AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 vs NVIDIA L4 Comparison

# NVIDIA L4 vs AMD Radeon Instinct MI60

The NVIDIA L4 and AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 represent two very different approaches to data-center acceleration, separated by roughly four and a half years of design philosophy. The L4, built on Ada Lovelace architecture, dominates the benchmark comparison with an average score of 131,072 against the MI60's 92,466, placing the L4 in the 95th percentile of all GPUs versus the MI60's 93rd percentile. The data tells a clear story of generational efficiency and feature advancement, but the MI60 retains specific advantages in memory capacity that may matter for certain workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA L4 wins decisively in both available benchmark tests, claiming the Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan workloads with substantial margins. In OpenCL, the L4 scores 140,838 against the MI60's 92,488, a 52.3% advantage. In Vulkan, the L4 posts 121,306 versus 92,444, a 31.2% lead. These results suggest the L4 handles general-purpose compute and graphics-adjacent workloads with far greater efficiency, likely benefiting from its newer architecture and higher raw FP32 throughput of 30.29 TFLOPS versus 14.75 TFLOPS.

The MI60, however, wins on memory capacity and bandwidth in ways the benchmarks do not capture. With 32 GB of HBM2 memory on a 4096-bit bus, it delivers 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth, compared to the L4's 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus at 300.1 GB/s. For workloads that are memory-bound rather than compute-bound—large model inference, scientific simulation, or in-memory databases—the MI60's 3.4x bandwidth advantage could translate to real-world wins despite its lower compute scores. The L4 counters with a 72 W TDP versus 300 W, making it dramatically more power-efficient per unit of compute.

The benchmark wins are entirely in the L4's favor, but the specification sheet reveals a more nuanced picture. The MI60 supports a mini-DisplayPort output while the L4 has no display outputs, and the MI60's dual-slot design with 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin power connectors contrasts with the L4's single-slot, power-connector-free design.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide is stark. The L4 uses the AD104 chip on TSMC's 5 nm process with 35,800 million transistors packed into a 294 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 121.8 million per square millimeter. The MI60 uses the Vega 20 chip on TSMC's 7 nm process with 13,230 million transistors across a 331 mm² die, yielding just 40.0 million transistors per square millimeter. This density difference—roughly 3x—explains much of the performance gap.

The L4 runs on Ada Lovelace architecture with 7,424 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. It includes 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the MI60's GCN 5.1 architecture. The MI60 has 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with no dedicated RT or tensor hardware. The L4's FP16 performance matches its FP32 at 30.29 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the MI60's FP16 reaches 29.49 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio)—nearly identical peak FP16, but the MI60 achieves it through rate doubling rather than native throughput.

Clock speeds tell another story: the L4 boosts to 2040 MHz from a 795 MHz base, while the MI60 boosts to 1800 MHz from 1200 MHz. The L4's higher boost clock, combined with its newer architecture, drives its compute advantage. The L4 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the MI60 maxes out at DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6 and PCIe 4.0 x16.

The MI60's 32 GB HBM2 memory with 4096-bit bus width stands as its architectural highlight, offering a memory subsystem that dwarfs the L4's 192-bit GDDR6 configuration. The L4's memory runs at 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective) versus the MI60's 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective), but the MI60's massive bus width compensates to deliver over a terabyte per second of bandwidth.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The Geekbench OpenCL test delivers the largest margin of victory for the L4. Posting 140,838 against the MI60's 92,488, the L4 finishes 52.3% ahead. This result aligns with the L4's 30.29 TFLOPS FP32 performance, more than double the MI60's 14.75 TFLOPS. The OpenCL workload appears to scale strongly with raw compute throughput, and the L4's newer architecture likely extracts more useful work per FLOP as well.

The Vulkan test narrows the gap but still favors the L4 significantly. The L4 scores 121,306 versus 92,444, a 31.2% advantage. Vulkan workloads often stress driver efficiency and API feature utilization; the L4's support for Vulkan 1.4 and its newer hardware features likely contribute to this lead. Interestingly, the MI60's Vulkan score (92,444) nearly matches its OpenCL score (92,488), suggesting the older GCN architecture performs consistently across these APIs, whereas the L4 shows a larger drop from OpenCL to Vulkan (140,838 to 121,306), possibly indicating that Vulkan does not fully utilize the L4's capabilities.

Contextualizing these scores with rival data strengthens the analysis. The L4's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at an average score of 131,938, with the L4 trailing by just 0.7%. The L4 also sits close to the RTX 4000 Ada Generation (135,218, -3.1%) and A10M (135,230, -3.1%). The MI60's nearest rival is the NVIDIA RTX A4500 at 91,671, with the MI60 leading by 0.9%, and it trails the AMD Radeon Pro VII (97,131, -4.8%) and RX 7900M (97,487, -5.2%). The L4's rival cluster sits roughly 45% higher in average score than the MI60's cluster, reinforcing the substantial performance tier gap between these two accelerators.

The Verdict

The data strongly favors the NVIDIA L4 for any workload that prioritizes raw compute performance, modern API support, and power efficiency. Its 52.3% OpenCL lead and 31.2% Vulkan lead over the MI60 are decisive, and its 95th percentile ranking versus the MI60's 93rd percentile confirms a meaningful performance tier separation. The L4's 72 W TDP—roughly one-quarter of the MI60's 300 W—makes it the obvious choice for dense server deployments where power and cooling are constrained.

However, the MI60's 32 GB memory capacity and 1.02 TB/s bandwidth present a compelling counter-argument for specific use cases. Workloads that require large memory footprints—such as training or inference with very large models, or scientific computing with massive datasets—may benefit more from the MI60's memory subsystem than from the L4's compute advantage. The MI60 also remains viable for legacy software stacks built around GCN architecture and its 2:1 FP16 ratio could benefit certain half-precision workloads.

For most modern data-center workloads, the L4's combination of compute performance, tensor cores for AI acceleration, and extreme power efficiency makes it the clear recommendation. The MI60 should be considered only for memory-capacity-bound scenarios where its 32 GB HBM2 and terabyte-scale bandwidth provide a decisive advantage, and where the workload cannot effectively utilize the L4's tensor cores or newer architecture features.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA L4 delivers 30.29 TFLOPS FP32, more than double the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60's 14.75 TFLOPS.

Q: How much memory bandwidth does each card provide?

A: The MI60 provides 1.02 TB/s via its 4096-bit HBM2 interface, while the L4 provides 300.1 GB/s over a 192-bit GDDR6 bus—the MI60 has approximately 3.4x the bandwidth.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The L4 has a 72 W TDP with no power connectors and a suggested 250 W PSU, while the MI60 has a 300 W TDP with 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin connectors and a suggested 700 W PSU.

Q: Does the MI60 support ray tracing or tensor operations?

A: No. The MI60's GCN 5.1 architecture has no ray tracing cores or tensor cores. The L4 includes 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores.

Q: Which card has more memory capacity?

A: The MI60 has 32 GB of HBM2 memory, while the L4 has 24 GB of GDDR6—the MI60 offers 8 GB more capacity.

Q: How do their benchmark scores compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The L4's average score of 131,072 trails the RTX 3090 Ti by only 0.7%, while the MI60's 92,466 leads the RTX A4500 by 0.9% and trails the Radeon Pro VII by 4.8%.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA L4 | AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 |

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

| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | GCN 5.1 |

| Process Node | 5 nm | 7 nm |

| Transistors | 35,800 million | 13,230 million |

| Die Size | 294 mm² | 331 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 121.8M / mm² | 40.0M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 795 MHz | 1200 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2040 MHz | 1800 MHz |

| Memory Size | 24 GB | 32 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | HBM2 |

| Memory Bus Width | 192 bit | 4096 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 300.1 GB/s | 1.02 TB/s |

| Shading Units | 7424 | 4096 |

| TMUs | 240 | 256 |

| ROPs | 80 | 64 |

| RT Cores | 60 | None |

| Tensor Cores | 240 | None |

| FP32 Performance | 30.29 TFLOPS | 14.75 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 30.29 TFLOPS (1:1) | 29.49 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| Pixel Rate | 163.2 GPixel/s | 115.2 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 489.6 GTexel/s | 460.8 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 72 W | 300 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 250 W | 700 W |

| Display Outputs | No outputs | 1x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a |

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

| Vulkan Support | 1.4 | 1.3 |

| Length | 169 mm (6.7 inches) | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Height | 56 mm (2.2 inches) | 111 mm (4.4 inches) |

| Production Status | Active | End-of-life |

| Release Date | 2023-03-20 | 2018-11-17 |

| Predecessor | Server Ampere | FirePro Data Center |

| Successor | Server Hopper | None |