AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 vs NVIDIA GRID K2 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 and NVIDIA GRID K2 are both end-of-life professional cards, but they serve entirely different purposes. The data shows a clear performance hierarchy, with the WX 5100 winning both shared benchmark tests by a wide margin. However, the GRID K2 is a dual-slot, power-hungry board with no display outputs, designed for a specific virtualized server role. This analysis breaks down the numbers to help you decide which obsolete card, if any, fits a specific workload.

The Verdict

From the benchmark data, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 is the outright performance winner. It dominates the GRID K2 in both available head-to-head tests, with a 421.9% lead in Geekbench Metal and a 128.4% lead in Geekbench OpenCL. Its average benchmark score of 8863 places it at the 44th percentile of all GPUs, while the GRID K2's 8080 average puts it at the 42nd percentile. The WX 5100 is also a far more practical piece of hardware for a workstation: it is a single-slot, 75 W card that draws power from the PCIe slot, requires no external power connectors, and features four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The GRID K2, in contrast, is a dual-slot card with a 225 W TDP, requires a 550 W power supply, needs a 6-pin and 8-pin power connector, and has no display outputs at all.

Choose the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 if you need a functional workstation card for rendering, compute, or general GPU-accelerated tasks on a local machine. Its superior raw performance, lower power draw, and display connectivity make it the only sensible choice for a physical desktop. Choose the NVIDIA GRID K2 only if you specifically need a legacy virtualization accelerator for a server, where its lack of outputs and high power draw are non-issues. For any other purpose, the data suggests the WX 5100 is the better buy.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures and process nodes. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 uses the Ellesmere chip based on GCN 4.0 architecture and is fabricated by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process. This newer process allows for a transistor density of 24.6M per mm², packing 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die. In contrast, the NVIDIA GRID K2 uses the GK104 chip based on the older Kepler architecture, built by TSMC on a 28 nm process. Its transistor density is only 12.0M per mm², with 3,540 million transistors spread across a larger 294 mm² die.

These architectural differences lead to significant feature gaps. The WX 5100 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3, while the GRID K2 only supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The WX 5100 also offers FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, whereas the GRID K2 has no listed FP16 capability. The WX 5100's memory clock is 1250 MHz, translating to 5 Gbps effective, which is identical to the GRID K2's memory clock. Both cards share a 256-bit memory bus, but the WX 5100 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory compared to the GRID K2's 4 GB capacity, even though both achieve the same 160.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark results show a one-sided contest in raw compute, but the hardware specifications tell a story of two different deployment scenarios. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 wins in every measured performance category. It has more shading units (1792 vs 1536), a higher pixel rate (34.75 GPixel/s vs 23.84 GPixel/s), a higher texture rate (121.6 GTexel/s vs 95.36 GTexel/s), and significantly higher FP32 throughput (3.892 TFLOPS vs 2.289 TFLOPS). Its physical design also wins for workstation use: it is a single-slot card that is 173 mm long, fits in smaller cases, and outputs video to four displays.

The NVIDIA GRID K2 has no benchmark wins, but it does have a few specification advantages. It has more texture mapping units (128 vs 112), and its larger 294 mm² die and dual-slot cooler are designed for sustained server operation rather than desktop use. Its 267 mm length is its only dimension listed. The GRID K2's design philosophy is to provide GPU acceleration in virtualized environments, which is why it has no display outputs and relies on a 225 W TDP. The WX 5100 is the clear winner for any local, display-connected workload, while the GRID K2's only logical win is in a niche server virtualization role.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better overall performance?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 is decisively faster. Its average benchmark score is 8863, while the NVIDIA GRID K2 scores 8080. In direct head-to-head tests, the WX 5100 leads by 421.9% in Geekbench Metal and 128.4% in Geekbench OpenCL.

Q: Can I use the NVIDIA GRID K2 in a standard desktop PC?

A: Technically yes, but it is impractical. The GRID K2 has no display outputs, so you would need a separate GPU for video output. It is a dual-slot card with a 225 W TDP requiring a 550 W power supply and both a 6-pin and 8-pin power connector.

Q: How do the memory capacities compare?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, double the NVIDIA GRID K2's 4 GB. Despite this capacity difference, both cards have the same 256-bit bus width and achieve the same 160.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card supports newer graphics APIs?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3, which are more recent versions than the GRID K2's DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both cards support OpenGL 4.6.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 has a 75 W TDP and requires no external power connectors, drawing all power from the PCIe slot. The NVIDIA GRID K2 has a 225 W TDP and requires a dedicated 6-pin and 8-pin power connector.

Q: Are these cards still in production?

A: No. Both the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 and the NVIDIA GRID K2 are end-of-life products. The WX 5100 was released on 2016-11-17, while the GRID K2 is older, with a release date of 2013-05-10.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The shared benchmark data between these two cards is limited to two Geekbench tests, but the results are stark. In Geekbench Metal, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 scores an impressive 29003, while the NVIDIA GRID K2 manages only 5557. This represents a 421.9% advantage for the AMD card. This massive gap indicates that the WX 5100 has significantly better compute and graphics throughput for Apple's Metal API, which is a strong indicator of its modern architecture's efficiency.

The second test, Geekbench OpenCL, shows a similar but slightly less extreme disparity. The WX 5100 scores 24217, while the GRID K2 scores 10602, giving the AMD card a 128.4% lead. This result confirms that the WX 5100's performance advantage is not specific to one API but reflects a general computing superiority. The GRID K2's FP32 throughput of 2.289 TFLOPS is simply outclassed by the WX 5100's 3.892 TFLOPS, and the newer GCN 4.0 architecture extracts more work from its hardware.

In other benchmark categories where only the AMD card has data, the WX 5100 shows a balanced profile. It scores 5496 in Passmark G3D, 2053 in Passmark GPU Compute, and 777 in Passmark G2D. Its DirectX scores are 88 for DirectX 9, 36 for DirectX 11, 29 for DirectX 10, and 26 for DirectX 12. The GRID K2 has no scores for these tests, so no comparison is possible, but the WX 5100's numbers are self-consistent with its strong showing in the Geekbench tests.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every core specification. The process node is a major distinction: the WX 5100 uses a 14 nm process, while the GRID K2 uses 28 nm. This leads to a significant difference in transistor density (24.6M / mm² vs 12.0M / mm²) and transistor count (5,700 million vs 3,540 million). The die size also differs, with the WX 5100 at 232 mm² and the GRID K2 at 294 mm².

The memory configuration shows a capacity difference (8 GB vs 4 GB) but identical bus width (256 bit) and bandwidth (160.0 GB/s). The clock speeds are partially different: the WX 5100 has a base clock of 713 MHz and a boost clock of 1086 MHz, while the GRID K2 lists no base or boost clocks. Both share a memory clock of 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective).

Compute resources differ significantly. The WX 5100 has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The GRID K2 has 1536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. This results in different pixel rates (34.75 GPixel/s vs 23.84 GPixel/s) and texture rates (121.6 GTexel/s vs 95.36 GTexel/s). The FP32 performance is 3.892 TFLOPS for the AMD card and 2.289 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA card, and only the AMD card lists FP16 performance (3.892 TFLOPS 1:1).

Power and physical dimensions are also contrasting. The WX 5100 has a 75 W TDP, is single-slot, has no power connectors, and suggests a 250 W PSU. The GRID K2 has a 225 W TDP, is dual-slot, requires a 6-pin and 8-pin connector, and suggests a 550 W PSU. The WX 5100 is 173 mm long and 112 mm high, while the GRID K2 is 267 mm long with no listed height. The display outputs are a key difference: the WX 5100 has 4x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the GRID K2 has no outputs. Finally, the API support differs in DirectX (12_0 vs 11_0) and Vulkan (1.3 vs 1.2.175).