AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data in this comparison is decisive, though it covers only two tests. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER wins both recorded head-to-head matchups, and the margins are substantial in both compute and graphics workloads.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 219065, while the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 records 92488. That gives NVIDIA a 57.8% advantage, a very large gap in raw compute throughput. The MI60 was designed for data center compute, but the recorded data shows the newer GeForce part simply outruns it in this workload.

The Vulkan result is even more lopsided. The RTX 4080 SUPER posts 260075, while the MI60 manages 92444. The delta expands to 64.5% in favor of NVIDIA. Vulkan tends to favor newer architectures with better driver optimization, and the data reflects that pattern clearly.

Context from the database's nearest rival lists helps frame these scores. The MI60's average benchmark score is 92466, which places it at the 93rd percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A4500 at 91671 (0.9% slower), the RTX A4500 Mobile at 91134 (1.5% slower), the AMD Radeon Pro VII at 97131 (4.8% faster), and the AMD Radeon RX 7900M at 97487 (5.2% faster). So the MI60 sits in a tight cluster of professional and high-end mobile parts, slightly below its closest AMD competitors but slightly above the RTX A4500 desktop and mobile variants.

The RTX 4080 SUPER, meanwhile, has an average benchmark score of 54209 across its full benchmark suite, which includes DirectX 9 through 12 tests, Passmark G2D, G3D, and GPU compute, plus the Geekbench tests. That places it at the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 at 54247 (just 0.1% higher), the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54828 (1.1% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55698 (2.7% higher), and the AMD Radeon 8060S at 55757 (2.8% higher). The RTX 4080 SUPER is effectively tied with the non-SUPER RTX 4080, and it trails those AMD parts by only a few percentage points in the aggregate.

It is worth remembering the average benchmark score for the RTX 4080 SUPER is dragged down by the Passmark DirectX tests, which are small-number scores (193 for DirectX 10, 301 for DirectX 11, 134 for DirectX 12, 381 for DirectX 9). Those tests reward older API paths and do not reflect the card's strengths in modern workloads. The Geekbench scores, by contrast, show the RTX 4080 SUPER at nearly 2.4 times the MI60's OpenCL result and nearly 2.8 times its Vulkan result.

The head-to-head record is simple: the MI60 secures no wins, and the RTX 4080 SUPER takes both. The data offers no overlap zone where the AMD part asserts itself, at least not in the recorded tests.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER wins with a score of 219065, compared to 92488 for the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60, a margin of 57.8%.

Q: How large is the Vulkan performance gap?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 260075 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the MI60 scores 92444. NVIDIA leads by 64.5%.

Q: Where does the MI60 sit relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The MI60 has an average benchmark score of 92466 and sits at the 93rd percentile of all GPUs. It is 0.9% faster than the NVIDIA RTX A4500, 1.5% faster than the RTX A4500 Mobile, but 4.8% slower than the AMD Radeon Pro VII and 5.2% slower than the AMD Radeon RX 7900M.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to the RTX 4080?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 54209, while the RTX 4080 scores 54247. The non-SUPER card is effectively tied, leading by just 0.1% in the database aggregate.

Q: What is the percentile ranking of each GPU in the database?

A: The MI60 sits at the 93rd percentile of all GPUs. The RTX 4080 SUPER sits at the 86th percentile. Despite the lower percentile, the RTX 4080 SUPER dominates the head-to-head tests because the percentile is computed across different benchmark suites.

Q: Does the MI60 win any head-to-head benchmarks?

A: No. The recorded head-to-head data shows the MI60 winning zero tests, while the RTX 4080 SUPER wins both the OpenCL and Vulkan matchups.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design eras. The AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 uses the Vega 20 chip built on GCN 5.1 architecture, manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It packs 13,230 million transistors into a 331 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 40.0 million per square millimeter. This is a data center compute card from the Radeon Instinct (MIx) generation, released in late 2018.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER uses the AD103 chip built on Ada Lovelace architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 45,900 million transistors in a 379 mm² die, which works out to 121.1 million transistors per square millimeter. That is more than triple the transistor density of the MI60, a direct consequence of the newer process node and denser design. The RTX 4080 SUPER belongs to the GeForce 40-series and was released in early 2024, more than five years after the MI60.

The architectural feature sets diverge sharply. The MI60 has no dedicated ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 4080 SUPER includes 80 ray tracing cores and 320 tensor cores. This reflects NVIDIA's integration of hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI workloads, neither of which exists in the MI60's GCN 5.1 design.

API support also differs. The MI60 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The RTX 4080 SUPER supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The DirectX feature level difference, 12_1 versus 12_2, is significant for modern gaming and graphics features. The Vulkan revision is also newer on the NVIDIA part.

Shader organization shows the generational leap. The MI60 has 4096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. The RTX 4080 SUPER has 10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. The NVIDIA part has 2.5 times the shader count, 1.25 times the texture units, and 1.75 times the ROPs.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification category. Starting with the process node, the MI60 uses 7 nm while the RTX 4080 SUPER uses 5 nm. Transistor counts are 13,230 million versus 45,900 million, and die sizes are 331 mm² versus 379 mm². Transistor density is 40.0 million per square millimeter for AMD and 121.1 million for NVIDIA.

Clock speeds show a clear separation. The MI60 has a base clock of 1200 MHz and a boost clock of 1800 MHz. The RTX 4080 SUPER runs at 2295 MHz base and 2550 MHz boost. Memory clocks differ as well: the MI60 runs at 1000 MHz with 2 Gbps effective, while the RTX 4080 SUPER runs at 1438 MHz with 23 Gbps effective.

Memory configuration is one of the most dramatic differences. The MI60 offers 32 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, yielding 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 4080 SUPER offers 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, yielding 736.3 GB/s. The MI60 has double the capacity and 38.5% more bandwidth, but the RTX 4080 SUPER uses a much faster memory type.

Compute throughput heavily favors NVIDIA. The MI60 delivers 14.75 TFLOPS of FP32 and 29.49 TFLOPS of FP16 (2:1 ratio). The RTX 4080 SUPER delivers 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 and 52.22 TFLOPS of FP16 (1:1 ratio). That is 3.5 times the FP32 throughput and 1.77 times the FP16 throughput. Pixel rate is 115.2 GPixel/s for AMD versus 285.6 GPixel/s for NVIDIA. Texture rate is 460.8 GTexel/s versus 816.0 GTexel/s.

Power and physical design differ too. The MI60 has a 300 W TDP, is dual-slot, and uses 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connectors. The RTX 4080 SUPER has a 320 W TDP, is triple-slot, and uses a single 16-pin connector. Both recommend a 700 W PSU. Both use PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs differ: the MI60 has a single mini-DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RTX 4080 SUPER has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. Dimensions differ substantially: the MI60 is 267 mm long and 111 mm tall, while the RTX 4080 SUPER is 310 mm long, 140 mm tall, and 61 mm wide.

The MI60 has a launch MSRP that is not recorded in the database. The RTX 4080 SUPER has a launch MSRP of 999 USD.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4080 SUPER wins in every recorded benchmark, but the broader specification data suggests a more nuanced use-case split.

For raw FP32 compute in modern workloads, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the clear choice. Its 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 is 3.5 times the MI60's 14.75 TFLOPS. Any application that scales with shader throughput, machine learning inference using tensor cores, or ray tracing will strongly favor the NVIDIA card. The 320 tensor cores and 80 RT cores give it hardware support for AI and ray-traced rendering that the MI60 simply lacks.

For memory capacity and bandwidth, the MI60 wins. Its 32 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus provides 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth, significantly above the RTX 4080 SUPER's 736.3 GB/s, and double the capacity. Workloads that are memory-bound rather than compute-bound, large model inference, scientific simulations, or high-resolution data processing, benefit from that HBM2 stack. The MI60 also has 38.5% more bandwidth, which matters for large datasets that exceed 16 GB.

The MI60 also has advantages in FP16 compute. Its 29.49 TFLOPS of FP16 at a 2:1 ratio is still half the RTX 4080 SUPER's rate, but the AMD card retains the ability to handle FP16 math efficiently, and its memory bandwidth supports it better than NVIDIA's GDDR6X in capacity-bound scenarios.

The MI60 is also positioned for data center use. It is an end-of-life product from the Radeon Instinct (MIx) generation, designed for compute acceleration in servers and scientific computing environments. Its single mini-DisplayPort output and lack of gaming-oriented features confirm this orientation.

The RTX 4080 SUPER is a GeForce consumer and prosumer card, built for gaming, rendering, and AI workloads. Its triple-slot cooler, 16-pin connector, and multiple display outputs (HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a) make it a general-purpose GPU, not a dedicated compute accelerator.

The production status of both cards is end-of-life. The MI60's predecessor is the FirePro Data Center series, and it has no recorded successor. The RTX 4080 SUPER's predecessor is the GeForce 30-series, and its successor is the GeForce 50-series. The MI60 launched in November 2018, and the RTX 4080 SUPER launched in January 2024.

For buyers in 2024 and beyond, the data strongly favors the RTX 4080 SUPER for compute and graphics workloads. Its 57.8% and 64.5% leads in the two head-to-head tests are decisive. The MI60 retains relevance only for workloads that specifically need 32 GB of HBM2 memory and 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth, and even then, the newer AMD parts in its rival list, such as the Radeon Pro VII and RX 7900M, outperform it by 4.8% and 5.2% respectively in the aggregate.

The verdict is straightforward: the RTX 4080 SUPER is the faster GPU in the recorded benchmarks, and its architectural advantages in shader count, clock speed, and feature set reinforce that result. The MI60 is a legacy compute card with a memory capacity advantage that no longer overcomes its compute deficit.