AMD Radeon Pro 555X vs NVIDIA Quadro K4200 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 555X and NVIDIA Quadro K4200 represent two distinct generations of professional mobile and workstation graphics, separated by four years of architectural evolution. The data from the FACT PACK reveals a narrow but consistent victory for the AMD part across the shared benchmark suite, with the Radeon Pro 555X holding a 2.6% advantage in Geekbench OpenCL and a 3% lead in Geekbench Vulkan. However, the Quadro K4200 counters with a substantially larger memory bus, higher pixel throughput, and a significantly higher transistor count, making this a contest where raw specifications do not directly translate into benchmark dominance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison is limited to two shared tests: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD Radeon Pro 555X scores 12,628 against the Quadro K4200's 12,313, yielding a 2.6% delta in favor of the AMD card. In Geekbench Vulkan, the margin widens slightly to 3%, with scores of 12,855 and 12,482 respectively. These are close results, but they are consistent across both APIs, suggesting the Radeon Pro 555X has a small but real performance edge in compute workloads.

Looking at the broader average benchmark scores, the Radeon Pro 555X posts an average of 13,321, while the Quadro K4200 averages 12,398. That is a 7.4% difference in favor of the AMD card. The AMD part also sits at the 54th percentile of all GPUs, versus the 52nd percentile for the NVIDIA card. This places both cards in the mid-range of the GPU population, but the Radeon Pro 555X is slightly better positioned. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 (average score 13,300, deltaPct 0.2) and the AMD FirePro M6100 (average score 13,354, deltaPct -0.2), indicating it sits in a tightly contested performance band. The Quadro K4200's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm (average score 12,625, deltaPct -1.8) and the AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT (average score 12,710, deltaPct -2.5), showing it trails its nearest competition by a small margin.

The individual benchmark results tell a nuanced story. The Radeon Pro 555X's Vulkan score of 12,855 is its strongest showing, beating its own OpenCL score by 1.8%. The Quadro K4200's Vulkan score of 12,482 similarly exceeds its OpenCL score of 12,313 by 1.4%. Both cards are clearly more efficient in the Vulkan API, but the AMD card's advantage is marginally larger in that API. The data shows the Radeon Pro 555X wins both head-to-head tests, recording 2 wins to 0 for the Quadro K4200.

Where Each One Wins

The Radeon Pro 555X wins decisively in raw compute benchmarks, taking both OpenCL and Vulkan tests. Its advantage in Vulkan (3%) is slightly larger than its OpenCL lead (2.6%), suggesting its architecture scales better with modern, lower-level APIs. This makes the AMD card the stronger choice for compute-heavy tasks like rendering, simulation, and general-purpose GPU workloads that leverage OpenCL or Vulkan. The card's availability of FP16 performance at a 1:1 ratio with FP32 (1,393.2 GFLOPS for both) further supports its compute versatility, even though the FACT PACK does not provide a comparable FP16 figure for the Quadro K4200.

The Quadro K4200, despite losing both benchmarks, has theoretical advantages that could matter in specific workloads. Its memory bandwidth of 172.8 GB/s is 83.6% higher than the Radeon Pro 555X's 94.08 GB/s, thanks to a 256-bit bus versus 128-bit. This could translate to wins in memory-bandwidth-bound scenarios like large texture streaming or certain scientific computations, though the benchmark data does not include tests that specifically isolate this. Its pixel rate of 21.95 GPixel/s is also 51.3% higher than the AMD card's 14.51 GPixel/s, and its texture rate of 87.81 GTexel/s is more than double the Radeon Pro 555X's 43.54 GTexel/s. These figures suggest the Quadro K4200 would excel in traditional rasterization workloads at high resolutions, even if the compute benchmarks do not reflect that advantage. The NVIDIA card also supports a higher FP32 throughput of 2.107 TFLOPS versus 1,393.2 GFLOPS for the AMD card, a 51.2% difference in raw floating-point capability.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from fundamentally different architectural eras. The AMD Radeon Pro 555X uses the Polaris 21 chip based on GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It contains 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.4 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 uses the GK104 chip based on Kepler architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 3,540 million transistors onto a 294 mm² die, resulting in a much lower density of 12.0 million per square millimeter. The AMD card is significantly more efficient in terms of transistor packing, which aligns with its newer manufacturing process.

The compute unit configurations differ dramatically. The Radeon Pro 555X has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs. The Quadro K4200 has 1,344 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs — roughly 75% more shading units, 133% more TMUs, and double the ROPs. This explains the Quadro's higher theoretical pixel and texture rates. However, the AMD card compensates with much higher clock speeds, though the FACT PACK only lists a memory clock of 1470 MHz (5.9 Gbps effective) for the Radeon Pro 555X and a base clock of 771 MHz with a boost of 784 MHz for the Quadro K4200. The AMD card's memory clock is 8.9% higher than the NVIDIA card's 1350 MHz memory clock, but the NVIDIA card's wider bus more than compensates in terms of overall bandwidth.

Both cards feature 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, but the bus widths diverge: 128-bit for AMD versus 256-bit for NVIDIA. The Radeon Pro 555X supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3, while the Quadro K4200 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The AMD card has a more recent Vulkan implementation. The Radeon Pro 555X uses a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface, while the Quadro K4200 uses PCIe 2.0 x16. The power profiles differ as well: the Radeon Pro 555X is rated at 75 W TDP with an IGP slot width and no power connectors, while the Quadro K4200 is rated at 108 W TDP, requires a single 6-pin power connector, and occupies a single slot. The NVIDIA card is also a physical add-in card at 241 mm in length and 111 mm in height, whereas the AMD card is integrated into portable devices.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 555X has an average benchmark score of 13,321, which is 7.4% higher than the NVIDIA Quadro K4200's average of 12,398.

Q: What is the performance difference in the head-to-head Vulkan test?

A: The Radeon Pro 555X scores 12,855 in Geekbench Vulkan, beating the Quadro K4200's 12,482 by a margin of 3%.

Q: How do the memory bandwidths compare between the two cards?

A: The Quadro K4200 has a memory bandwidth of 172.8 GB/s, which is 83.6% higher than the Radeon Pro 555X's 94.08 GB/s, despite both cards having 4 GB of GDDR5 memory.

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor count?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 contains 3,540 million transistors, which is 18% more than the AMD Radeon Pro 555X's 3,000 million transistors.

Q: What are the pixel fill rates for each card?

A: The Quadro K4200 achieves a pixel rate of 21.95 GPixel/s, while the Radeon Pro 555X achieves 14.51 GPixel/s, a difference of 51.3% in favor of the NVIDIA card.

Q: How does the Radeon Pro 555X compare to its nearest rival, the GeForce GTX 480?

A: The Radeon Pro 555X has an average score of 13,321, which is only 0.2% higher than the GeForce GTX 480's average of 13,300, indicating they are effectively tied in performance.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification category. The process node is 14 nm for the AMD card versus 28 nm for the NVIDIA card. The transistor counts are 3,000 million versus 3,540 million, and die sizes are 123 mm² versus 294 mm². The AMD card has a higher transistor density at 24.4M per mm² compared to 12.0M per mm² for the NVIDIA card. Memory clock speeds are 1470 MHz (5.9 Gbps effective) for AMD versus 1350 MHz (5.4 Gbps effective) for NVIDIA. Memory bus widths are 128-bit versus 256-bit, and memory bandwidths are 94.08 GB/s versus 172.8 GB/s. Shading units are 768 versus 1,344, TMUs are 48 versus 112, and ROPs are 16 versus 32. Pixel rates are 14.51 GPixel/s versus 21.95 GPixel/s, and texture rates are 43.54 GTexel/s versus 87.81 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 1,393.2 GFLOPS versus 2.107 TFLOPS. TDP is 75 W versus 108 W. The AMD card uses an IGP slot with no power connectors, while the NVIDIA card is single-slot with a 1x 6-pin connector and a suggested PSU of 300 W. Bus interfaces are PCIe 3.0 x8 versus PCIe 2.0 x16. Display outputs are "Portable Device Dependent" for AMD versus 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2 for NVIDIA. The Vulkan API versions are 1.3 for AMD and 1.2.175 for NVIDIA. The Quadro K4200 has defined dimensions of 241 mm length and 111 mm height, while the Radeon Pro 555X has no listed dimensions. Both cards are end-of-life products, with the Radeon Pro 555X releasing on 2018-07-15 and the Quadro K4200 releasing on 2014-07-21.