AMD Radeon Pro 450 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data tells a stark and unambiguous story: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 dominates the AMD Radeon Pro 450 across every single head-to-head test recorded. Out of three shared benchmarks, the GTX 1070 wins all three, with margins that range from substantial to overwhelming.

The closest contest comes in Geekbench Metal, where the GTX 1070 scores 18,801 against the Radeon Pro 450's 12,893. That translates to a 31.4% advantage for NVIDIA — a significant gap, but one that at least keeps the AMD part within shouting distance. In this particular API, the Radeon Pro 450 manages to leverage its GCN architecture reasonably well, though it still trails by nearly a third.

Moving to Geekbench Vulkan, the gap widens considerably. The GTX 1070 posts 22,121 while the Radeon Pro 450 manages only 10,518. That is a 52.5% deficit for the AMD card — more than double the NVIDIA score. The low-level nature of Vulkan appears to favor the Pascal architecture's raw throughput capabilities, exposing the Radeon Pro 450's more limited execution resources.

The most lopsided result arrives in Geekbench OpenCL. Here the GTX 1070 achieves an extraordinary 44,700 score against the Radeon Pro 450's 9,002. The delta is a crushing 79.9% — meaning the NVIDIA card delivers nearly five times the OpenCL performance. This is not a close contest by any measure; it is a categorical mismatch. OpenCL workloads, which often scale with shader count and memory bandwidth, play directly into the GTX 1070's strengths.

What do these numbers imply? The Radeon Pro 450's average benchmark score of 10,804 places it at the 49th percentile among all GPUs, while the GTX 1070's 9,780 average sits at the 47th percentile. This seeming paradox — the lower-average card winning every head-to-head — stems from the fact that the GTX 1070's benchmark suite includes several Passmark tests where it scores modestly (for instance, 82 in DirectX 10 and 48 in DirectX 12), pulling its aggregate down. The Radeon Pro 450, by contrast, only has three Geekbench scores in its record, all reasonably consistent. When the two cards meet on identical tests, the NVIDIA part wins decisively every time.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design philosophies, and those differences explain the benchmark chasm. The AMD Radeon Pro 450 uses the Baffin chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It packs 3,000 million transistors into a compact 123 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.4 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, meanwhile, employs the GP104 chip with Pascal architecture, produced on TSMC's 16 nm node. It houses 7,200 million transistors across a much larger 314 mm² die, with a slightly lower density of 22.9 million per square millimeter.

The compute resources differ by an order of magnitude. The Radeon Pro 450 fields 640 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs. The GTX 1070 counters with 1,920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs — exactly three times the shader count and TMUs, and four times the ROPs. These are not incremental differences; they represent entirely different performance tiers.

Clock speeds tell a complementary story. The Radeon Pro 450 has no listed base or boost clock, but its memory runs at 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective). The GTX 1070 operates at a 1506 MHz base clock and 1683 MHz boost, with memory at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective). The NVIDIA card's higher clocks compound its architectural advantage in shader count.

Memory configurations follow the same pattern. The Radeon Pro 450 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 81.28 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 1070 offers 8 GB of GDDR5 across a 256-bit bus, achieving 256.3 GB/s — more than three times the bandwidth. For memory-intensive workloads, this is a decisive gap.

Pixel and texture rates reinforce the hierarchy. The Radeon Pro 450 outputs 12.80 GPixel/s and 32.00 GTexel/s. The GTX 1070 achieves 107.7 GPixel/s and 202.0 GTexel/s — roughly 8.4 times the pixel throughput and 6.3 times the texture throughput.

FP32 compute tells a similar tale: 1,024.0 GFLOPS for the AMD card versus 6.463 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA card. Interestingly, the Radeon Pro 450 offers FP16 at a 1:1 ratio (1,024.0 GFLOPS), while the GTX 1070's FP16 is a mere 101.0 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio. The AMD part is far more balanced for half-precision work, but that advantage is unlikely to matter in most real-world scenarios given the overall performance disparity.

Power consumption reflects the gulf in capability. The Radeon Pro 450 sips 35 W and comes as an MXM module — clearly designed for mobile or compact systems. The GTX 1070 draws 150 W, occupies a dual-slot form factor, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and recommends a 450 W power supply. The NVIDIA card is a desktop-class component; the AMD part is a mobile-class solution.

Where Each One Wins

Given the head-to-head results, the GTX 1070 wins in every shared benchmark category. But the data also suggests specific workload profiles where each card has its place.

The Radeon Pro 450's wins are contextual rather than absolute. Its 35 W TDP and MXM form factor make it suitable for portable or compact systems where power draw and physical space are paramount. Its balanced FP16/Fp32 ratio (1:1) indicates it could handle certain compute tasks with half-precision requirements more gracefully than the GTX 1070, which relegates FP16 to a 1:64 ratio. The AMD card's Vulkan 1.3 support and DirectX 12 (12_0) API coverage are current, even if its raw performance lags.

The GTX 1070's wins are everywhere the numbers matter. In Geekbench OpenCL, it delivers 44,700 versus 9,002 — a 396% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, it more than doubles the AMD score. In Geekbench Metal, it leads by 31.4%. For any application that leverages these APIs — including professional 3D rendering, video encoding, or GPU-accelerated computation — the NVIDIA card is the clear choice.

The GTX 1070 also offers 4x the memory capacity (8 GB versus 2 GB) and 3.15x the bandwidth, making it far more capable for large datasets, high-resolution textures, or multi-monitor setups. Its PCIe 3.0 x16 interface provides twice the lane width of the Radeon Pro 450's x8 connection, reducing potential bottlenecks in data transfer.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in Geekbench Metal performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 wins with a score of 18,801 against the AMD Radeon Pro 450's 12,893, representing a 31.4% advantage for NVIDIA.

Q: How large is the OpenCL performance gap between the two cards?

A: The GTX 1070 scores 44,700 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 9,002 for the Radeon Pro 450, a 79.9% delta that leaves the AMD card at roughly one-fifth the performance.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro 450 have any advantage in compute precision?

A: Yes, the Radeon Pro 450 offers FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32 (both at 1,024.0 GFLOPS), while the GTX 1070's FP16 is limited to 101.0 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio. For half-precision workloads, the AMD card is more balanced.

Q: What are the memory capacity differences?

A: The GTX 1070 has 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 256.3 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 450 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 81.28 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: How do their form factors differ?

A: The Radeon Pro 450 is an MXM module with a 35 W TDP, suitable for portable systems. The GTX 1070 is a dual-slot desktop card with a 150 W TDP, requiring a 1x 8-pin power connector and a 450 W power supply.

Q: Which card has better API support for modern graphics?

A: The GTX 1070 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon Pro 450 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both offer OpenGL 4.6.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon Pro 450 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 |

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

| Architecture | GCN 4.0 | Pascal |

| Process Node | 14 nm (GlobalFoundries) | 16 nm (TSMC) |

| Transistors | 3,000 million | 7,200 million |

| Die Size | 123 mm² | 314 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 24.4M / mm² | 22.9M / mm² |

| Base Clock | Not listed | 1506 MHz |

| Boost Clock | Not listed | 1683 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective) | 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 2 GB | 8 GB |

| Memory Bus Width | 128 bit | 256 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 81.28 GB/s | 256.3 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 640 | 1920 |

| TMUs | 40 | 120 |

| ROPs | 16 | 64 |

| Pixel Rate | 12.80 GPixel/s | 107.7 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 32.00 GTexel/s | 202.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 1,024.0 GFLOPS | 6.463 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 1,024.0 GFLOPS (1:1) | 101.0 GFLOPS (1:64) |

| TDP | 35 W | 150 W |

| Slot Width | MXM Module | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | Not listed | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | Not listed | 450 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x8 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a |

| DirectX | 12 (12_0) | 12 (12_1) |

| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.4 |

| Dimensions | Not listed | 267 mm (10.5 in) long, 112 mm (4.4 in) high, 40 mm (1.6 in) wide |

| Release Date | 2016-10-29 | 2016-06-09 |

| Launch MSRP | Not listed | 379 USD |

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the superior performer in every head-to-head benchmark recorded. Its 79.9% OpenCL advantage, 52.5% Vulkan lead, and 31.4% Metal margin leave no room for debate on raw performance. Anyone needing maximum compute throughput, high-resolution gaming, or memory-intensive workloads should choose the GTX 1070 without hesitation.

The AMD Radeon Pro 450's case rests on its form factor and efficiency. At 35 W with an MXM module design, it fits into portable and compact systems where the GTX 1070's 150 W dual-slot footprint and 267 mm length are physically impossible. Its 1:1 FP16 ratio also makes it technically more balanced for half-precision compute, even if the absolute numbers are far lower.

The GTX 1070's launch MSRP was 379 USD — a figure that, combined with its 8 GB memory and 6.463 TFLOPS FP32 performance, positioned it as a high-end desktop part. The Radeon Pro 450, with no listed MSRP, appears aimed at OEM mobile workstations rather than retail buyers.

For desktop users, the choice is clear. The GTX 1070 delivers multiples of the performance in every shared test. For portable systems where power and space are constrained, the Radeon Pro 450 offers a capable, low-power solution — but its benchmark results indicate it operates in a completely different performance class. The percentile rankings (49th for AMD, 47th for NVIDIA) reflect their respective benchmark suites, but the head-to-head data reveals the true hierarchy: the GTX 1070 is the dominant card by any meaningful performance metric.