AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 vs NVIDIA CMP 40HX Comparison

The NVIDIA CMP 40HX and AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 are both end-of-life workstation-adjacent cards, but the benchmark data reveals a clear performance hierarchy that diverges sharply from their architectural positioning. The CMP 40HX, a mining-oriented Turing part, dominates the shared benchmark suite, while the WX 8200, an older Vega-based pro card, trails significantly despite its larger transistor count and wider memory bus.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two cards share only two benchmarks in the data set: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. In both, the NVIDIA CMP 40HX emerges victorious, but the margin of victory tells a compelling story. In Geekbench OpenCL, the CMP 40HX scores 93,395 against the WX 8200’s 69,774, a decisive 33.9% advantage. This is not a marginal win; it is a generational gap expressed in raw compute throughput. The CMP 40HX’s 7.603 TFLOPS FP32 rating and 15.21 TFLOPS FP16 rating, combined with its Turing architecture, clearly outperform the WX 8200’s 10.75 TFLOPS FP32 and 21.50 TFLOPS FP16 figures in this workload. Interestingly, the WX 8200 has higher theoretical FP32 and FP16 numbers, yet loses by a third in OpenCL — a stark reminder that theoretical peak rates do not translate directly to real-world API performance.

The Vulkan test narrows the gap but still favors NVIDIA. The CMP 40HX scores 77,879 versus the WX 8200’s 69,076, a 12.7% lead. This smaller margin suggests that the WX 8200’s GCN 5.0 architecture, which supports Vulkan 1.3, handles the lower-level API more competitively than it does OpenCL. However, the NVIDIA card still wins, likely due to its newer Turing architecture and driver optimizations. The CMP 40HX’s Vulkan 1.4 support and 12 Ultimate API level (12_2) give it a modern feature set that the WX 8200, with its Vulkan 1.3 and DirectX 12 (12_1) support, cannot match.

Across the two head-to-head tests, the CMP 40HX wins 2-0. There is no benchmark in the data where the WX 8200 pulls ahead. The average benchmark scores reinforce this: the CMP 40HX sits at 85,637, while the WX 8200 manages only 69,870. That is a 22.6% gap in overall average score, placing the CMP 40HX in the 93rd percentile of all GPUs versus the WX 8200’s 90th percentile. The delta is consistent across every metric available.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA CMP 40HX is the faster card in every measured scenario. If the choice is purely about raw benchmark performance, the CMP 40HX wins outright. It outperforms the WX 8200 by 33.9% in OpenCL and 12.7% in Vulkan, and its average benchmark score is 22.6% higher. The CMP 40HX also lands in a higher percentile (93rd vs 90th), placing it closer to the top of the GPU hierarchy.

However, the WX 8200 is not without its merits. It has a higher theoretical FP32 throughput (10.75 TFLOPS vs 7.603 TFLOPS) and FP16 throughput (21.50 TFLOPS vs 15.21 TFLOPS), which might appeal to users who prioritize peak compute over real-world API results. Yet the benchmark data shows that this theoretical advantage does not materialize in practice. The WX 8200’s nearest rivals — the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (delta -0.2%) and NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile (delta -0.4%) — indicate it is competitive with that performance tier, but the CMP 40HX sits in a higher league, alongside the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 (delta -1.7%) and NVIDIA Quadro GP100 (delta -2.1%).

The verdict is clear: for anyone selecting a card based on the provided benchmark results, the NVIDIA CMP 40HX is the superior choice. It wins every test, has a higher average score, and a higher percentile ranking. The WX 8200’s only argument is its theoretical compute headroom, which the data shows is not being utilized effectively.

Where Each One Wins

Looking strictly at the benchmark wins, the NVIDIA CMP 40HX wins every category where both cards were tested. In OpenCL, it holds a 33.9% lead, making it the clear choice for compute-heavy workloads that rely on this API. In Vulkan, its 12.7% advantage makes it preferable for modern graphics and compute tasks that leverage Vulkan’s lower overhead. The CMP 40HX also has a significantly higher average benchmark score (85,637 vs 69,870), suggesting it is the more consistent performer across a broader range of tasks.

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200, despite losing all head-to-head comparisons, has specific theoretical strengths. Its 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, enabled by a 2048-bit HBM2 bus, exceeds the CMP 40HX’s 448.0 GB/s from a 256-bit GDDR6 bus. This could benefit memory-bandwidth-bound workloads, though no benchmark in the data set isolates this. Similarly, the WX 8200’s higher texture rate (336.0 GTexel/s vs 237.6 GTexel/s) and higher FP32/Fp16 throughput suggest it might excel in raw shading or compute tasks that are not captured by the Geekbench tests. The WX 8200 also has four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the CMP 40HX has no display outputs at all — a critical distinction for any user needing to connect monitors.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA CMP 40HX has an average benchmark score of 85,637, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200’s 69,870, a 22.6% difference in favor of NVIDIA.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between the two cards?

A: The largest gap is in Geekbench OpenCL, where the NVIDIA CMP 40HX scores 93,395 against the WX 8200’s 69,774, giving NVIDIA a 33.9% lead.

Q: Does the AMD card have any theoretical advantages?

A: Yes, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 has higher peak FP32 throughput (10.75 TFLOPS vs 7.603 TFLOPS) and FP16 throughput (21.50 TFLOPS vs 15.21 TFLOPS), as well as higher memory bandwidth (512.0 GB/s vs 448.0 GB/s).

Q: Which card supports newer graphics APIs?

A: The NVIDIA CMP 40HX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No, both the NVIDIA CMP 40HX and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 are listed as end-of-life products.

Q: What is the difference in memory type?

A: The NVIDIA CMP 40HX uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, while the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 uses 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus.

Architecture Differences

The two cards represent fundamentally different design philosophies. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX is built on the Turing architecture, manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It packs 10,800 million transistors into a 445 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.3M per mm². Turing brings dedicated hardware that the AMD card lacks entirely: 36 RT cores for ray tracing and 288 tensor cores for AI acceleration. These features explain the CMP 40HX’s support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which mandates ray tracing capabilities. The CMP 40HX also has 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs.

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200, by contrast, uses the older GCN 5.0 architecture, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It has a larger die (495 mm²) and more transistors (12,500 million), resulting in a slightly higher transistor density of 25.3M per mm². However, it has no RT cores or tensor cores, reflecting its pre-ray-tracing design. The WX 8200 compensates with more raw compute units: 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. Its 2048-bit HBM2 memory interface is a major architectural difference, providing 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth versus the CMP 40HX’s 448.0 GB/s from a 256-bit GDDR6 bus.

The process node difference (12 nm vs 14 nm) and foundry choice (TSMC vs GlobalFoundries) are notable, but the benchmark data suggests that NVIDIA’s Turing architecture is more efficient at converting its resources into real-world performance. The CMP 40HX achieves higher scores despite having fewer shading units and lower theoretical TFLOPS, indicating that architectural efficiency matters more than raw transistor count.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification category. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX has a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, while the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 runs at 1200 MHz base and 1500 MHz boost. The CMP 40HX’s memory operates at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus the WX 8200’s 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective). Memory bus widths diverge sharply: 256-bit for NVIDIA versus 2048-bit for AMD, leading to different bandwidth figures (448.0 GB/s vs 512.0 GB/s).

Power requirements also differ. The CMP 40HX has a TDP of 185 W, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and a suggested 450 W PSU. The WX 8200 draws more power at 230 W TDP, needs both a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector, and recommends a 550 W PSU. Physical dimensions vary too: the CMP 40HX is 229 mm long, while the WX 8200 is 267 mm long; both are dual-slot and 111 mm tall, with the CMP 40HX being 35 mm wide (width data for the WX 8200 is unavailable).

Display outputs are a major differentiator: the CMP 40HX has no outputs, while the WX 8200 has four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a connections. The bus interface also differs — the CMP 40HX uses PCIe 1.0 x4, an unusual choice for a mining card, while the WX 8200 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Release dates are 2021-02-24 for NVIDIA and 2018-08-12 for AMD. The launch MSRP for the CMP 40HX is 699 USD, while the WX 8200 launched at 999 USD. Finally, the CMP 40HX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, whereas the WX 8200 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3.