AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT vs NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 represent two distinct approaches to professional graphics, separated by process node, architecture generation, and intended use case. Benchmark data shows the NVIDIA card winning 8 of 9 head-to-head tests, yet the AMD card holds a decisive victory in a key DirectX 12 workload and offers double the memory capacity. The following analysis breaks down where each card excels, how their architectures diverge, and what the raw numbers indicate about their relative strengths.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT has a higher average benchmark score of 18,685 compared to the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000's 17,789. This places the AMD card in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA card sits in the 61st percentile.

Q: How does the AMD card compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon Pro 5700 XT is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon RX 560X, sitting just 0.3% ahead. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 by 0.6% and the NVIDIA Tesla K80 by 1%, while leading the AMD FirePro D500 by 0.8%.

Q: What is the single largest performance gap between the two cards?

A: The largest gap is in the Passmark DirectX 11 test, where the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 scores 128 versus the AMD card's 85, a 33.6% difference. The second-largest gap is in the Passmark DirectX 10 test, with NVIDIA leading 108 to 76, a 29.6% delta.

Q: In which benchmark does the AMD card win, and by how much?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT wins the Passmark DirectX 12 test with a score of 59 versus the NVIDIA card's 52, representing a 13.5% advantage. This is the only head-to-head test where AMD comes out ahead.

Q: What are the memory specifications for each card?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 416.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Does either card support hardware ray tracing?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 includes 36 RT cores and 288 tensor cores, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT has no RT cores or tensor cores listed. This gives NVIDIA a dedicated hardware advantage for ray-traced workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 dominates the overall benchmark suite, winning 8 of 9 tests. Its most pronounced victories come in legacy DirectX APIs, where it scores 108 in DirectX 10 and 128 in DirectX 11, beating the AMD card by 29.6% and 33.6% respectively. In modern compute workloads, the NVIDIA card also leads substantially: it scores 74,540 in Geekbench OpenCL versus AMD's 59,467 (a 20.2% delta) and 78,844 in Geekbench Vulkan versus 56,593 (a 28.2% delta). The NVIDIA card further wins the Passmark G3D test 15,117 to 12,547, a 17% margin, and edges out AMD in GPU compute 6,176 to 5,787, a 6.3% advantage.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT's sole victory comes in Passmark DirectX 12, where its 59 score tops NVIDIA's 52 by 13.5%. This win is notable because DirectX 12 represents a modern, low-level API that can leverage the AMD card's RDNA 1.0 architecture efficiently. Beyond this single benchmark, the AMD card's advantage lies in its memory configuration: 16 GB of VRAM versus 8 GB on the NVIDIA card. For workloads that require large datasets resident in GPU memory, the AMD card can hold twice the data without spilling to system memory. The AMD card also has a higher FP32 throughput at 7.675 TFLOPS versus NVIDIA's 7.119 TFLOPS, though this raw compute advantage does not translate into benchmark wins in the tested workloads.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures and process nodes. The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT uses the Navi 10 chip on TSMC's 7 nm process, packing 10,300 million transistors into a 251 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 41.0 million per mm². The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 uses the TU104 chip on TSMC's 12 nm process, with 13,600 million transistors on a much larger 545 mm² die, resulting in a lower density of 25.0 million per mm². The AMD card's smaller, denser die reflects the newer process technology.

The NVIDIA card's Turing architecture brings dedicated hardware that the AMD card lacks: 36 RT cores for ray tracing and 288 tensor cores for AI acceleration. The AMD card has no such specialized units, relying entirely on its 2,560 shading units for all compute work. NVIDIA's shading unit count is lower at 2,304, but its architecture includes these additional processing blocks. Both cards have 64 ROPs, but AMD has 160 TMUs versus NVIDIA's 144.

The memory subsystems differ in capacity but not width. Both use a 256-bit bus, but the NVIDIA card runs its GDDR6 memory at 13 Gbps effective, achieving 416.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the AMD card runs at 12 Gbps effective for 384.0 GB/s. The AMD card compensates with 16 GB capacity versus NVIDIA's 8 GB. The AMD card supports PCIe 4.0 x16, while the NVIDIA card uses PCIe 3.0 x16. In terms of API support, NVIDIA lists DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while AMD lists DirectX 12 (12_1), indicating NVIDIA supports the newer feature set.

Specification Differences

The most visible specification gap is memory capacity: the AMD card offers 16 GB versus the NVIDIA card's 8 GB. Bandwidth slightly favors NVIDIA at 416.0 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s. The AMD card has a higher base clock of 1243 MHz versus 1005 MHz, but the NVIDIA card boosts higher at 1545 MHz versus 1499 MHz. Memory clock differs with NVIDIA at 1625 MHz versus AMD's 1500 MHz.

Shading units favor AMD at 2,560 versus NVIDIA's 2,304, and TMUs favor AMD 160 to 144. Both have 64 ROPs. FP32 compute favors AMD at 7.675 TFLOPS versus 7.119 TFLOPS, and FP16 similarly favors AMD at 15.35 TFLOPS versus 14.24 TFLOPS. Pixel rate slightly favors NVIDIA at 98.88 GPixel/s versus 95.94 GPixel/s, while texture rate favors AMD at 239.8 GTexel/s versus 222.5 GTexel/s.

Power and physical specifications diverge significantly. The AMD card has a 130 W TDP, while the NVIDIA card draws 160 W. The AMD card is listed as an IGP with no power connectors and no display outputs, while the NVIDIA card is a single-slot design measuring 241 mm by 111 mm, requiring one 8-pin power connector and offering 3x DisplayPort 1.4a plus 1x USB Type-C outputs. The suggested PSU is 300 W for AMD and 450 W for NVIDIA. The NVIDIA card launched with an 899 USD MSRP, while no launch MSRP is listed for the AMD card.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data presents a clear pattern: NVIDIA wins nearly every test, but AMD's one victory is significant. Starting with compute APIs, the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 scores 74,540 in Geekbench OpenCL against the AMD card's 59,467, a 20.2% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap widens to 28.2% with NVIDIA scoring 78,844 versus 56,593. These are the two largest absolute score differences in the entire suite, indicating NVIDIA's Turing architecture handles these cross-platform compute workloads substantially better.

The legacy DirectX tests show NVIDIA's strongest relative margins. In Passmark DirectX 11, NVIDIA scores 128 versus AMD's 85, a 33.6% delta — the largest percentage gap in any test. DirectX 10 shows a 29.6% gap (108 versus 76), and DirectX 9 shows a 25.4% gap (205 versus 153). These results suggest NVIDIA's driver optimization for older APIs remains strong, while AMD's RDNA 1.0 architecture may prioritize newer rendering paths.

The DirectX 12 test flips the script. AMD scores 59 versus NVIDIA's 52, giving AMD a 13.5% win. This is the only test where AMD leads, and it is notable that the margin is smaller than NVIDIA's wins in other DirectX versions. The DirectX 12 result may reflect AMD's architectural efficiency in a modern low-level API, even though the absolute scores are low compared to the Geekbench results.

In the remaining tests, NVIDIA maintains consistent leads. Passmark G3D shows NVIDIA at 15,117 versus 12,547, a 17% margin. Passmark GPU compute shows a tighter race at 6,176 versus 5,787, a 6.3% delta. The 2D test is closest of all NVIDIA wins, at 846 versus 810, only 4.3% apart. These results indicate that while NVIDIA dominates the overall performance picture, the AMD card is competitive in compute-heavy workloads and 2D operations.

The average benchmark scores tell a slightly different story than the head-to-head results. AMD's average of 18,685 exceeds NVIDIA's 17,789, and AMD's nearest rivals include the GeForce RTX 2070 at 18,789 and Tesla K80 at 18,866, while NVIDIA's nearest rivals include the RTX 4060 at 17,639 and Radeon 780M at 17,588. This suggests that when considering a broader benchmark set beyond the nine head-to-head tests, the AMD card's overall standing is slightly stronger, despite losing most direct comparisons to this specific NVIDIA model.