AMD Radeon Pro 5300 vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison

AMD Radeon Pro 5300 and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile are both mobile-class workstation GPUs aimed at different priorities, and the benchmark data reveals a clear but nuanced picture. The Radeon Pro 5300, built on AMD’s RDNA 1.0 architecture, offers a higher memory bandwidth and a larger die footprint for its class, while the RTX A500 Mobile, based on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture, counters with more shading units and dedicated ray tracing hardware. Both cards land at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, but their average benchmark scores differ by just 1,302 points (40,870 vs 39,568), placing them in the same performance tier despite their architectural divergence. The following analysis breaks down exactly where each card pulls ahead, who should pick which, and what the specification sheets reveal about their design intent.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The direct comparison between these two GPUs is limited to two Geekbench tests, and in both, the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile comes out on top. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX A500 Mobile scores 41,263 against the Radeon Pro 5300’s 38,747, a delta of -6.1% for the AMD card. That is a meaningful gap—roughly six percent—and it suggests that in compute-heavy OpenCL workloads, the NVIDIA part holds a consistent advantage. The Geekbench Vulkan test tells a similar story: the RTX A500 Mobile scores 37,873 versus 35,793 for the Radeon Pro 5300, a -5.5% delta. Both tests show NVIDIA winning by a similar margin, which points to a steady performance edge rather than a workload-specific fluke.

However, the Radeon Pro 5300 has one benchmark the RTX A500 Mobile does not have: Geekbench Metal. In that test, the AMD card scores 48,070, which is significantly higher than either of its other two scores. This suggests that on Apple’s Metal API, the Radeon Pro 5300 is substantially faster than its OpenCL or Vulkan results would imply. Since the RTX A500 Mobile has no Metal score listed, a direct comparison on that front is impossible, but the data indicates the AMD card is optimized for Metal-heavy environments.

Looking at the broader context, the Radeon Pro 5300’s average benchmark score is 40,870, while the RTX A500 Mobile’s average is 39,568—a difference of just 1.3% in favor of AMD. This is within the noise of day-to-day application variance, and it means that in aggregate, these two cards are effectively peers. The nearest rivals for each card reinforce this. The Radeon Pro 5300 sits within -0.8% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (41,187) and +1.2% of the RTX 5070 (40,377), while the RTX A500 Mobile is within 0% of the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39,555) and -1.2% of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40,063). Neither card dominates its competitive set; both are squarely in the mid-to-upper tier of mobile workstation GPUs.

The Verdict

If you are choosing strictly on the available benchmark data, the RTX A500 Mobile wins the two head-to-head tests, but the overall picture is more balanced. The Radeon Pro 5300 has a higher average benchmark score (40,870 vs 39,568) and a substantial lead in Metal performance, which is absent from the NVIDIA card’s results. For users locked into Metal-based workflows—particularly on macOS, given the Radeon Pro branding and its Mac-oriented generation name—the AMD card is the clear pick. Its Metal score of 48,070 dwarfs its OpenCL and Vulkan numbers, indicating that the hardware is tuned for that API.

Conversely, the RTX A500 Mobile is the safer choice for OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. It beats the Radeon Pro 5300 by 6.1% in OpenCL and 5.5% in Vulkan, and its 16 ray tracing cores plus 64 tensor cores make it architecturally prepared for tasks that leverage those features, even if no benchmark in the pack directly tests them. The NVIDIA card also consumes far less power (30 W TDP versus 85 W), which is critical for thin-and-light mobile workstations where thermal headroom is scarce. The data shows that for raw cross-platform compute, the RTX A500 Mobile is the stronger performer, but for Metal-specific tasks, the Radeon Pro 5300 is unmatched in this comparison.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A500 Mobile wins in OpenCL and Vulkan, the two APIs that both cards have tested scores for. Its 2,048 shading units and 6.296 TFLOPS of FP32 performance provide a solid foundation for general compute, and its 64 tensor cores offer acceleration for AI-related tasks, even though no specific AI benchmark is listed. The 16 ray tracing cores are a feature the Radeon Pro 5300 completely lacks, making the NVIDIA card the only option here if ray-traced rendering is part of the workload. The 30 W TDP also means it can sustain performance in power-constrained environments where the 85 W Radeon Pro 5300 might throttle or require a larger chassis.

The Radeon Pro 5300 wins in Metal, with a score of 48,070 that is 24% higher than its own OpenCL result and 34% higher than its Vulkan result. This suggests that its architecture, with 80 texture mapping units and a 128-bit memory bus delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is particularly efficient under Metal’s programming model. The AMD card also has a higher pixel rate (52.80 GPixel/s vs 49.18 GPixel/s) and texture rate (132.0 GTexel/s vs 98.37 GTexel/s), which could translate to better rasterization performance in graphics-heavy tasks, even if the head-to-head tests do not capture that directly. For users on macOS or in Metal-centric pipelines, the Radeon Pro 5300 is the obvious winner.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 has an average benchmark score of 40,870, compared to 39,568 for the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile—a difference of about 1.3%.

Q: Does the RTX A500 Mobile support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the RTX A500 Mobile has 16 dedicated ray tracing cores, while the Radeon Pro 5300 has no ray tracing cores listed.

Q: Which GPU is better for OpenCL workloads?

A: The RTX A500 Mobile scores 41,263 in Geekbench OpenCL, beating the Radeon Pro 5300’s 38,747 by 6.1%.

Q: Is the Radeon Pro 5300 faster in any benchmark?

A: The Radeon Pro 5300 scores 48,070 in Geekbench Metal, which is higher than any score achieved by the RTX A500 Mobile, though the NVIDIA card has no Metal test listed.

Q: How do these GPUs compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon Pro 5300 is within -0.8% of the RTX 3080 Ti and +1.2% of the RTX 5070, while the RTX A500 Mobile is within 0% of the Radeon Pro 575 and -1.2% of the Radeon Pro WX 7100.

Q: Which GPU consumes less power?

A: The RTX A500 Mobile has a 30 W TDP, compared to 85 W for the Radeon Pro 5300.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures. The Radeon Pro 5300 uses AMD’s RDNA 1.0 architecture on a 7 nm process from TSMC, with a die size of 158 mm² and 6,400 million transistors. The RTX A500 Mobile uses NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture on an 8 nm process from Samsung, with a larger die at 200 mm² and 8,700 million transistors. The transistor density is slightly higher on the NVIDIA chip (43.5M per mm² vs 40.5M per mm²), but the AMD chip is smaller overall. The Radeon Pro 5300 has 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the RTX A500 Mobile has 2,048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The NVIDIA card adds 16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the AMD part.

Memory architecture also diverges. Both cards use 4 GB of GDDR6, but the Radeon Pro 5300 has a 128-bit bus delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, while the RTX A500 Mobile has a 64-bit bus delivering just 96.00 GB/s—less than half. The AMD card’s memory clock is 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), while the NVIDIA card runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). In terms of compute throughput, the RTX A500 Mobile has higher FP32 performance at 6.296 TFLOPS versus 4.224 TFLOPS for the Radeon Pro 5300, but the AMD card has a 2:1 FP16 ratio (8.448 TFLOPS) while the NVIDIA card is 1:1 (6.296 TFLOPS). The AMD GPU also has higher pixel and texture rates (52.80 GPixel/s and 132.0 GTexel/s vs 49.18 GPixel/s and 98.37 GTexel/s, respectively).

Specification Differences

The most striking difference is power consumption: the Radeon Pro 5300 has a TDP of 85 W, while the RTX A500 Mobile is rated at just 30 W. This is accompanied by a suggested PSU of 250 W for the AMD card, while the NVIDIA card lists no suggested PSU. Both are integrated (IGP) with no power connectors, but the RTX A500 Mobile’s lower power draw makes it far more suitable for compact laptops. The bus interface is identical (PCIe 4.0 x8), but display outputs differ: the Radeon Pro 5300 has no outputs, while the RTX A500 Mobile’s outputs are described as "Portable Device Dependent." The AMD card supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Release timing also separates them: the Radeon Pro 5300 launched on 2020-08-03, while the RTX A500 Mobile launched on 2022-03-21, nearly two years later. The NVIDIA card has a documented predecessor (Quadro Turing-M) and successor (Ada-MW), while the AMD card lists neither. Both are end-of-life products, but the RTX A500 Mobile’s newer architecture and feature set—ray tracing, tensor cores, and DX12 Ultimate—give it a longer feature-relevant lifespan, even if the Radeon Pro 5300 holds its own in raw bandwidth and Metal performance.