AMD Instinct MI300 vs NVIDIA L4 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data draws a sharp contrast between these two accelerators. The AMD Instinct MI300 has no benchmark entries in the database, while the NVIDIA L4 carries two recorded scores, a Geekbench OpenCL result of 140,838 and a Geekbench Vulkan result of 121,306. With zero recorded measurements, the MI300 cannot claim a single benchmark win in the database. All measurable wins belong to the L4, which sits at the 95th percentile among all GPUs and posts an average benchmark score of 131,072.

The use-case split follows directly from the available data. The L4 is a measured entity, with concrete scores that place it near the top of the database. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, averages 131,938, a figure that edges the L4 by 0.7 percent. The L4 trails three other rivals by roughly 3 percent: the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation at 135,218, the NVIDIA A10M at 135,230, and the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 at 135,396. These deltas are small, suggesting the L4 operates in a tightly contested performance band.

The MI300 occupies a different position entirely. It has a 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs and an average benchmark score of zero. That score is not a performance measurement; it reflects the absence of recorded tests. The database contains no indication of how the MI300 performs in any workload. Therefore, any comparison of wins must acknowledge a simple fact: the only recorded victories in this matchup belong to the L4, and those victories come by default rather than by measured margin over the MI300.

The practical interpretation is straightforward. Workloads that rely on the benchmarked capabilities of the L4, specifically OpenCL and Vulkan compute paths, have recorded evidence of strong performance. The MI300, despite being a larger and more power-hungry part, has no such evidence in the database. Users selecting between these two parts for measured workloads would find the L4 to be the only option with verified results.

FAQ

Q: What benchmark scores does the NVIDIA L4 record in the database?

A: The L4 records a Geekbench OpenCL score of 140,838 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 121,306, for an average benchmark score of 131,072.

Q: What benchmark scores does the AMD Instinct MI300 record?

A: The MI300 has no benchmark entries. Its average benchmark score is 0, and its percentile ranking is 50.

Q: How does the L4 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The L4 is 0.7 percent behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, 3.1 percent behind the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation, 3.1 percent behind the NVIDIA A10M, and 3.2 percent behind the AMD Radeon PRO W6800.

Q: What is the memory configuration of each card?

A: The MI300 has 128 GB of HBM3 memory on an 8192-bit bus with 5.32 TB/s of bandwidth. The L4 has 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with 300.1 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: What are the power requirements of these two cards?

A: The MI300 has a TDP of 600 W and requires a 1000 W suggested power supply. The L4 has a TDP of 72 W and requires a 250 W suggested power supply.

Q: Which card has a higher boost clock?

A: The L4 boosts to 2040 MHz, while the MI300 boosts to 1700 MHz.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database provides no shared head-to-head benchmark between the MI300 and the L4. The MI300 has an empty benchmark array, and the head-to-head field contains no entries. As a result, direct score comparison is impossible. What the data does allow is an assessment of the L4 against its nearest rivals, which provides context for where the L4 stands.

The L4's strongest recorded result is its Geekbench OpenCL score of 140,838. That figure exceeds its own Vulkan result of 121,306 by a substantial margin, roughly 16 percent. The OpenCL score also positions the L4 within striking distance of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, which averages 131,938. The L4 trails by 0.7 percent, a margin small enough to be considered essentially equivalent in practical terms. The L4 also trails the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation by 3.1 percent, the NVIDIA A10M by 3.1 percent, and the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 by 3.2 percent. These are narrow gaps, all under 4 percent, indicating that the L4 performs in a band with several established workstation and server parts.

The Vulkan score of 121,306 is lower than the OpenCL score. That difference suggests the L4's compute performance varies by API path, with OpenCL delivering the better result. The average benchmark score of 131,072 sits between the two individual scores, weighted toward the higher OpenCL result.

The MI300 offers no comparable numbers. Its percentile ranking of 50 places it at the median of all GPUs in the database, but with an average score of zero, that ranking carries no performance weight. The L4, by contrast, sits at the 95th percentile. That 45-point percentile gap, combined with the L4's recorded scores, gives the L4 a clear advantage in measured performance terms.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification. The MI300 uses 153,000 million transistors on a 1017 mm² die, while the L4 uses 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Transistor density favors the MI300 at 150.4 million transistors per mm², versus 121.8 million for the L4. Both are built on a 5 nm process at TSMC.

Clock speeds differ significantly. The MI300 has a base clock of 1000 MHz and a boost clock of 1700 MHz. The L4 has a base clock of 795 MHz and a boost clock of 2040 MHz. The L4 boosts 340 MHz higher, while the MI300 starts from a base clock 205 MHz higher.

Memory configurations are far apart. The MI300 packs 128 GB of HBM3 across an 8192-bit bus, delivering 5.32 TB/s of bandwidth. The L4 uses 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, delivering 300.1 GB/s. The MI300 has over five times the memory capacity and over seventeen times the memory bandwidth. The L4's memory runs at 1563 MHz, with 12.5 Gbps effective, while the MI300's memory runs at 1300 MHz, with 5.2 Gbps effective.

Compute resources also differ. The MI300 has 14,080 shading units, 880 texture mapping units, and no ROPs. The L4 has 7,424 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 ROPs. The MI300 leads in raw shading and texturing hardware, while the L4 adds ROPs and includes 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores. The MI300 lists no ray tracing or tensor core counts. Pixel rate favors the L4 at 163.2 GPixel/s, while the MI300 records 0 MPixel/s. Texture rate favors the MI300 at 1,496.0 GTexel/s, versus 489.6 GTexel/s for the L4. FP32 and FP16 performance both favor the MI300 at 47.87 TFLOPS, while the L4 delivers 30.29 TFLOPS in each.

Power and physical specifications diverge sharply. The MI300 has a 600 W TDP with two 8-pin power connectors and a 1000 W suggested power supply. The L4 has a 72 W TDP, no power connectors, and a 250 W suggested power supply. The MI300 measures 267 mm in length and 111 mm in height. The L4 measures 169 mm in length and 56 mm in height. The L4 is single-slot, while the MI300 has no recorded slot width. The MI300 uses PCIe 5.0 x16, while the L4 uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Neither card has display outputs.

Architecture Differences

The MI300 is built on AMD's CDNA 3.0 architecture, using the Aqua Vanjaram chip. It belongs to the Instinct MIx generation and lists Radeon Instinct as its predecessor. The L4 uses NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, belongs to the Server Ada Lxx generation, lists Server Ampere as its predecessor, and Server Hopper as its successor. The L4's production status is Active, while the MI300 has no recorded production status.

The MI300's architecture targets compute density. Its 14,080 shading units and 880 texture mapping units, combined with the massive 8192-bit HBM3 interface, point toward memory-bound and throughput-heavy workloads. The absence of ROPs, ray tracing cores, and tensor cores, at least in the recorded data, reinforces a pure compute orientation. The MI300 also lacks API support entries for DirectX, OpenGL, and Vulkan, all marked N/A.

The L4's Ada Lovelace architecture includes a fuller feature set. It records DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 support. It has 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, giving it acceleration paths for graphics and AI workloads that the MI300 does not list. The L4's 80 ROPs and 163.2 GPixel/s pixel rate indicate an ability to handle rasterization tasks, something the MI300's recorded data does not include.

The transistor counts reflect different design philosophies. The MI300 uses 153,000 million transistors, more than four times the L4's 35,800 million. The MI300 also has a higher transistor density at 150.4 million per mm². The L4 compensates with a much higher boost clock of 2040 MHz, which narrows the raw throughput gap in FP32 and FP16 despite having roughly half the shading units.

Release timing is close. The MI300 was released on January 3, 2023, while the L4 followed on March 20, 2023. Both parts target server environments with no display outputs. The L4's API support and ray tracing hardware suggest broader workload coverage, while the MI300's memory capacity and bandwidth position it for large-scale compute tasks. The recorded data, however, only provides performance evidence for the L4.