AMD Radeon Pro 5500M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive overall victory for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, which wins 8 of the 9 head-to-head comparisons against the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M. The only exception is the Passmark G2D test, where the AMD part takes a narrow win. Across the shared benchmark suite, the NVIDIA GPU holds a commanding lead in raw compute, DirectX performance, and general 3D rendering.

The largest margin in the dataset occurs in the Geekbench OpenCL test. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915, while the Radeon Pro 5500M manages 31,088. That is a delta of 86.3% in favor of NVIDIA, a massive gap that reflects a substantial difference in raw compute throughput. The DirectX 11 Passmark test shows a similar pattern: NVIDIA scores 76 versus AMD's 42, a delta of 81%. These two results alone establish that the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is fundamentally faster in compute-heavy workloads.

The DirectX 12 comparison continues the trend, with the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scoring 49 against the Radeon Pro 5500M's 29, a delta of 69%. This is particularly relevant for modern gaming and professional applications that rely on DirectX 12's lower-level API access. The DirectX 10 test also favors NVIDIA heavily, with scores of 60 versus 36, a delta of 66.7%. Even in DirectX 9, a legacy API, NVIDIA leads by 25%, scoring 120 versus 96.

The Vulkan results reinforce NVIDIA's dominance in modern cross-platform graphics. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 55,812, while the Radeon Pro 5500M scores 35,134, a delta of 58.9%. This is a significant margin for an API that is widely used in both gaming and professional visualization. The Passmark G3D test, which measures overall 3D graphics performance, shows NVIDIA ahead by 49.9%, with scores of 10,093 versus 6,732. This is the most comprehensive single metric in the set, and it confirms that the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the stronger GPU for general 3D workloads.

The Passmark GPU Compute test shows a 32.9% advantage for NVIDIA, with scores of 4,305 versus 3,240. This indicates that the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is also more capable in general-purpose GPU computing tasks, which are increasingly important in fields like machine learning inference and video processing. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M's sole victory comes in the Passmark G2D test, which measures 2D graphics operations. Here, AMD scores 648 versus NVIDIA's 498, a delta of 23.1% in AMD's favor. This is a niche result, as 2D performance is rarely a bottleneck in modern workloads, but it does suggest that the AMD GPU has a slight edge in desktop composition and simple 2D rendering tasks.

Looking at the broader benchmark context, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's average benchmark score is 12,940, placing it at the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 580 (average score 12,928, delta 0.1%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12,986, delta -0.4%), and the AMD Radeon 740M (12,870, delta 0.5%). The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile sits essentially at parity with these desktop-class parts, which is notable for a mobile GPU. The Radeon Pro 5500M, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 11,528, placing it at the 51st percentile. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla K20c (11,479, delta 0.4%), the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (11,627, delta -0.8%), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (11,680, delta -1.3%). The Radeon Pro 5500M is roughly 12% slower than the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile on average, and it sits in a lower performance tier overall.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the faster GPU in nearly every measurable category. It wins all compute and 3D graphics benchmarks by wide margins, ranging from 25% to 86.3%. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's average benchmark score of 12,940 is 12.2% higher than the Radeon Pro 5500M's 11,528, and it occupies a higher percentile rank (53rd versus 51st). For users who prioritize raw performance, DirectX 12 capability, or Vulkan throughput, the NVIDIA GPU is the clear choice.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M does have one advantage: the Passmark G2D score. It also offers a larger memory pool of 8 GB versus 4 GB, though the bandwidth is identical at 192.0 GB/s. For workloads that are sensitive to memory capacity rather than bandwidth, the AMD part could be relevant. However, the performance gap in every 3D and compute test is so large that the Radeon Pro 5500M cannot be recommended on the basis of benchmark scores alone. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's 49.9% lead in Passmark G3D and its 32.9% lead in GPU Compute make it the superior choice for gaming, rendering, and general-purpose GPU tasks.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures and fabrication processes. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses the Ampere architecture on a GA106 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. It contains 12,000 million transistors on a die size of 276 mm², yielding a transistor density of 43.5M per mm². The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M uses the RDNA 1.0 architecture on a Navi 14 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It contains 6,400 million transistors on a die size of 158 mm², for a transistor density of 40.5M per mm². The AMD chip is smaller and more power-efficient per transistor, but the NVIDIA chip packs nearly twice the transistor count.

The compute resources differ significantly. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 2,560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. It also includes 20 dedicated ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, which are absent from the Radeon Pro 5500M. The AMD GPU has 1,536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, but no ray tracing or tensor cores. This explains the NVIDIA GPU's superiority in compute-heavy benchmarks, as it simply has more parallel processing units and specialized hardware for modern workloads.

Clock speeds also differ. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has a base clock of 735 MHz and a boost clock of 1,035 MHz. The Radeon Pro 5500M has a higher base clock of 1,000 MHz and a boost clock of 1,450 MHz. Despite the higher clocks, the AMD GPU cannot overcome the NVIDIA GPU's raw shader count advantage. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile delivers 5.299 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the Radeon Pro 5500M delivers 4.454 TFLOPS. In FP16, the NVIDIA GPU maintains a 1:1 ratio at 5.299 TFLOPS, while the AMD GPU uses a 2:1 ratio and reaches 8.909 TFLOPS. This means the Radeon Pro 5500M has a theoretical advantage in FP16 workloads, though no FP16 benchmark is present in the shared test suite.

Memory configurations are similar but not identical. Both GPUs use GDDR6 memory with a 128-bit bus and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB, while the Radeon Pro 5500M has 8 GB. The memory clock is the same at 1,500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The TDP also differs: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is rated at 75 W, while the Radeon Pro 5500M is rated at 85 W. The NVIDIA GPU achieves higher performance with lower power consumption, which is a significant advantage in mobile form factors.

API support is another differentiator. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Radeon Pro 5500M only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The NVIDIA GPU also has a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the AMD GPU uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The higher bandwidth interface on the NVIDIA GPU could be beneficial in bandwidth-sensitive scenarios, though the memory bandwidth is identical.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has better overall performance in the benchmark data?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile. It wins 8 of the 9 head-to-head tests and has an average benchmark score of 12,940 versus 11,528 for the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M.

Q: Are there any tests where the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M wins?

A: Yes, the Passmark G2D test. The AMD GPU scores 648, which is 23.1% higher than the NVIDIA GPU's 498. This indicates better 2D graphics performance.

Q: How large is the performance gap in DirectX 12?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 49 in the Passmark DirectX 12 test, while the Radeon Pro 5500M scores 29. This is a delta of 69% in favor of NVIDIA.

Q: Which GPU has more memory, and does it matter?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M has 8 GB, double the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile's 4 GB. However, both have identical memory bandwidth at 192.0 GB/s, and the NVIDIA GPU still wins the G3D test by 49.9%.

Q: Does the AMD GPU have any architectural advantages?

A: The Radeon Pro 5500M has higher clock speeds (1,450 MHz boost versus 1,035 MHz) and a smaller 7 nm process node. It also delivers 8.909 TFLOPS of FP16 performance, higher than the NVIDIA GPU's 5.299 TFLOPS.

Q: What are the nearest rivals for each GPU?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is closest to the AMD Radeon RX 580 (delta 0.1%) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (delta -0.4%). The Radeon Pro 5500M is closest to the NVIDIA Tesla K20c (delta 0.4%) and the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (delta -0.8%).

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the clear winner for almost all use cases. In DirectX 10, 11, and 12 applications, it leads by margins of 66.7%, 81%, and 69% respectively. This makes it the better choice for modern gaming, where DirectX 12 is the standard API, and for professional applications that leverage these APIs for rendering or simulation. The Vulkan benchmark also favors NVIDIA by 58.9%, which is relevant for cross-platform games and emerging graphics workloads.

For general 3D rendering, the Passmark G3D test shows a 49.9% advantage for the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile. This covers everything from CAD visualization to game rendering. The GPU Compute test, where NVIDIA leads by 32.9%, indicates that the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is also the better option for non-graphics compute tasks like video encoding, physics simulation, and machine learning inference. The presence of 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores on the NVIDIA GPU further reinforces its suitability for ray-traced workloads and AI-accelerated features, though no specific ray tracing benchmark appears in the dataset.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M's only clear win is in the Passmark G2D test, where it leads by 23.1%. This makes it marginally better for simple 2D desktop environments, image blitting, and basic UI rendering. However, this is rarely a bottleneck in real-world use. The AMD GPU also has double the memory capacity (8 GB versus 4 GB), which could be beneficial for workloads that need to store large datasets or textures on the GPU, even if the bandwidth is identical. For users who specifically need more VRAM capacity and are not performance-sensitive, the Radeon Pro 5500M might be worth considering. But for any workload that touches 3D graphics, compute, or modern APIs, the recorded data consistently favors the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile.