AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 and AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 are separated by roughly six years and two entirely different design philosophies, yet the database records them as near neighbors in overall performance percentile, at 45 for the GTX 560 and 41 for the WX 3100. The Fermi-based GeForce card wins the only head-to-head benchmark in the database, while the Polaris-derived workstation card counters with a far more modern feature set, a 4 GB frame buffer, and dramatically lower power draw. Both carry the same launch MSRP of 199 USD and both are now end-of-life parts, which makes this a comparison of trade-offs rather than generations.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data contains one direct head-to-head test, and it goes decisively to the older card. In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 560 scores 9058 against 7333 for the WX 3100, a 23.5 percent advantage for the GeForce. That is not a marginal gap; it is the difference between two performance tiers in practical terms. The GTX 560's average benchmark score of 9058 places it in interesting company: the database lists the NVIDIA TITAN V CEO Edition at 9037 (0.2 percent behind), the GeForce GTX 660 at 9022 (0.4 percent behind), and the AMD Radeon 550X at 8918 (1.6 percent behind). The only listed rival ahead of it is the Radeon 890M at 9210, a 1.7 percent lead.

The WX 3100's average of 7580 tells a humbler story. Its nearest rivals include the Radeon R7 250 at 7557 (0.3 percent behind), the Intel Arc A310 at 7550 (0.4 percent behind), the GeForce GTX 1650 at 7472 (1.4 percent behind), and the Radeon 540 at 7673 (1.2 percent ahead). Sitting alongside the R7 250, Arc A310, and Radeon 540 is a clear signal: the WX 3100 occupies the entry tier of the performance landscape the database tracks.

The card's own Vulkan run, scoring 7827 in Geekbench Vulkan, is its best individual result, but the database has no matching Vulkan result for the GTX 560, so no direct comparison can be drawn there. The GTX 560 also lacks Vulkan API support entirely, which means the WX 3100 competes in a test category the GeForce card simply cannot enter. In the one contest both cards did enter, however, NVIDIA takes the win, and the head-to-head record stands at one win for the GTX 560 and zero for the WX 3100.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster overall?

A: The GTX 560. It wins Geekbench OpenCL by 23.5 percent (9058 versus 7333) and holds a higher percentile against all GPUs in the database, 45 versus 41.

Q: How much more power does the GTX 560 consume?

A: The recorded TDP figures are 150 W for the GTX 560 and 65 W for the WX 3100. The GTX 560 also requires two 6-pin power connectors and a suggested 450 W PSU, while the WX 3100 needs no auxiliary power connectors and a suggested 250 W PSU.

Q: Which card has more memory?

A: The WX 3100, with 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus delivering 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 560 has 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a wider 256-bit bus, delivering 128.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: Do both cards support modern graphics APIs?

A: No. The WX 3100 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The GTX 560 supports DirectX 12 only at feature level 11_0, OpenGL 4.6, and no Vulkan at all.

Q: Which card fits in tighter spaces?

A: The WX 3100 by a wide margin. It is a single-slot card measuring 168 mm long and 69 mm tall. The GTX 560 is dual-slot and 210 mm long.

Q: Which card has higher theoretical compute throughput?

A: The WX 3100, at 1,248.3 GFLOPS FP32 versus 1,088.6 GFLOPS for the GTX 560. The GTX 560 nevertheless wins the recorded OpenCL benchmark, showing that real-world compute results do not track peak theoretical figures here.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split. For raw recorded performance, the GTX 560 is the pick: a 23.5 percent OpenCL win, a 45th percentile standing, and average scores clustered near the GTX 660 and TITAN V CEO Edition in the database's rival listings. Users benchmarking legacy DirectX 11-era workloads, or anyone prioritizing memory bandwidth (128.0 GB/s versus 96.00 GB/s), get more from the GeForce card.

The WX 3100 is the choice where efficiency, connectivity, and software support dominate. Its 65 W TDP, slot-free power delivery, single-slot profile, and 168 mm length make it viable in compact systems the GTX 560 cannot physically or electrically inhabit. Its 4 GB frame buffer is four times the capacity of the GTX 560's 1024 MB, an advantage in memory-heavy workloads. Full DirectX 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3 support mean it runs modern API paths the Fermi card cannot address at all. It also delivers higher peak compute (1,248.3 versus 1,088.6 GFLOPS FP32) and a higher pixel fill rate (19.50 versus 11.34 GPixel/s), though the GTX 560 retains the lead in texture rate (45.36 versus 39.01 GTexel/s).

For a modern low-power build, the WX 3100. For the highest recorded benchmark score in this pairing, the GTX 560.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every dimension the database tracks. The GTX 560 is a dual-slot, 210 mm card with two 6-pin power connectors, a 150 W TDP, a suggested 450 W PSU, and a PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. The WX 3100 is single-slot, 168 mm long and 69 mm tall, needs no power connectors, carries a 65 W TDP with a suggested 250 W PSU, and connects via PCIe 3.0 x8.

Memory configurations diverge sharply. The GTX 560 pairs 1024 MB of GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus, 1000 MHz memory clock (4 Gbps effective), and 128.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The WX 3100 pairs 4 GB of GDDR5 with a 128-bit bus, 1500 MHz memory clock (6 Gbps effective), and 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth. Capacity favors AMD heavily; bandwidth favors NVIDIA by a third.

Shader resources split along different lines. The WX 3100 has 512 shading units against 336, but fewer TMUs (32 versus 56) and fewer ROPs (16 versus 32). The GTX 560 has no published base or boost clock, while the WX 3100 runs a 925 MHz base and 1219 MHz boost clock. Display output is another divide: the GTX 560 offers dual DVI plus mini-HDMI 1.3a, whereas the WX 3100 provides one DisplayPort 1.4a and two mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. Both carry a 199 USD launch MSRP, and both are end-of-life.

Architecture Differences

These are two fundamentally different GPU generations. The GTX 560 is the GF114 chip on NVIDIA's Fermi 2.0 architecture, part of the GeForce 500 generation, fabricated at TSMC on a 40 nm process. It packs 1,950 million transistors into a 332 mm² die, a density of 5.9M transistors per mm².

The WX 3100 is the Lexa chip on AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture, from the Radeon Pro Polaris (WX x100) line, built by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process. Its 2,200 million transistors fit into just 103 mm², yielding 21.4M transistors per mm², roughly three and a half times the density of the Fermi part. That density gap is the clearest architectural story in this pairing: AMD delivered more transistors in less than a third of the die area, six years later.

Capability sets also diverge. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, but the WX 3100 supports FP16 at full 1:1 rate with FP32 (1,248.3 GFLOPS in both), a feature absent from the GTX 560's recorded capabilities. API support follows the same pattern: OpenGL 4.6 is common ground, while DirectX 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3 belong to the WX 3100 alone, and the GTX 560 tops out at DirectX 12 feature level 11_0. Within their respective lineages, the GTX 560 succeeded the GeForce 400 generation and was itself followed by GeForce 600, while the WX 3100 followed the Radeon Pro GCN line and preceded Radeon Pro Vega.