AMD Radeon Pro 455 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile Comparison

# NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile vs AMD Radeon Pro 455

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and AMD Radeon Pro 455 occupy very different corners of the mobile GPU landscape. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is a modern Ampere-based part from the GeForce 30-series, while the Radeon Pro 455 is an older GCN 4.0 workstation-oriented chip from the Radeon Pro Mac 400-series. The benchmark data shows the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile dominating in every head-to-head test, yet both cards sit within 1% of each other in average benchmark score — a reminder that aggregate scores can obscure massive per-test disparities.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile averages 12,940 across all tests, while the AMD Radeon Pro 455 averages 12,831. That is a gap of roughly 0.9% in favor of the NVIDIA part, with both cards landing in the 52nd–53rd percentile of all GPUs.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Geekbench OpenCL performance?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 10,336 for the Radeon Pro 455. That is a 460.3% advantage for the NVIDIA card — a lead of more than 5.6x in raw compute throughput.

Q: Are both GPUs equally capable in Vulkan workloads?

A: No. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 55,812 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Radeon Pro 455 scores 12,240. The NVIDIA card leads by 356%, meaning the AMD part delivers less than a quarter of the Vulkan performance.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 455 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 81.28 GB/s bandwidth — exactly half the capacity and less than half the bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU supports newer DirectX features?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Radeon Pro 455 supports DirectX 12 (12_0). NVIDIA also lists Vulkan 1.4 support versus Vulkan 1.3 on the AMD card.

Q: How do the nearest rivals compare for each card?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER at 12,986 (0.4% higher), followed by the AMD Radeon RX 580 at 12,928 (0.1% lower). The Radeon Pro 455's closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 at 12,830 (0% delta), with the AMD FirePro W5100 at 12,847 (0.1% higher).

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins every benchmark category where both cards have data. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 57,915 versus 10,336 — a 460.3% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 55,812 versus 12,240 — a 356% lead. There are no tests in the dataset where the Radeon Pro 455 comes out ahead.

The Radeon Pro 455 does have one unique benchmark result: Geekbench Metal, where it scores 15,916. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has no Metal result in the data, so this is the only category where the AMD card posts a score without direct NVIDIA competition. However, this does not translate into an overall win, as the head-to-head count stands at 2 wins for NVIDIA and 0 for AMD.

Where the Radeon Pro 455 shows relative strength is in its aggregate positioning. Its average score of 12,831 places it within 1% of the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's 12,940, and its nearest rivals include the GTX 590 and FirePro W5100 at virtually identical scores. This suggests the AMD card remains competitive in certain legacy or compute-heavy workloads that favor its GCN architecture, even though the modern NVIDIA part dominates in the two shared tests.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is substantial. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses the GA106 chip built on Ampere architecture, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It packs 12,000 million transistors into a 276 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 43.5M per mm². The Radeon Pro 455 uses the Baffin chip on GCN 4.0 architecture, built on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process. It contains 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, with a density of 24.4M per mm².

The NVIDIA card features 2,560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, 32 ROPs, 20 ray tracing cores, and 80 tensor cores. The AMD card has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, with no ray tracing or tensor cores at all. This means the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI workloads that the Radeon Pro 455 simply cannot perform.

The compute capabilities reflect this gap. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile delivers 5.299 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and the same 5.299 TFLOPS for FP16 (1:1 ratio). The Radeon Pro 455 delivers 1,313.3 GFLOPS — roughly 1.31 TFLOPS — for both FP32 and FP16. Pixel rate is 33.12 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 13.68 GPixel/s for AMD, and texture rate is 82.80 GTexel/s versus 41.04 GTexel/s.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every specification category. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has a base clock of 735 MHz and a boost clock of 1035 MHz, with memory clocked at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The Radeon Pro 455 lists no base or boost clock, only a memory clock of 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective).

Memory configuration diverges sharply: 4 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth for NVIDIA, versus 2 GB GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 81.28 GB/s bandwidth for AMD. Power consumption also differs significantly, with the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile rated at 75 W TDP compared to 35 W for the Radeon Pro 455.

The bus interfaces are different: PCIe 4.0 x16 for NVIDIA versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for AMD. Slot width also differs — the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is listed as IGP (integrated graphics package), while the Radeon Pro 455 uses an MXM Module form factor. Both cards have "None" for power connectors and "Portable Device Dependent" for display outputs.

API support shows NVIDIA ahead: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6 for both, Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.3. The release dates are far apart — the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile launched in May 2021, while the Radeon Pro 455 launched in October 2016. Both are end-of-life products. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's predecessor is the GeForce 20 Mobile series; the Radeon Pro 455 has no listed predecessor.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two benchmark tests appear in both GPUs' result sets, and the NVIDIA card wins both by massive margins. The first is Geekbench OpenCL, where the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915 against the Radeon Pro 455's 10,336. This 460.3% delta is the largest in the dataset — the NVIDIA card outperforms the AMD part by a factor of 5.6. This result makes sense given the 3.3x difference in shading units (2,560 versus 768) and the more than 4x difference in FP32 throughput (5.299 TFLOPS versus 1.313 TFLOPS).

The second shared test is Geekbench Vulkan. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 55,812, while the Radeon Pro 455 scores 12,240. The 356% delta means the AMD card delivers only about 22% of the NVIDIA card's Vulkan performance. Notably, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's Vulkan score is actually slightly lower than its OpenCL score (55,812 versus 57,915), while the Radeon Pro 455's Vulkan score is higher than its OpenCL score (12,240 versus 10,336). This suggests the AMD card's Vulkan driver overhead is relatively lower, but the absolute performance gap remains overwhelming.

The aggregate benchmark picture tells a different story. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's average score of 12,940 comes from 10 benchmarks including PassMark tests (DirectX 9 through 12, G2D, G3D, and GPU compute) and 3DMark Steel Nomad. The Radeon Pro 455's average of 12,831 comes from just 3 Geekbench tests. The fact that these averages are so close — 0.9% apart — despite the huge per-test disparities suggests the Radeon Pro 455's scores are being pulled up by factors not captured in the shared tests, or that the NVIDIA card's PassMark results are relatively modest compared to its Geekbench performance.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear conclusion: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the stronger GPU in every measurable shared benchmark. Its 460.3% OpenCL lead and 356% Vulkan lead are not marginal advantages — they represent a different performance class entirely. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile also brings modern features that the Radeon Pro 455 lacks, including ray tracing cores, tensor cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and double the memory capacity with more than double the bandwidth.

However, the Radeon Pro 455 has its own context. Its 35 W TDP is less than half the NVIDIA card's 75 W, making it a lower-power option for thin-and-light systems. Its MXM Module form factor suggests it was designed for upgradeable workstation laptops, and its Geekbench Metal score of 15,916 indicates it has some utility in Apple-oriented workflows where the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has no comparable data. The aggregate average score of 12,831 places it in the same percentile band (52nd) as the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (53rd), and its nearest rivals include the GTX 590 and FirePro W5100 at nearly identical scores.

For a user choosing between these two today, the decision comes down to workload. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the obvious pick for anything requiring modern DirectX 12 Ultimate features, ray tracing, or high-throughput compute — its 5.299 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth make it suitable for gaming and general GPU compute. The Radeon Pro 455, with its lower power draw and Metal support, may still serve in legacy Mac-based workflows or power-constrained systems where 35 W is a hard limit. But on raw performance, the NVIDIA card wins decisively — 2 head-to-head wins to 0, with no benchmark in the shared set where the AMD card comes close.