest rivals are significantly slower, including the Intel Arc A370M and AMD Radeon RX 470. This indicates that while both cards are at the same percentile, the RTX 3070 Ti is competing at the top of that tier, while the FirePro W8000 is at the bottom, a point underscored by the 734-point difference in their average scores.

The Verdict

The verdict is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is the superior product for nearly any task. Benchmark results indicate that it is the clear choice for users prioritizing raw compute, modern graphics API support, and overall performance. Its 389.8% lead in OpenCL and 310.6% lead in Vulkan are not just wins; they are a complete dismantling of the older card's capabilities. The data suggests that the RTX 3070 Ti is not a minor upgrade but a leap across generations. Its performance aligns closely with cards like the RTX 2080 Ti and Radeon RX 6800, solidifying its position as a high-performance option.

The AMD FirePro W8000, despite its professional workstation pedigree, is rendered obsolete by the comparison. While it holds a respectable 75th percentile ranking, its average score of 29,211 places it among much slower modern hardware. The data shows that in direct competition, it has no answer for the RTX 3070 Ti's compute throughput. For any workload that can leverage the RTX 3070 Ti's capabilities, the FirePro W8000 should not be a consideration. Its only potential advantage would be in legacy professional software environments or specific use cases that rely on its unique display output configuration, but the performance data offers no support for choosing it on speed alone.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti wins in every measurable category. It is the definitive choice for compute-intensive tasks like GPU-accelerated rendering, scientific simulations, and machine learning inference, as demonstrated by its staggering OpenCL score. Its Vulkan performance also makes it the superior option for modern gaming and applications that utilize this API. The RTX 3070 Ti's 8 GB of GDDR6X memory and 608.3 GB/s of bandwidth provide a substantial advantage in handling large datasets and high-resolution textures.

The AMD FirePro W8000, while losing all head-to-head benchmarks, does have a potential niche based on its professional feature set. Its 4x DisplayPort 1.2 and 1x SDI output configuration is unique and could be beneficial for specific multi-display or broadcast environments. However, this is a connectivity advantage, not a performance one. Furthermore, its lower 225 W TDP means it draws less power than the RTX 3070 Ti's 290 W, which could be a consideration in power-constrained systems. The data does not support any performance-based reason to select the FirePro W8000; its potential merits lie entirely outside the scope of the benchmark results.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The RTX 3070 Ti is 389.8% faster than the AMD FirePro W8000, scoring 119,718 compared to 24,440.

Q: What is the performance difference in the Geekbench Vulkan benchmark?

A: The RTX 3070 Ti leads by 310.6%, with a score of 139,541 versus the FirePro W8000's 33,981.

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti has a higher average score of 29,945, compared to the AMD FirePro W8000's 29,211.

Q: Are both GPUs in the same performance percentile?

A: Yes, both the RTX 3070 Ti and the FirePro W8000 are in the 75th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 Ti compare to its nearest rival, the RTX 2080 Ti?

A: The RTX 3070 Ti is 0.5% ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti in average benchmark score.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of each card?

A: The RTX 3070 Ti has a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s, while the FirePro W8000 has a bandwidth of 176.0 GB/s.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is vast, representing a fundamental shift in design philosophy across generations. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture using a GA104 chip fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It packs 17,400 million transistors into a 392 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 44.4M / mm². In contrast, the AMD FirePro W8000 utilizes the older GCN 1.0 architecture with a Tahiti chip, built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. This older chip contains only 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, yielding a much lower transistor density of 12.3M / mm². This difference in manufacturing technology and design accounts for a significant portion of the performance gap.

The RTX 3070 Ti is a fully featured modern GPU, equipped with 48 dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and 192 tensor cores for AI acceleration. It also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The FirePro W8000, on the other hand, has no RT or tensor cores, and its API support is more limited, with DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA card's 6,144 shading units and 192 TMUs vastly outnumber the FirePro W8000's 1,792 shading units and 112 TMUs. This architectural superiority allows the RTX 3070 Ti to achieve 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power, dwarfing the FirePro W8000's 3.226 TFLOPS. The RTX 3070 Ti also supports FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio, a feature completely absent from the FirePro W8000.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets reveal a comprehensive advantage for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti across nearly all core components. The most significant difference is in memory, where the RTX 3070 Ti offers 8 GB of GDDR6X compared to the FirePro W8000's 4 GB of GDDR5. This doubles the capacity and provides a much faster memory type, leading to a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s. The memory clocks are also distinct, with the RTX 3070 Ti running at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective) and the FirePro W8000 at 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective). The NVIDIA card's memory architecture is clearly designed for high-throughput modern workloads.

The compute and rendering capabilities are also in different leagues. The RTX 3070 Ti has 6,144 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, while the FirePro W8000 has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and only 32 ROPs. This results in a pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s for the RTX 3070 Ti, compared to 28.80 GPixel/s and 100.8 GTexel/s for the FirePro W8000. Clock speeds also differ, with the RTX 3070 Ti having a base clock of 1575 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, while the FirePro W8000's clocks are not listed. Power consumption is another differentiator, with the RTX 3070 Ti rated at 290 W TDP requiring a 600 W PSU and a single 12-pin connector, while the FirePro W8000 has a 225 W TDP, a 550 W PSU suggestion, and two 6-pin connectors. The RTX 3070 Ti also uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the FirePro W8000 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16. The FirePro W8000 does offer a unique display output configuration with 4x DisplayPort 1.2 and 1x SDI, whereas the RTX 3070 Ti provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a.