AMD Radeon Pro 450 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 wins every head-to-head test against the AMD Radeon Pro 450. The most lopsided result comes in Geekbench OpenCL, where the GTX 1080 scores 51,204 against the Radeon Pro 450's 9,002. That is a 468.8% advantage, meaning the NVIDIA card delivers roughly 5.7 times the OpenCL performance. For compute workloads that scale well across shading units, this is a decisive gap.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the GTX 1080 posts 30,398 versus 10,518 for the Radeon Pro 450, a 189% delta. This shows the NVIDIA card more than doubles the AMD part in this API. The smallest relative win for the GTX 1080 is in Geekbench Metal, where it scores 23,824 against 12,893, a 84.8% advantage. Even in Apple's API—where the Radeon Pro 450 is designed to operate inside Mac hardware—the GTX 1080 still leads by nearly two times.

The overall average benchmark score tells the same story. The GTX 1080 averages 11,960 across all tests, while the Radeon Pro 450 averages 10,804. That is a 1,156-point gap, roughly 10.7% overall. However, the average is skewed by the limited test set for the AMD card—it only has Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan results, whereas the GTX 1080 also has 3DMark Steel Nomad and multiple PassMark tests. The head-to-head results are the cleaner comparison.

Looking at the GTX 1080's individual benchmark portfolio, its strongest absolute scores come from PassMark G3D at 15,586 and Geekbench OpenCL at 51,204. Its weakest is PassMark DirectX 12 at 55, which is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 124 and DirectX 10 score of 93. This suggests the Pascal architecture performs better in legacy DirectX workloads than modern ones in this specific benchmark suite.

The Radeon Pro 450's best result is its Geekbench Metal score of 12,893, which is actually above its average. Its OpenCL score of 9,002 is the lowest of the three shared tests, indicating that compute performance via OpenCL is a particular weakness relative to Metal. The Vulkan score of 10,518 sits between the two.

In terms of percentile ranking, the GTX 1080 sits at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon Pro 450 is at the 49th percentile. These are adjacent rankings, yet the actual performance delta in shared tests is enormous—ranging from 84.8% to 468.8%. The percentile field appears to be calculated across a broader database that includes many low-end and integrated parts, so the two cards fall close together in the middle of the pack despite the GTX 1080's dominance in direct comparison.

The nearest rivals for each card further contextualize the gap. The GTX 1080's closest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A at an average score of 11,998, which is 0.3% behind. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is 1% behind at 11,842, and the GTX 1660 trails by 2.4% at 11,680. For the Radeon Pro 450, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA Quadro K2200 at 10,761, which is 0.4% behind. The GeForce MX350 is 0.7% ahead at 10,883, and the GTX 560 Ti is 1.1% behind at 10,690. Notably, the GTX 1080's worst rival is still over 1,600 points ahead of the Radeon Pro 450's best rival.

The Verdict

The data points to one conclusion: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is the superior part for any workload represented in these benchmarks. It wins all three head-to-head tests, with margins from 84.8% to 468.8%. The Radeon Pro 450 does not win a single comparison.

Who should pick the GTX 1080? Anyone running Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, or Vulkan applications where raw performance matters. The OpenCL result is particularly telling—if your workload is compute-bound and uses OpenCL, the GTX 1080 offers a 468.8% advantage. The Vulkan gap of 189% also makes it the clear choice for Vulkan-based games or applications. Even in Metal, where the Radeon Pro 450 might be expected to have an edge given its Mac-oriented design, the GTX 1080 leads by 84.8%.

Who should pick the Radeon Pro 450? The data does not support choosing it for performance reasons in any of the three shared benchmarks. It is, however, a 35 W part versus the GTX 1080's 180 W, and it uses an MXM Module slot rather than a dual-slot PCIe card. If your system only supports MXM modules or has a strict power envelope around 35 W, the Radeon Pro 450 is the only viable option in this comparison. But that is a physical compatibility decision, not a performance one.

The GTX 1080 also has an advantage in average benchmark score (11,960 vs 10,804) and a slightly higher percentile ranking (51st vs 49th). The Radeon Pro 450's nearest rivals are all in the 10,600–10,900 range, while the GTX 1080's nearest rivals are in the 11,600–12,000 range. This means the Radeon Pro 450 competes with lower-tier cards like the GTX 560 Ti and MX350, whereas the GTX 1080 competes with the GTX 1660 and RX 6500 XT.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher Geekbench Metal score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 scores 23,824, which is 84.8% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 450's 12,893.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between the two cards?

A: The largest gap is in Geekbench OpenCL, where the GTX 1080 scores 51,204 against the Radeon Pro 450's 9,002, a 468.8% difference.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro 450 win any head-to-head benchmark?

A: No. The data shows 3 wins for the GTX 1080 and 0 wins for the Radeon Pro 450 across the shared tests.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The GTX 1080 averages 11,960, while the Radeon Pro 450 averages 10,804, giving the NVIDIA card a 1,156-point edge.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The GTX 1080 is at the 51st percentile, while the Radeon Pro 450 is at the 49th percentile.

Q: What is the closest rival for each card based on average score?

A: The GTX 1080's closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A at 11,998 (0.3% behind). The Radeon Pro 450's closest rival is the NVIDIA Quadro K2200 at 10,761 (0.4% behind).

Specification Differences

The most striking specification gap is in memory. The GTX 1080 has 8 GB of GDDR5X on a 256-bit bus, delivering 320.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 450 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 81.28 GB/s. That is a 4x difference in capacity and a 3.9x difference in bandwidth. The GTX 1080's memory clock is listed at 1251 MHz with 10 Gbps effective data rate, while the Radeon Pro 450's memory runs at 1270 MHz with 5.1 Gbps effective.

Compute resources differ by a similar magnitude. The GTX 1080 has 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The Radeon Pro 450 has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. Pixel rate is 110.9 GPixel/s for the NVIDIA card versus 12.80 GPixel/s for the AMD card. Texture rate is 277.3 GTexel/s versus 32.00 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 8.873 TFLOPS versus 1,024.0 GFLOPS (roughly 1.02 TFLOPS).

The TDP difference is substantial: 180 W for the GTX 1080 versus 35 W for the Radeon Pro 450. The GTX 1080 requires a single 8-pin power connector and a 450 W suggested PSU, while the Radeon Pro 450 has no power connector listed and no suggested PSU. The GTX 1080 is a dual-slot card measuring 267 mm in length, 112 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The Radeon Pro 450 is an MXM Module with no listed dimensions.

Bus interface also differs: the GTX 1080 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the Radeon Pro 450 uses PCIe 3.0 x8. Display outputs are another divergence—the GTX 1080 offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the Radeon Pro 450's outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent."

Architecture Differences

The GTX 1080 uses the GP104 chip built on TSMC's 16 nm process with 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die. The Radeon Pro 450 uses the Baffin chip built on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process with 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. The transistor density is similar—22.9 million per mm² for the GTX 1080 versus 24.4 million per mm² for the Radeon Pro 450—but the absolute transistor count is 2.4x higher in the NVIDIA chip.

Architecturally, the GTX 1080 is Pascal, part of the GeForce 10 generation. The Radeon Pro 450 is GCN 4.0, part of the Radeon Pro Mac (400 Series) generation. Neither card has ray tracing cores or tensor cores. The GTX 1080's FP16 performance is 138.6 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio to FP32, meaning it is heavily optimized for FP32 workloads. The Radeon Pro 450's FP16 is 1,024.0 GFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio, meaning it handles FP16 and FP32 at the same rate.

API support shows minor differences. Both support DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.6. The GTX 1080 supports DirectX 12_1, while the Radeon Pro 450 supports DirectX 12_0. Vulkan support is 1.4 for the NVIDIA card and 1.3 for the AMD card. The GTX 1080 has a base clock of 1607 MHz and a boost clock of 1733 MHz, while the Radeon Pro 450 lists no base or boost clock in the data.

The GTX 1080 has a predecessor (GeForce 900 series) and successor (GeForce 20 series), while the Radeon Pro 450 lists neither. The release dates are close—May 26, 2016 for the GTX 1080 and October 29, 2016 for the Radeon Pro 450. Both are end-of-life products.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 1080 wins everywhere there is data. In Geekbench Metal, it leads by 84.8%. In Geekbench OpenCL, it leads by 468.8%. In Geekbench Vulkan, it leads by 189%. There is no benchmark in the shared set where the Radeon Pro 450 comes out ahead.

For use cases, the GTX 1080 is the choice for OpenCL compute. The 468.8% margin suggests that any OpenCL-heavy workload—scientific computing, rendering, or data processing—will see dramatic speedups. Vulkan gaming is another strong area, with the 189% lead translating to roughly three times the frame rate potential in Vulkan titles. Even Metal, which is the Radeon Pro 450's home turf given its Mac-oriented design, shows the GTX 1080 at 84.8% ahead.

The Radeon Pro 450's wins are not in performance but in physical and power characteristics. At 35 W, it consumes 145 W less than the GTX 1080's 180 W. It uses an MXM Module form factor, making it suitable for laptops or compact systems where a dual-slot 267 mm card will not fit. It requires no external power connector and has no suggested PSU, meaning it can run off the motherboard or system power alone. The GTX 1080 needs a 450 W PSU and a single 8-pin connector.

If your workload is portable, power-constrained, or limited to MXM slots, the Radeon Pro 450 is the only option in this pairing. If your workload is performance-bound and you have the space and power budget, the GTX 1080 is the definitive choice. The data does not support any other conclusion—the GTX 1080 wins all three head-to-head tests, has a higher average score, and a higher percentile ranking. The Radeon Pro 450's only advantages are physical compatibility and power draw.