AMD Radeon Pro 5700 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a clear split between the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, with the NVIDIA card winning 8 of the 10 head-to-head comparisons. The AMD card wins in exactly two tests, but both wins are substantial. In Geekbench Metal, the Radeon Pro 5700 scores 60126 against 30624 for the GTX 1080 Ti, a 96.3% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the AMD card posts 51289 versus 40511, a 26.6% lead.

The NVIDIA card dominates the Passmark suite. The largest single delta appears in Passmark GPU Compute, where the GTX 1080 Ti scores 9632 against 4961, a 48.5% difference. The DirectX 11 test shows a similar magnitude: 151 versus 78, a 48.3% delta. DirectX 10 follows at 39.8% (118 vs 71), and DirectX 9 at 38.1% (231 vs 143). The DirectX 12 test shows a 27.3% NVIDIA lead (66 vs 48), while Passmark G3D gives a 37.7% advantage (18600 vs 11583). Even the 2D test favors NVIDIA, but by a smaller margin: 939 versus 805, a 14.3% delta.

In OpenCL, the GTX 1080 Ti reclaims the lead after losing Metal and Vulkan. The score is 67929 versus 52787, a 22.3% NVIDIA advantage. This pattern suggests the AMD card is highly optimized for Apple-centric APIs (Metal and Vulkan) while the NVIDIA card excels in legacy DirectX workloads and general compute via OpenCL.

The average benchmark scores reflect this split but with a twist. The Radeon Pro 5700 has an average score of 18189, while the GTX 1080 Ti averages 15548, meaning the AMD card actually holds a higher mean across all recorded tests despite losing the majority of head-to-head matchups. This happens because the AMD card’s two wins are so large that they lift its average above the NVIDIA card’s. The percentile ranks confirm the closeness: the Radeon Pro 5700 sits at the 62nd percentile of all GPUs, while the GTX 1080 Ti sits at the 58th.

Looking at the nearest rivals in the database, the Radeon Pro 5700’s average of 18189 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile (18159, a 0.2% delta) and the RTX 2060 SUPER (18093, 0.5% delta). The AMD card is also within 1% of the AMD Radeon RX 460 (18373, -1% delta) and the Intel Arc A770M (18383, -1.1% delta). For the GTX 1080 Ti, the closest neighbor is the AMD Radeon R9 M380 (15521, 0.2% delta), followed by the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679, -0.8% delta). The NVIDIA card is 1.7% ahead of both the RTX 2060 (15290) and the GTX 580 (15283).

FAQ

Q: Which card wins in Metal benchmarks?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 wins decisively. Its Geekbench Metal score is 60126, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti scores 30624, giving the AMD card a 96.3% lead.

Q: How do the two cards compare in OpenCL compute?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti wins. Its OpenCL score is 67929 versus 52787 for the AMD Radeon Pro 5700, a 22.3% advantage for the NVIDIA card.

Q: Which card performs better in Vulkan?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 wins. It scores 51289 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the GTX 1080 Ti scores 40511, a 26.6% edge for the AMD card.

Q: What is the largest performance gap in the head-to-head results?

A: The largest delta is in Geekbench Metal, where the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 leads by 96.3%. The second-largest is in Passmark GPU Compute, where the NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti leads by 48.5%.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 has an average score of 18189, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti averages 15548. The AMD card’s two large wins in Metal and Vulkan pull its average above the NVIDIA card’s, even though NVIDIA wins eight of the ten individual tests.

Q: What are the percentile rankings for each card?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 ranks at the 62nd percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ranks at the 58th percentile.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 uses the Navi 10 chip built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti uses the GP102 chip on the Pascal architecture. The process nodes differ significantly: AMD uses a 7 nm process from TSMC, while NVIDIA uses a 16 nm process from the same foundry. This process advantage allows the AMD chip to pack 10,300 million transistors into a 251 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 41.0 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA chip has 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die, for a density of 25.1 million per square millimeter. The AMD chip is denser by a wide margin.

The memory architectures also differ. The AMD card uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus, while the NVIDIA card uses 11 GB of GDDR5X on a 352 bit bus. Bandwidth favors NVIDIA: 484.4 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s. The memory clocks are 12 Gbps effective for AMD and 11 Gbps effective for NVIDIA.

Compute resources are heavily skewed toward NVIDIA. The GTX 1080 Ti has 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 88 render output units. The Radeon Pro 5700 has 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. This translates to a large raw throughput advantage for NVIDIA: 11.34 TFLOPS FP32 versus 6.221 TFLOPS for AMD. Pixel rate is 139.2 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 86.40 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate is 354.4 GTexel/s versus 194.4 GTexel/s.

The FP16 situation is reversed. The AMD card delivers 12.44 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, while the NVIDIA card delivers only 177.2 GFLOPS FP16 at a 1:64 ratio. This makes the AMD card dramatically faster in half-precision compute, though neither card has dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores.

Power characteristics differ sharply. The AMD card has a 130 W TDP with no power connectors and a suggested power supply of 300 W. The NVIDIA card has a 250 W TDP, requires a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector, and needs a 600 W power supply. The NVIDIA card is a dual-slot design with physical dimensions of 267 mm in length, 112 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The AMD card is listed as an integrated graphics package (IGP) with no display outputs.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every major specification field. The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 has a base clock of 1243 MHz and a boost clock of 1350 MHz, while the NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti has a base clock of 1481 MHz and a boost clock of 1582 MHz. The NVIDIA card runs at higher clocks on a larger, less dense die.

Memory capacity: 8 GB GDDR6 for AMD versus 11 GB GDDR5X for NVIDIA. Bus width: 256 bit versus 352 bit. Bandwidth: 384.0 GB/s versus 484.4 GB/s. The NVIDIA card has more memory, a wider bus, and higher bandwidth.

Shading units: 2304 versus 3584. TMUs: 144 versus 224. ROPs: 64 versus 88. FP32: 6.221 TFLOPS versus 11.34 TFLOPS. FP16: 12.44 TFLOPS versus 177.2 GFLOPS. Pixel rate: 86.40 GPixel/s versus 139.2 GPixel/s. Texture rate: 194.4 GTexel/s versus 354.4 GTexel/s.

The bus interface differs: PCIe 4.0 x16 on the AMD card versus PCIe 3.0 x16 on the NVIDIA card. Display outputs: the AMD card has none, while the NVIDIA card has one HDMI 2.0 port and three DisplayPort 1.4a ports. The AMD card is an IGP with no power connectors and a 300 W suggested PSU; the NVIDIA card is dual-slot with a 6-pin and 8-pin connector and a 600 W suggested PSU. Release dates are 2020-08-03 for AMD and 2017-03-09 for NVIDIA. The NVIDIA card has a launch MSRP of 699 USD.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti wins in classic DirectX gaming workloads. The Passmark suite shows consistent NVIDIA advantages across DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12. The deltas range from 27.3% in DirectX 12 to 48.3% in DirectX 11. The NVIDIA card also wins in Passmark G3D (the overall 3D graphics score) by 37.7%, and in Passmark 2D by 14.3%. For users running legacy Windows games or DirectX-based applications, the GTX 1080 Ti is the clear choice.

The NVIDIA card also wins in OpenCL compute, with a 22.3% lead. This makes it the better option for OpenCL-accelerated workloads that do not rely on Metal or Vulkan. The GTX 1080 Ti also has a commanding lead in Passmark GPU Compute, at 48.5%, suggesting strong general-purpose compute performance in that benchmark.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 wins in Metal and Vulkan. The Metal win is enormous at 96.3%, and the Vulkan win is 26.6%. These are the APIs most relevant to Apple platforms and modern cross-platform graphics. The AMD card’s FP16 throughput (12.44 TFLOPS versus 177.2 GFLOPS) also gives it a large advantage in half-precision compute tasks, even though the database does not include a direct head-to-head FP16 benchmark.

The average benchmark scores tell a different story. The AMD card’s average of 18189 is 16.9% higher than the NVIDIA card’s 15548. The AMD card also ranks higher in the percentile distribution, at 62 versus 58. This means that across the full set of recorded tests, the AMD card is the better overall performer, despite losing most individual matchups. The reason is the magnitude of the AMD wins: a 96.3% Metal victory and a 26.6% Vulkan victory outweigh the NVIDIA wins, which range from 14.3% to 48.5%.

For practical use cases, the split is clear. The GTX 1080 Ti is the stronger card for DirectX gaming, OpenCL compute, and any workload that benefits from higher raw FP32 throughput, more memory bandwidth, or more video memory. The Radeon Pro 5700 is the stronger card for Metal-based applications, Vulkan-based renderers, and tasks that leverage half-precision FP16 math. The AMD card also offers a much lower power draw (130 W versus 250 W) and requires no auxiliary power connectors, making it far easier to integrate into compact systems despite its lack of display outputs.