AMD Radeon Pro 575 vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison
AMD Radeon Pro 575
RTX A500 Mobile
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
Analysis: AMD Radeon Pro 575 vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile
The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile and AMD Radeon Pro 575 are two professional mobile GPUs from different architectural eras, yet their aggregate benchmark scores land them within a hair of each other. The data shows the RTX A500 Mobile averages 39,568 points across its tested workloads, while the Radeon Pro 575 averages 39,555 points—a difference of just 13 points, or 0.0% delta. Both sit at the 82nd percentile of all GPUs in the database. This near-perfect parity in overall performance masks significant divergences in individual APIs and hardware design, making the choice between them a matter of workload-specific priorities rather than raw speed.
Head-to-Head Benchmarks
The two GPUs split their direct comparisons evenly, with each claiming one victory in the head-to-head tests. The most lopsided result favors the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile in the Geekbench OpenCL test, where it scores 41,263 against the Radeon Pro 575's 34,596. That represents a 19.3% advantage for the NVIDIA part, a substantial margin that reflects its newer architecture and higher peak compute throughput. In practical terms, applications leveraging OpenCL for compute tasks—such as rendering, simulation, or data processing—would see a meaningful performance uplift on the RTX A500 Mobile. The NVIDIA GPU’s FP32 throughput is rated at 6.296 TFLOPS, compared to 4.489 TFLOPS for the AMD part, a 40% theoretical gap that manifests clearly in this compute-oriented benchmark.
The Vulkan result tells a different story. Here, the AMD Radeon Pro 575 edges out the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile by a razor-thin margin: 37,878 versus 37,873, a delta of 0.0%. This is effectively a tie, with the AMD card winning by five points out of nearly 38,000. The near-identical scores suggest that in Vulkan-based workloads, the architectural differences between the two largely cancel out. The Radeon Pro 575’s higher texture rate (140.3 GTexel/s versus 98.37 GTexel/s) and wider memory bus (256-bit versus 64-bit) may help it keep pace in graphics-heavy scenes, even though its raw FP32 compute is lower. For users targeting Vulkan for gaming or real-time visualization, the choice between these two would come down to other factors, as benchmark results indicate no practical performance difference.
It is importantly the AMD Radeon Pro 575 also has a Metal benchmark score of 46,192, which is its strongest individual result across all tests. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile has no corresponding Metal score in the data, so direct comparison on Apple’s graphics API is not possible. However, given the Radeon Pro 575’s heritage as part of the Radeon Pro Mac series, its Metal performance is likely a key strength for macOS-based workflows. The RTX A500 Mobile’s OpenCL score, meanwhile, stands as its best single result, suggesting it is particularly well-suited to cross-platform compute tasks.
FAQ
Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?
A: The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile averages 39,568 points, while the AMD Radeon Pro 575 averages 39,555 points. The difference is 13 points, or 0.0% delta, making them effectively identical in aggregate performance.
Q: How do the two GPUs compare in the Geekbench OpenCL test?
A: The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile wins decisively with a score of 41,263 versus 34,596 for the AMD Radeon Pro 575. This is a 19.3% advantage for the NVIDIA part, driven by its higher FP32 compute throughput of 6.296 TFLOPS.
Q: What is the result of the Geekbench Vulkan comparison?
A: The AMD Radeon Pro 575 wins by the narrowest possible margin: 37,878 versus 37,873 for the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile, a delta of 0.0%. The scores are statistically indistinguishable.
Q: Which GPU has a better percentile ranking among all GPUs?
A: Both GPUs share the same percentile ranking at 82. Despite their architectural differences, they sit at an identical position relative to the broader GPU landscape.
Q: Does the AMD Radeon Pro 575 have any benchmark results that the NVIDIA card lacks?
A: Yes, the AMD Radeon Pro 575 has a Geekbench Metal score of 46,192, which is its highest single benchmark result. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile has no Metal score listed in the data, limiting direct comparison on that API.
Q: How many head-to-head benchmark wins does each GPU have?
A: Each GPU wins one head-to-head test. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile wins in OpenCL, and the AMD Radeon Pro 575 wins in Vulkan, splitting the two available comparisons evenly.
The Verdict
The data presents a genuine dilemma for potential adopters, as neither GPU establishes clear dominance across the board. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile is the obvious choice for compute-heavy workflows that rely on OpenCL. Its 19.3% lead in that benchmark, combined with its 6.296 TFLOPS FP32 rating, makes it the stronger candidate for tasks like machine learning inference, physics simulation, or any CUDA-accelerated application that can leverage OpenCL. The RTX A500 Mobile also brings modern features—16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores—that the AMD card lacks entirely, which could matter for future-proofing in applications that adopt these capabilities.
The AMD Radeon Pro 575, however, is not without its merits. Its Vulkan performance matches the NVIDIA part exactly, and its Metal score of 46,192 suggests it is the superior choice for macOS ecosystems or Metal-based rendering pipelines. The AMD card also has a much wider memory bus (256-bit versus 64-bit) and more than double the memory bandwidth (217.0 GB/s versus 96.00 GB/s), which can be critical for texture-heavy workloads or large data sets that fit within the 4 GB frame buffer. Its texture rate of 140.3 GTexel/s exceeds the NVIDIA card’s 98.37 GTexel/s, potentially giving it an edge in fill-rate-limited scenarios.
Ultimately, the selection should be driven by the target API and platform. For Windows or Linux users prioritizing OpenCL compute, the RTX A500 Mobile is the clear winner. For macOS users or those whose applications are optimized for Metal, the Radeon Pro 575 holds the advantage. In Vulkan, the choice is a coin flip, with the AMD card’s microscopic lead being negligible in real-world usage. Both GPUs are end-of-life products, so longevity and driver support should be considered, but from a pure performance standpoint, the data does not crown a single champion.
Specification Differences
The two GPUs diverge sharply on almost every hardware specification, despite their similar aggregate performance. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile is built on an 8 nm Samsung process and packs 8,700 million transistors into a 200 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 43.5 million per mm². The AMD Radeon Pro 575 uses a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process with 5,700 million transistors on a larger 232 mm² die, resulting in a density of just 24.6 million per mm². The NVIDIA chip’s smaller, denser design reflects its newer manufacturing technology.
Clock speeds also differ, though the AMD card lists no base or boost clocks in the data. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile runs at a base clock of 832 MHz and boosts to 1537 MHz. Memory configurations are starkly different: the NVIDIA card uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with a 96.00 GB/s bandwidth, while the AMD card uses 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 217.0 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD part’s memory clock is rated at 1695 MHz (6.8 Gbps effective), while the NVIDIA card’s memory runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective).
Compute resources show a split. Both have 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs, but the AMD Radeon Pro 575 has 128 TMUs against the NVIDIA card’s 64. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile adds 16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores, features that the AMD card does not have at all. Pixel rate favors NVIDIA at 49.18 GPixel/s versus 35.07 GPixel/s, while texture rate favors AMD at 140.3 GTexel/s versus 98.37 GTexel/s. FP32 performance goes to NVIDIA at 6.296 TFLOPS versus 4.489 TFLOPS, and FP16 is identical on both at 1:1 ratios with the same figures.
Power and interface specs differ substantially. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile has a 30 W TDP and uses an IGP slot width with PCIe 4.0 x8 connectivity. The AMD Radeon Pro 575 draws 150 W, uses an MXM Module form factor, and runs on PCIe 3.0 x16. Neither requires external power connectors. API support favors NVIDIA: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (12_0), Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.3, while both support OpenGL 4.6.
Architecture Differences
The architectural gap between these two GPUs is generational. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile is based on the Ampere architecture, specifically the GA107S chip, and belongs to the Ampere-MW (Ax000) generation. The AMD Radeon Pro 575 uses the older GCN 4.0 architecture with the Ellesmere chip, part of the Radeon Pro Mac (500 Series) generation. This five-year difference in design philosophy is evident in their feature sets and efficiency metrics.
NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture brings dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores—16 and 64 of them, respectively—which are entirely absent from the AMD GCN 4.0 design. These specialized units enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based features like DLSS, though the benchmark data does not directly test these capabilities. The Ampere chip also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which includes features like mesh shaders and variable rate shading, whereas the GCN 4.0 part is limited to DirectX 12 (12_0). Vulkan support is also newer on the NVIDIA side (1.4 versus 1.3).
The manufacturing processes highlight the efficiency divide. NVIDIA’s 8 nm Samsung process, combined with a higher transistor density, allows the RTX A500 Mobile to deliver more FP32 throughput (6.296 TFLOPS) at a fraction of the power draw (30 W versus 150 W). The AMD card’s 14 nm process is older and less efficient, requiring five times the power to produce lower compute performance. The memory subsystems reflect different priorities: NVIDIA uses faster GDDR6 memory but on a narrow 64-bit bus, while AMD uses slower GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, resulting in the AMD card having more than double the bandwidth.
The bus interfaces also differ, with NVIDIA moving to PCIe 4.0 x8 while AMD remains on PCIe 3.0 x16. Both offer portable device dependent display outputs, fitting their mobile form factors. The release dates underscore the generational gap: the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile launched on 2022-03-21, while the AMD Radeon Pro 575 launched on 2017-06-04. The NVIDIA card’s predecessor is listed as Quadro Turing-M and its successor as Ada-MW, while the AMD card has no listed predecessor or successor in the data. These architectural differences explain why two GPUs with nearly identical average scores can have such divergent strengths and weaknesses.