AMD FirePro W8000 vs NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 Comparison

The AMD FirePro W8000 and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 represent two distinct eras of workstation graphics, separated by six years of architectural evolution. The benchmark data shows a decisive performance advantage for the newer NVIDIA card, with the Quadro RTX 8000 winning both head-to-head tests by substantial margins. However, the FirePro W8000's specifications and feature set reveal a capable professional card in its own right, one that was designed for a different generation of workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 scores 101,883 against the AMD FirePro W8000's 24,440. This represents a delta of -76% from the AMD card's perspective, meaning the Quadro RTX 8000 delivers roughly four times the compute performance in this workload. The gap is stark: the NVIDIA card's score is 4.17x higher, a margin that reflects not just architectural improvements but also the massive difference in shading units, memory bandwidth, and raw FP32 throughput between the two cards.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, with the Quadro RTX 8000 achieving 122,637 points versus the FirePro W8000's 33,981. The delta here is -72.3%, translating to a 3.61x advantage for the NVIDIA card. While the relative gap narrows slightly compared to OpenCL, the absolute difference remains enormous. Interestingly, the FirePro W8000's Vulkan score of 33,981 is notably higher than its OpenCL score of 24,440, suggesting that the GCN 1.0 architecture handles Vulkan's explicit API model relatively well despite its age.

Across both benchmarks, the Quadro RTX 8000 wins 2 out of 2 tests, with zero wins for the FirePro W8000. The average benchmark scores reinforce this hierarchy: the FirePro W8000 averages 29,211 across its two tests, while the Quadro RTX 8000 averages 28,421 across its full suite of nine benchmarks. This apparent contradiction—where the older card has a slightly higher average—is explained by the different benchmark compositions. The Quadro RTX 8000's average is dragged down by its Passmark DirectX scores, which range from 79 to 211, likely reflecting driver-level compatibility issues with legacy API paths rather than raw hardware capability.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two cards is profound. The AMD FirePro W8000 uses the Tahiti chip, built on GCN 1.0 architecture, manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It contains 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.3M per mm². The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, by contrast, uses the TU102 chip with Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process (also TSMC). This chip packs 18,600 million transistors onto a 754 mm² die, with a density of 24.7M per mm²—roughly double the density of the older AMD part.

Memory configurations represent another massive divergence. The FirePro W8000 ships with 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing 176.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro RTX 8000 offers 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s—3.82x more bandwidth and 12x more capacity. For modern workstation workloads like large simulation datasets or high-resolution texture sets, this difference is often the deciding factor.

Compute resources scale accordingly. The FirePro W8000 has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, producing 3.226 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The Quadro RTX 8000 has 4,608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, delivering 16.31 TFLOPS FP32—a 5.06x increase. The NVIDIA card also features 72 RT cores and 576 tensor cores, which the AMD card lacks entirely, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-driven denoising that the FirePro cannot perform. Additionally, the Quadro RTX 8000 supports FP16 at 32.62 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the FirePro W8000's FP16 capability is not specified.

Clock speeds also differ substantially. The FirePro W8000's base and boost clocks are not listed, but its memory runs at 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective). The Quadro RTX 8000 has a base clock of 1395 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, with memory at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The NVIDIA card's higher clocks, combined with its larger compute pool, explain much of its benchmark dominance. The FirePro W8000's pixel rate is 28.80 GPixel/s and texture rate is 100.8 GTexel/s, versus the Quadro RTX 8000's 169.9 GPixel/s and 509.8 GTexel/s—differences of 5.9x and 5.06x respectively.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better OpenCL performance?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 dominates OpenCL, scoring 101,883 versus the AMD FirePro W8000's 24,440, a 4.17x advantage. This -76% delta represents the largest single benchmark gap between the two cards in the head-to-head data.

Q: How do the memory configurations compare?

A: The Quadro RTX 8000 offers 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus with 672.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the FirePro W8000 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 176.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA card provides 12x more capacity and 3.82x more bandwidth.

Q: Does the FirePro W8000 support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The FirePro W8000's GCN 1.0 architecture has no RT cores or tensor cores. The Quadro RTX 8000 includes 72 RT cores and 576 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and tensor operations that the AMD card cannot perform.

Q: What is the transistor density difference?

A: The Quadro RTX 8000's 12 nm TU102 chip achieves 24.7M transistors per mm², while the FirePro W8000's 28 nm Tahiti chip manages 12.3M per mm². The NVIDIA chip is nearly twice as dense, reflecting the newer manufacturing process.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The FirePro W8000 has a higher average (29,211) than the Quadro RTX 8000 (28,421), but this is misleading. The AMD card's average comes from only two tests (OpenCL and Vulkan), while the NVIDIA card includes nine benchmarks, some of which (Passmark DirectX scores) are anomalously low.

Q: How does the Quadro RTX 8000's FP32 performance compare?

A: The Quadro RTX 8000 delivers 16.31 TFLOPS of FP32, which is 5.06x higher than the FirePro W8000's 3.226 TFLOPS. This raw compute advantage directly translates into the large OpenCL and Vulkan score gaps.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD FirePro W8000 | NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 |

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

| Architecture | GCN 1.0 | Turing |

| Process Node | 28 nm | 12 nm |

| Transistors | 4,313 million | 18,600 million |

| Die Size | 352 mm² | 754 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 12.3M / mm² | 24.7M / mm² |

| Base Clock | Not specified | 1395 MHz |

| Boost Clock | Not specified | 1770 MHz |

| Memory Size | 4 GB | 48 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 176.0 GB/s | 672.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 1792 | 4608 |

| TMUs | 112 | 288 |

| ROPs | 32 | 96 |

| RT Cores | None | 72 |

| Tensor Cores | None | 576 |

| Pixel Rate | 28.80 GPixel/s | 169.9 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 100.8 GTexel/s | 509.8 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 3.226 TFLOPS | 16.31 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | Not specified | 32.62 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 225 W | 260 W |

| Power Connectors | 2x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 550 W | 600 W |

| Display Outputs | 4x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x SDI | 4x DisplayPort 1.4a, 1x USB Type-C |

| DirectX Support | 12 (11_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan Support | 1.2.170 | 1.4 |

| Length | 279 mm (11 inches) | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Release Date | 2012-06-13 | 2018-08-12 |

| Launch MSRP | 1,599 USD | 9,999 USD |

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 wins decisively in every measured benchmark category. Its advantages are most pronounced in raw compute throughput: 5.06x higher FP32 performance, 3.82x more memory bandwidth, and 12x more memory capacity. For workloads like GPU-accelerated rendering, scientific simulation, machine learning inference, and large-scale data visualization, the Quadro RTX 8000 is in a different performance class entirely. The inclusion of RT cores and tensor cores extends its capability into ray-traced rendering and AI-accelerated workflows, areas where the FirePro W8000 has no hardware support whatsoever.

The Quadro RTX 8000 also wins on modern API support, offering DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus the FirePro W8000's DirectX 12 (11_1), and Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.2.170. Its display outputs are newer, with DisplayPort 1.4a and USB Type-C support compared to the older DisplayPort 1.2 and SDI outputs on the AMD card. The NVIDIA card achieves all this while consuming only 35 W more power (260 W versus 225 W), making it significantly more power-efficient per unit of performance.

The AMD FirePro W8000's advantages are more modest but still relevant for specific use cases. Its 2x 6-pin power connectors are simpler than the Quadro RTX 8000's 6-pin + 8-pin arrangement, potentially easing installation in older systems. Its 550 W suggested PSU requirement is lower than the NVIDIA card's 600 W, again simplifying system integration. The FirePro W8000 is also physically longer at 279 mm versus 267 mm, but this is unlikely to be a deciding factor. For legacy applications that require SDI output support—common in broadcast and video production environments—the FirePro W8000's SDI connector gives it a unique capability that the Quadro RTX 8000 lacks.

In terms of performance percentiles, both cards sit at similar levels relative to all GPUs: the FirePro W8000 at the 75th percentile and the Quadro RTX 8000 at the 74th. This suggests that while the NVIDIA card is dramatically faster in absolute terms, its benchmark scores are compared against a much larger and more modern GPU population. The FirePro W8000's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH (0% delta) and Intel Arc A370M (0.1% delta), while the Quadro RTX 8000's nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon R9 M295X (-0.6% delta) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (1.4% delta). These groupings reflect each card's relative standing in the contemporary GPU landscape at the time of data collection.