AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER decisively outperforms the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT in shared benchmark tests, with the data showing a massive 424.4% lead in Geekbench OpenCL and a 556.7% lead in Geekbench Vulkan, though the comparison is heavily skewed by the RTX 4080 SUPER’s newer architecture and far higher power envelope. The Radeon Pro 5500 XT, by contrast, has a narrow advantage in its own benchmark category, with a Geekbench Metal score of 54,779 that the NVIDIA card does not contest, and it posts a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs relative to its average score, indicating a more efficient use of its compute resources for its intended workload.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data shows two shared benchmarks between the cards, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER wins both by an enormous margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 219,065 against the Radeon Pro 5500 XT’s 41,772, a delta of 424.4% — meaning the NVIDIA card delivers over five times the raw compute throughput in this cross-platform API test. This result aligns with the cards’ fundamental specifications: the RTX 4080 SUPER has 10,240 shading units and 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 performance, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT has only 1,536 shading units and 5.398 TFLOPS FP32, a nearly tenfold difference in shader count and compute capacity.

The second shared test, Geekbench Vulkan, shows an even larger gap. The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 260,075, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT manages just 39,601, a delta of 556.7% . This wider margin in Vulkan suggests the NVIDIA card’s Ada Lovelace architecture is particularly well-optimized for modern low-level graphics APIs, with its 80 RT cores and 320 Tensor cores providing additional acceleration paths that the Radeon Pro 5500 XT lacks entirely — the AMD card has no RT cores or Tensor cores listed in its specifications.

Looking at the broader benchmark picture, the RTX 4080 SUPER also dominates in absolute terms. Its Passmark G3D score of 34,245 dwarfs anything the Radeon Pro 5500 XT can produce in comparable tests, and its average benchmark score of 54,209 sits far above the AMD card’s 45,384. However, the Radeon Pro 5500 XT is not without merit: its Geekbench Metal score of 54,779 is its best result and represents a strong showing for Apple ecosystem workloads, where the RTX 4080 SUPER has no corresponding data point. The Radeon Pro 5500 XT’s percentile rank of 84 among all GPUs is also respectable, though it trails the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 86th percentile.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 54,209, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT’s 45,384, a difference of roughly 19.5% in favor of the NVIDIA card.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4080 SUPER in Vulkan?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 260,075 in Geekbench Vulkan versus 39,601 for the Radeon Pro 5500 XT, making it 556.7% faster in that specific test.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro 5500 XT have ray tracing cores?

A: No. The FACT PACK lists RT cores as null for the AMD card, while the NVIDIA card has 80 RT cores, giving it a dedicated hardware path for ray-traced workloads.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus with 736.3 GB/s bandwidth, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No, both are listed as end-of-life products, with the RTX 4080 SUPER released on January 30, 2024, and the Radeon Pro 5500 XT released on August 3, 2020.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER ranks in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, slightly above the Radeon Pro 5500 XT’s 84th percentile.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from entirely different architectural generations and design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC’s 5 nm process node, with 45,900 million transistors packed into a 379 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.1 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT uses the older RDNA 1.0 architecture on TSMC’s 7 nm node, with just 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die, giving a density of 40.5 million per square millimeter. This means the NVIDIA chip has over seven times the transistor count and nearly three times the density, reflecting both its newer process and much larger die area.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The RTX 4080 SUPER has 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT has only 1,536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The NVIDIA card also includes 80 RT cores and 320 Tensor cores, which are entirely absent from the AMD card’s specification sheet — the Radeon Pro 5500 XT lists null for both. This architectural advantage translates directly to performance: the RTX 4080 SUPER delivers 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 and the same 52.22 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio), while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT manages 5.398 TFLOPS FP32 and 10.80 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The NVIDIA card’s FP16 performance is identical to FP32, while AMD’s is halved, indicating different precision-handling strategies.

Memory architecture also diverges sharply. The RTX 4080 SUPER uses 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, achieving 736.3 GB/s bandwidth, whereas the Radeon Pro 5500 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, capping out at 224.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA card’s memory bandwidth is over three times higher, a critical factor for high-resolution textures and compute-heavy workloads. Both cards support PCIe 4.0, but the RTX 4080 SUPER uses a full x16 interface while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT is limited to x8, further reducing its effective data transfer capacity. The Radeon Pro 5500 XT also has no display outputs — it is listed as "IGP" with "No outputs" — making it a pure compute or render-farm part, whereas the RTX 4080 SUPER provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER has a base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2550 MHz, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT runs at 1187 MHz base and 1757 MHz boost — over 1 GHz slower in boost terms. Memory speed also favors NVIDIA: 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) versus 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) for AMD, though the AMD’s higher raw memory clock is offset by its narrower bus and slower effective throughput. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s pixel rate is 285.6 GPixel/s versus 56.22 GPixel/s for the Radeon Pro 5500 XT, and its texture rate is 816.0 GTexel/s versus 168.7 GTexel/s — both roughly five times higher.

Power and physical specifications are equally divergent. The RTX 4080 SUPER has a 320 W TDP, requires a single 16-pin power connector, and recommends a 700 W PSU, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT has a 125 W TDP, no power connectors, and recommends a 300 W PSU. Slot width differs: the NVIDIA card is triple-slot and measures 310 mm long, 140 mm tall, and 61 mm wide, while the AMD card is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with no listed dimensions. API support is also asymmetric: the RTX 4080 SUPER supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon Pro 5500 XT only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1) with the same OpenGL and Vulkan versions. The NVIDIA card’s release date is January 30, 2024, versus August 3, 2020, for AMD — a gap of over three years that explains many of the architectural advantages.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER wins in every directly comparable benchmark category. It is the clear choice for raw compute performance, with its Geekbench OpenCL score of 219,065 and Vulkan score of 260,075 far exceeding anything the Radeon Pro 5500 XT can achieve. Its 16 GB GDDR6X memory and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth make it suitable for large datasets, high-resolution rendering, and AI-adjacent workloads that leverage its 320 Tensor cores. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support and ray tracing hardware give it an edge in modern gaming and real-time ray-traced applications, though its triple-slot design and 320 W TDP require a robust chassis and power supply.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT wins in specific niche scenarios. Its Geekbench Metal score of 54,779 is its standout result, and since the RTX 4080 SUPER has no Metal benchmark data, the AMD card is the only option in this comparison for Apple-centric compute tasks. Its 125 W TDP and IGP form factor mean it can operate in systems with minimal power delivery and no dedicated PCIe slot width, making it a viable choice for compact or low-power Mac-based workstations. The Radeon Pro 5500 XT’s percentile rank of 84 versus the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 86 is surprisingly close, suggesting that for certain optimized workloads, the AMD card punches above its weight relative to its average score. Its 8 GB GDDR6 memory, while smaller, is sufficient for many professional compute tasks that don’t require massive frame buffers.

The Verdict

The data makes the choice straightforward for most users: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the superior card in nearly every measurable way. It delivers 424.4% higher OpenCL performance and 556.7% higher Vulkan performance, has more than six times the shading units, over three times the memory bandwidth, and supports modern APIs like DirectX 12 Ultimate that the Radeon Pro 5500 XT cannot match. Its 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs is higher than AMD’s 84th, and its average benchmark score of 54,209 is roughly 19.5% above the AMD card’s 45,384. The RTX 4080 SUPER is the pick for anyone needing maximum compute throughput, ray tracing, or high-bandwidth memory, provided they can accommodate its 320 W TDP and triple-slot footprint.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT is the right choice only in a narrow set of conditions. If the workload is Metal-based — which the FACT PACK shows as its best benchmark at 54,779 — and the system is a low-power or integrated setup with no room for a discrete card, then the AMD card is the only valid option in this comparison. Its 125 W TDP and lack of power connectors make it far easier to integrate into existing systems, and its 84th percentile ranking shows it is not a slouch in relative terms. However, for any workload that can use OpenCL or Vulkan, the RTX 4080 SUPER wins by an order of magnitude, and its 16 GB memory capacity versus 8 GB gives it a longevity advantage. The verdict is clear: unless you require Metal support or an ultra-low-power form factor, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the data-driven choice.