AMD Radeon Pro 5300 vs AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 and AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 represent two distinct approaches to GPU design from the same manufacturer, separated by three years of architectural evolution. The data shows a single head-to-head benchmark result, but the underlying specifications reveal a more complex story about performance, efficiency, and intended use cases. The Radeon RX Vega 56, despite being the older product, demonstrates a commanding lead in the only direct comparison available, while the Radeon Pro 5300 counters with superior process technology and dramatically lower power requirements.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The sole direct benchmark comparison available in the dataset is the Geekbench Metal test, and the results are decisively one-sided. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 73,512 points, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 manages 48,070 points in the same test. This represents a delta of -34.6% for the Radeon Pro 5300, meaning the Vega 56 outperforms its newer counterpart by more than a third in this specific workload. The margin is substantial enough that it cannot be attributed to measurement noise or driver variations; it reflects a fundamental difference in compute capability between the two designs.

Contextualizing these scores against their respective peer groups highlights how each card sits in the broader market. The Radeon Pro 5300’s average benchmark score across all tests is 40,870, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs tracked. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, averages 41,187 points, a delta of only -0.8% — meaning the Pro 5300 is statistically tied with a flagship consumer card from a previous generation in aggregate performance. The Radeon RX Vega 56, meanwhile, averages 37,507 points across its benchmark suite, sitting in the 81st percentile. Its closest competitor, the NVIDIA Tesla P4, averages 37,628 points, a negligible -0.3% difference.

The discrepancy between the head-to-head Metal result and the aggregate averages deserves attention. The Vega 56’s Metal score of 73,512 is nearly double its average score across other tests, suggesting that Metal is a particularly favorable workload for the GCN 5.0 architecture or that the card’s other benchmark results drag down its aggregate figure. Conversely, the Pro 5300’s Metal score of 48,070 is only about 18% above its aggregate average of 40,870, indicating more consistent performance across different API environments. In OpenCL, the Pro 5300 scores 38,747, and in Vulkan it reaches 35,793, showing a modest but steady decline from its Metal result.

Where Each One Wins

The Radeon RX Vega 56 wins the only direct benchmark comparison, but the nature of that victory points to specific strengths. Its 34.6% advantage in Geekbench Metal suggests that applications heavily optimized for Apple’s graphics API will favor the older card significantly. This is reinforced by its raw compute specifications: the Vega 56 delivers 10.54 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 21.09 TFLOPS of FP16 performance, versus 4.224 TFLOPS FP32 and 8.448 TFLOPS FP16 for the Pro 5300. For workloads that scale with raw shader throughput — such as rendering, simulation, or scientific computation — the Vega 56’s 3,584 shading units provide more than double the parallel processing capacity of the Pro 5300’s 1,280 shading units.

The Radeon Pro 5300, despite losing the head-to-head, wins in scenarios where power efficiency and physical footprint are paramount. Its 85 W TDP is less than half of the Vega 56’s 210 W, and it requires no power connectors, drawing everything from its PCIe slot. The Vega 56 demands two 8-pin connectors and a 550 W suggested power supply, whereas the Pro 5300 operates with a 250 W PSU. The Pro 5300 is also an IGP form factor with no display outputs, making it suitable for integrated or embedded systems where the Vega 56’s dual-slot, 280 mm length design would not fit. The Pro 5300’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while narrower than the Vega 56’s PCIe 3.0 x16, doubles the per-lane bandwidth, which can mitigate the bandwidth penalty in data-transfer-heavy tasks.

Memory architecture further delineates their use cases. The Vega 56 boasts 8 GB of HBM2 memory with a 2048-bit bus, delivering 409.6 GB/s of bandwidth — nearly double the Pro 5300’s 224.0 GB/s from 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus. For large datasets or high-resolution textures, the Vega 56’s capacity and bandwidth advantage is decisive. However, the Pro 5300’s GDDR6 memory operates at 14 Gbps effective, which is significantly faster per-pin than the Vega 56’s 1600 Mbps HBM2, making the Pro 5300 more efficient for smaller working sets.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures from AMD. The Radeon Pro 5300 uses Navi 14 silicon based on RDNA 1.0, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. The Radeon RX Vega 56 uses Vega 10 based on GCN 5.0, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This process disparity is stark: the Pro 5300 packs 6,400 million transistors into a 158 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 40.5 million per square millimeter. The Vega 56 contains 12,500 million transistors spread across a massive 495 mm² die, with a density of just 25.3 million per square millimeter. The smaller, denser RDNA design achieves better energy efficiency per transistor, but the larger GCN die provides raw throughput that the newer architecture cannot match at this performance tier.

Clock behavior also differs significantly. The Pro 5300 has a base clock of 1000 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, while the Vega 56 runs at a base of 1156 MHz and boosts to 1471 MHz. The Pro 5300’s higher boost clock, combined with its smaller die, allows it to reach a pixel rate of 52.80 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 132.0 GTexel/s. The Vega 56 counters with 94.14 GPixel/s and 329.5 GTexel/s, reflecting its larger complement of 64 ROPs and 224 TMUs versus 32 ROPs and 80 TMUs on the Pro 5300. The Vega 56’s fill rates are 78% higher for pixels and 150% higher for textures, which directly translates to advantage in rasterization-heavy workloads.

The generation naming reflects the product positioning: the Pro 5300 belongs to the "Radeon Pro Mac (Navi Series)" generation, while the Vega 56 is from "Vega (RX Vega)". The Pro 5300’s release date of August 2020 places it three years after the Vega 56’s August 2017 launch. The Vega 56’s predecessor is listed as Polaris and its successor as Navi, confirming that the Pro 5300 represents the architectural lineage that replaced it. Both support DirectX 12 (12_1) and OpenGL 4.6, but the Pro 5300 supports Vulkan 1.4 while the Vega 56 is limited to Vulkan 1.3.

Specification Differences

The most visible difference is memory configuration. The Pro 5300 ships with 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega 56 ships with 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus, providing 409.6 GB/s bandwidth. Memory clock speeds reflect the different technologies: the Pro 5300’s memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), while the Vega 56’s HBM2 runs at 800 MHz (1600 Mbps effective). The bus width difference is the dominant factor, giving the Vega 56 nearly double the memory bandwidth.

Compute resources diverge sharply. The Pro 5300 has 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Vega 56 has 3,584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. This translates to 4.224 TFLOPS FP32 and 8.448 TFLOPS FP16 for the Pro 5300, versus 10.54 TFLOPS FP32 and 21.09 TFLOPS FP16 for the Vega 56. Both achieve their FP16 rates via a 2:1 ratio relative to FP32, but the Vega 56’s absolute numbers are more than double the Pro 5300’s.

Power and physical specifications could not be more different. The Pro 5300 has an 85 W TDP, requires no power connectors, and a 250 W suggested PSU. The Vega 56 has a 210 W TDP, requires two 8-pin connectors, and a 550 W suggested PSU. The Pro 5300 is an IGP slot width with no display outputs, while the Vega 56 is dual-slot with dimensions of 280 mm length, 111 mm height, and 40 mm width, offering 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The bus interface also differs: PCIe 4.0 x8 for the Pro 5300 versus PCIe 3.0 x16 for the Vega 56. The Vega 56 has a launch MSRP of 399 USD, which represents its original price point. Both cards are end-of-life.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU performs better in Geekbench Metal?

A: The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 73,512 in Geekbench Metal, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 scores 48,070. The Vega 56 leads by 34.6%, a substantial margin in this benchmark.

Q: How do their aggregate benchmark scores compare?

A: The Radeon Pro 5300 has an average benchmark score of 40,870, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. The Radeon RX Vega 56 averages 37,507, in the 81st percentile. Despite losing the direct Metal comparison, the Pro 5300 has a higher aggregate average.

Q: What memory configurations do these cards use?

A: The Pro 5300 uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega 56 uses 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 409.6 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega 56 has double the capacity and nearly double the bandwidth.

Q: How do power requirements differ between the two?

A: The Pro 5300 has an 85 W TDP, requires no power connectors, and suggests a 250 W PSU. The Vega 56 has a 210 W TDP, requires two 8-pin connectors, and suggests a 550 W PSU. The Pro 5300 consumes less than half the power.

Q: Which card has higher compute throughput?

A: The Vega 56 delivers 10.54 TFLOPS FP32 and 21.09 TFLOPS FP16, while the Pro 5300 delivers 4.224 TFLOPS FP32 and 8.448 TFLOPS FP16. The Vega 56 has approximately 2.5 times the compute throughput.

Q: What are the form factor differences?

A: The Pro 5300 is an IGP slot width with no display outputs and no specified length. The Vega 56 is dual-slot, measuring 280 mm by 111 mm by 40 mm, and includes 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The Pro 5300 is designed for embedded use, while the Vega 56 is a full-size add-in card.