AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 vs NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison recorded between these two GPUs is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the result is decisive. The AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 scores 68,562 points, while the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile manages 48,703 points. That is a 40.8% advantage for the AMD card, a substantial margin that reflects the fundamental difference in their design targets.

The MI25 sits in the 90th percentile of all GPUs in the database, placing it just behind the Intel Arc A770 (68,809, a 0.4% gap) and the NVIDIA CMP 90HX (69,000, a 0.6% gap). It also trails the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (69,870, a 1.9% gap) and the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (69,986, a 2% gap). These are all close calls, meaning the MI25 is performing right at the edge of a tight cluster of high-end workstation and mining-class cards. A 2% swing separates it from the Quadro P6000, which is a meaningful reference point for OpenCL compute work.

The RTX A1000 Mobile, by contrast, lands in the 85th percentile. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (48,477, a 1.5% gap), the AMD Radeon RX 6550M (46,702, a 2.2% gap), the Intel Arc A530M (46,614, a 2.4% gap), and the AMD Radeon RX 5600M (46,601, a 2.5% gap). The A1000 Mobile is actually ahead of the RX 6800 XT in this specific test, though only by 1.5%. That is noteworthy because the RX 6800 XT is a desktop flagship-class card, but the margin is small enough to be within run-to-run variance.

The head-to-head delta of 40.8% is the single largest number in this comparison. It dwarfs the gaps between the MI25 and its own rivals, and it dwarfs the gaps between the A1000 Mobile and its rivals. What this means in practical terms is that the two cards are not competing in the same performance tier at all. The MI25 is built for sustained compute throughput, and the OpenCL score reflects that. The A1000 Mobile is a laptop part with power constraints, and its OpenCL score reflects that equally clearly.

The average benchmark score tells the same story. The MI25 has an average of 68,562, matching its single OpenCL result. The A1000 Mobile has an average of 47,743, which is slightly lower than its OpenCL score because it also has a Geekbench Vulkan result of 46,782. That Vulkan score is not directly comparable to the MI25, since no Vulkan result is recorded for the AMD card, but it does show that the A1000 Mobile's OpenCL score is its stronger showing.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the only direct benchmark comparison?

A: The AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with 68,562 points versus 48,703 points for the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile, a 40.8% advantage.

Q: How does the MI25 compare to its closest rivals in the database?

A: The MI25 is within 2% of four nearby cards: it trails the Intel Arc A770 by 0.4%, the NVIDIA CMP 90HX by 0.6%, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 by 1.9%, and the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 by 2%.

Q: How does the RTX A1000 Mobile compare to its closest rivals?

A: The A1000 Mobile leads the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT by 1.5%, the AMD Radeon RX 6550M by 2.2%, the Intel Arc A530M by 2.4%, and the AMD Radeon RX 5600M by 2.5%.

Q: Does the RTX A1000 Mobile have any benchmark results the MI25 lacks?

A: Yes. The A1000 Mobile has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 46,782, while the MI25 has no Vulkan result recorded in the database.

Q: What are the percentiles for each GPU?

A: The MI25 is in the 90th percentile of all GPUs, while the A1000 Mobile is in the 85th percentile.

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The MI25 has an average of 68,562, compared to 47,743 for the A1000 Mobile. The A1000 Mobile's average is pulled down by its Vulkan score of 46,782.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from completely different architectural lineages. The MI25 uses AMD's Vega 10 chip built on the GCN 5.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The die measures 495 mm² and packs 12,500 million transistors, for a transistor density of 25.3 million per square millimeter. The A1000 Mobile uses NVIDIA's GA107 chip based on the Ampere architecture, built on an 8 nm process at Samsung. Its die is much smaller at 200 mm², with 8,700 million transistors, but the density is far higher at 43.5 million per square millimeter. The newer process node gives the Ampere chip more than 70% higher transistor density, which is expected given the five-year gap in release dates: the MI25 launched on 2017-06-26, the A1000 Mobile on 2022-03-29.

Memory subsystems are another major split. The MI25 uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus, delivering 436.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The A1000 Mobile uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 176.0 GB/s. That is a 2.5x difference in raw memory bandwidth, and it matters for compute workloads that stream large datasets. The MI25's memory clock is listed as 852 MHz with 1704 Mbps effective, while the A1000 Mobile runs at 1375 MHz with 11 Gbps effective. The GDDR6 clock is much higher, but the narrow bus cannot compensate for the bandwidth gap.

Compute resources diverge sharply as well. The MI25 has 4,096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The A1000 Mobile has 2,048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The MI25 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, while the A1000 Mobile includes 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores. Those extra hardware blocks are what enable the NVIDIA card to support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the MI25 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both cards support OpenGL 4.6, but the A1000 Mobile supports Vulkan 1.4 while the MI25 stops at Vulkan 1.3.

FP32 and FP16 throughput also differ in character. The MI25 delivers 12.29 TFLOPS FP32 and 24.58 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, meaning it doubles FP16 work per clock. The A1000 Mobile delivers 4.669 TFLOPS FP32 and 4.669 TFLOPS FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, meaning there is no FP16 acceleration advantage. The MI25's FP16 capability is a genuine compute feature, while the A1000 Mobile treats FP16 as just another precision mode.

The form factors could not be more different. The MI25 is a dual-slot card, 267 mm long and 111 mm tall, with two 8-pin power connectors and a 300 W TDP. It has no display outputs at all, which tells you it is a compute-only accelerator. The A1000 Mobile is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with no power connectors, a 60 W TDP, and outputs that are portable device dependent. The MI25 requires a 700 W suggested PSU; the A1000 Mobile has no suggested PSU because it draws power from the laptop motherboard.

The Verdict

The data points to two different buyers. The AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 is for someone who needs raw OpenCL compute throughput and does not care about power draw, physical size, or display output. It wins the only head-to-head test by 40.8%, and its 90th percentile ranking puts it in the same conversation as the Intel Arc A770 and the NVIDIA Quadro P6000. It has 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus, which is a configuration built for large working sets. It also has FP16 throughput of 24.58 TFLOPS, a 2:1 ratio over FP32, which is valuable for workloads that can use mixed precision. The trade-offs are severe: 300 W TDP, dual-slot cooling, two 8-pin connectors, no display outputs, and an end-of-life production status.

The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile is for someone who needs a low-power, mobile GPU with modern API support. It cannot match the MI25 in raw OpenCL performance, and the 40.8% gap is too large to ignore. But it fits into a 60 W envelope with no external power connectors, which makes it usable in laptops where the MI25 physically cannot exist. It also brings hardware ray tracing cores and tensor cores, which the MI25 lacks entirely, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. Its 85th percentile ranking is respectable, and it beats the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT in the database's OpenCL test by 1.5%, which is a strong result for a mobile part.

If the choice is purely about compute performance per the recorded benchmarks, the MI25 is the clear pick. If the choice is about fitting into a mobile chassis with modern graphics features, the A1000 Mobile is the only option that makes sense. The MI25 cannot be installed in a laptop, and the A1000 Mobile cannot be installed in a desktop workstation slot. The verdict is not about which is "better" in the abstract; it is about which environment each card was designed for.

Specification Differences

The following fields differ between the two GPUs in the database:

• Chip: Vega 10 versus GA107
• Architecture: GCN 5.0 versus Ampere
• Process node: 14 nm versus 8 nm
• Foundry: GlobalFoundries versus Samsung
• Transistors: 12,500 million versus 8,700 million
• Die size: 495 mm² versus 200 mm²
• Transistor density: 25.3M / mm² versus 43.5M / mm²
• Base clock: 1400 MHz versus 630 MHz
• Boost clock: 1500 MHz versus 1140 MHz
• Memory clock: 852 MHz (1704 Mbps effective) versus 1375 MHz (11 Gbps effective)
• Memory size: 16 GB versus 4 GB
• Memory type: HBM2 versus GDDR6
• Memory bus width: 2048 bit versus 128 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 436.2 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s
• Shading units: 4096 versus 2048
• TMUs: 256 versus 64
• ROPs: 64 versus 32
• RT cores: None versus 16
• Tensor cores: None versus 64
• Pixel rate: 96.00 GPixel/s versus 36.48 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 384.0 GTexel/s versus 72.96 GTexel/s
• FP32: 12.29 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS
• FP16: 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1) versus 4.669 TFLOPS (1:1)
• TDP: 300 W versus 60 W
• Slot width: Dual-slot versus IGP
• Power connectors: 2x 8-pin versus None
• Suggested PSU: 700 W versus None
• Bus interface: PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 4.0 x8
• Display outputs: No outputs versus Portable Device Dependent
• DirectX support: 12 (12_1) versus 12 Ultimate (12_2)
• Vulkan support: 1.3 versus 1.4
• Dimensions: 267 mm length, 111 mm height versus not specified
• Release date: 2017-06-26 versus 2022-03-29
• Predecessor: FirePro Data Center versus Quadro Turing-M
• Successor: None versus Ada-MW

Fields that are identical or unspecified for both: neither has a series name, codename, game clock, or launch MSRP. The MI25 has no RT cores or tensor cores, and the A1000 Mobile has no dimensions recorded.

Where Each One Wins

The MI25 wins in every raw compute metric that the database records. Its OpenCL score is 40.8% higher. Its FP32 throughput is 12.29 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS, a 2.6x advantage. Its FP16 throughput is 24.58 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS, a 5.3x advantage. Its memory bandwidth is 436.2 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s, a 2.5x advantage. Its pixel rate is 96.00 GPixel/s versus 36.48 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 384.0 GTexel/s versus 72.96 GTexel/s. It also has four times the memory capacity at 16 GB versus 4 GB, which directly affects the size of datasets that can be held on the GPU. For OpenCL compute workloads, machine learning inference with FP16, or any task that saturates memory bandwidth, the MI25 is the stronger part.

The A1000 Mobile wins in portability and modern feature support. Its 60 W TDP is one-fifth of the MI25's 300 W, and it requires no power connectors or suggested PSU. It is an IGP, meaning it is designed to be soldered into a laptop board, while the MI25 is a 267 mm dual-slot card. The A1000 Mobile has 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores, giving it hardware acceleration for ray tracing and tensor operations that the MI25 cannot perform at all. It also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, while the MI25 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. The PCIe 4.0 x8 interface on the A1000 Mobile is newer than the MI25's PCIe 3.0 x16, though the MI25's larger bus width still gives it more memory bandwidth.

There is one more subtle point. The MI25's nearest rivals are all within 2% of its score, which means it is not a dominant outlier in its own tier. The A1000 Mobile's nearest rivals are also within 2.5%, but in the opposite direction: it is the leader of its small cluster, beating all four of its nearest rivals. That makes the A1000 Mobile a solid mid-tier mobile option, while the MI25 is a slightly-behind-the-leader desktop compute card. Neither is a class leader, but the MI25 is in a much higher class.