AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A Comparison

FAQ

Q: How does the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A compare to the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 in OpenCL performance?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 scores 24,217 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A scores 10,273. The AMD part leads by 57.6% in this test.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between the two cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A has 2 GB of DDR3 memory on a 128-bit bus with 32.03 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor density?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries, packs 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die for a density of 24.6M / mm². The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A, on TSMC's 28 nm node, has 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die, yielding 12.6M / mm².

Q: What are the shading unit counts for each GPU?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 contains 1,792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs.

Q: Do both cards support DirectX 12?

A: Yes, both support DirectX 12, but at different feature levels. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A supports DirectX 12 (11_0).

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 had a launch MSRP of 499 USD. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A has no recorded launch MSRP in the database.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 wins the only recorded head-to-head benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a score of 24,217 against 10,273 for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A. That is a 57.6% advantage for the AMD card. The database shows zero wins for the NVIDIA part in direct comparisons.

Beyond the single head-to-head, the AMD card also has a richer benchmark profile in the database. It records scores across Metal (29,003), Vulkan (26,909), PassMark DirectX 9 (88), DirectX 10 (29), DirectX 11 (36), DirectX 12 (26), G2D (777), G3D (5,496), and GPU compute (2,053). The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A only has the single OpenCL score.

The NVIDIA card does hold a higher percentile ranking versus all GPUs at 48, compared to the AMD card's 44. However, its average benchmark score of 10,273 is lower than the AMD card's 8,863 average when all of the AMD card's benchmarks are included. The AMD card's average is pulled down by its low PassMark DirectX scores, which are API-specific synthetic tests rather than general compute workloads.

For compute-heavy tasks measured by OpenCL, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 is the clear winner. For users who only care about the single OpenCL metric, the NVIDIA card is closer to its nearest rivals, sitting within 2% of the AMD Radeon R9 M375 and within 1.2% of the NVIDIA Tesla C2075.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and foundries. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A uses the GM107 chip built on the Maxwell architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 28 nm process. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 uses the Ellesmere chip based on GCN 4.0, fabricated by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process.

The process node difference is significant. The AMD card's 14 nm node allows a much higher transistor density: 24.6M per mm² versus 12.6M per mm² for the NVIDIA card. Despite having a larger die (232 mm² vs 148 mm²), the AMD chip packs over three times the transistor count (5,700 million vs 1,870 million).

The memory architecture also differs fundamentally. The NVIDIA card uses DDR3 memory with a 128-bit bus, while the AMD card uses GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus. This results in a massive bandwidth difference: 160.0 GB/s for the AMD card versus 32.03 GB/s for the NVIDIA card, a five-fold gap.

The AMD card supports a wider set of graphics APIs. It has DirectX 12 (12_0) feature level, while the NVIDIA card only reaches 12 (11_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the AMD card supports Vulkan 1.3 compared to Vulkan 1.4 for the NVIDIA card. The AMD card also has native fp16 support at a 1:1 ratio with fp32, while the NVIDIA card has no recorded fp16 capability.

Form factor and interface differ substantially. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A is an MXM module with an MXM-B (3.0) interface and portable-device-dependent display outputs. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 is a single-slot card with a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, and dimensions of 173 mm in length and 112 mm in height.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A | AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 |

|---|---|---|

| Process Node | 28 nm (TSMC) | 14 nm (GlobalFoundries) |

| Transistors | 1,870 million | 5,700 million |

| Die Size | 148 mm² | 232 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 12.6M / mm² | 24.6M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 993 MHz | 713 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1124 MHz | 1086 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1001 MHz, 2 Gbps effective | 1250 MHz, 5 Gbps effective |

| Memory Size | 2 GB | 8 GB |

| Memory Type | DDR3 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus Width | 128 bit | 256 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 32.03 GB/s | 160.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 640 | 1,792 |

| TMUs | 40 | 112 |

| ROPs | 16 | 32 |

| Pixel Rate | 17.98 GPixel/s | 34.75 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 44.96 GTexel/s | 121.6 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 1,438.7 GFLOPS | 3.892 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | Not recorded | 3.892 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 75 W | 75 W |

| Slot Width | MXM Module | Single-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | None |

| Bus Interface | MXM-B (3.0) | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | 4x DisplayPort 1.4a |

| DirectX | 12 (11_0) | 12 (12_0) |

| Vulkan | 1.4 | 1.3 |

| Release Date | 2015-03-12 | 2016-11-17 |

The TDP is identical at 75 W for both cards, and neither requires external power connectors. The AMD card does list a suggested PSU of 250 W, while the NVIDIA card has no suggested PSU recorded.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records exactly one head-to-head benchmark between these two GPUs: Geekbench OpenCL. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 scores 24,217, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A scores 10,273. The delta is 57.6% in favor of the AMD card.

This OpenCL result aligns with the raw compute specifications. The AMD card delivers 3.892 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is roughly 2.7 times the 1,438.7 GFLOPS of the NVIDIA card. The AMD card also has 1,792 shading units versus 640, and a texture rate of 121.6 GTexel/s versus 44.96 GTexel/s.

The pixel rate advantage is also substantial. The AMD card outputs 34.75 GPixel/s versus 17.98 GPixel/s for the NVIDIA card, a 93% difference. This comes from having twice the ROP count (32 vs 16) and a higher boost clock.

The memory bandwidth gap is the most extreme specification difference. At 160.0 GB/s, the AMD card has exactly five times the bandwidth of the NVIDIA card's 32.03 GB/s. This makes the AMD card far better suited for memory-intensive workloads like large OpenCL buffers or high-resolution texture streaming.

Looking at the nearest rivals provides additional context. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A's OpenCL score of 10,273 places it between the AMD Radeon RX 6500M (10,362, delta of -0.9%) and the AMD Radeon R9 M375 (10,070, delta of +2%). The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100's average benchmark score of 8,863 sits between the AMD Radeon R9 M265X (8,851, delta of +0.1%) and the AMD Radeon 550X (8,918, delta of -0.6%).

The result is clear: in the only directly comparable workload, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 outperforms the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950A by a wide margin. The NVIDIA card's higher percentile ranking reflects its position among all GPUs, but against this specific competitor, the AMD card dominates in compute throughput, memory bandwidth, and pixel filling capability.