AMD Radeon Pro 580 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Comparison

The GeForce RTX 5080 and the Radeon Pro 580 sit at opposite ends of the GPU timeline, and the recorded data reflects that gulf clearly. Across the two shared benchmark tests in the database, the NVIDIA card dominates outright, but the AMD part’s legacy position and unique integration role still warrant a closer look at what the numbers imply for different use cases.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains two directly comparable tests between these GPUs: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. In both, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 wins decisively, and the magnitude of the margin is the headline result.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5080 scores 235,901 points, while the Radeon Pro 580 scores 38,457 points. That is a delta of 513.4% in favor of the NVIDIA card. To put it plainly, the RTX 5080 delivers more than six times the raw compute throughput in this cross-platform API test. This is not a close contest; it is a generational and architectural chasm. The OpenCL result likely reflects the RTX 5080’s massive shader count (10,752 shading units versus 2,304) and its much higher clock speeds (boost clock of 2617 MHz versus 1200 MHz), though those are specification facts, not the only drivers.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 5080 scores 255,450 points, against 43,285 for the Radeon Pro 580. The delta here is 490.2%, again a crushing NVIDIA victory. Vulkan tends to expose low-level hardware capabilities, and the modern Blackwell architecture’s implementation clearly outclasses the older GCN 4.0 design. The RTX 5080’s score is also higher than its own OpenCL result, while the Radeon Pro 580’s Vulkan score is only modestly above its OpenCL figure, suggesting that the older architecture does not gain as much from the newer API’s overhead reduction.

Across these two tests, the RTX 5080 wins 2 out of 2, with zero wins for the Radeon Pro 580. The average benchmark score in the database tells the same story: the RTX 5080 sits at 56,083 points, while the Radeon Pro 580 averages 40,318 points. That is a difference of roughly 39% in the NVIDIA card’s favor, though the average is skewed by the fact that the Radeon Pro 580 only has three recorded tests (including a Geekbench Metal score of 39,213, which has no direct counterpart on the NVIDIA side). The head-to-head deltas of 513.4% and 490.2% are the cleanest apples-to-apples comparison available.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the shared benchmark tests in the database?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 wins both recorded head-to-head tests. It beats the Radeon Pro 580 by 513.4% in Geekbench OpenCL and by 490.2% in Geekbench Vulkan.

Q: How does the Radeon Pro 580 compare to its own nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon Pro 580’s average benchmark score is 40,318. Its closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, which scores 40,377 (a delta of -0.1%, meaning the RTX 5070 is marginally ahead). It is also close to the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40,063, +0.6% in favor of the Pro 580) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (40,870, -1.4% against the Pro 580). Only the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile trails by a larger margin (39,568, +1.9% for the Pro 580).

Q: What is the Geekbench Metal score for the Radeon Pro 580?

A: The Radeon Pro 580 records a Geekbench Metal score of 39,213. This test is not available for the RTX 5080 in the database, so it cannot be directly compared.

Q: Does the RTX 5080 have a higher percentile ranking than the Radeon Pro 580?

A: Yes. The RTX 5080 sits at the 87th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the Radeon Pro 580 sits at the 82nd percentile. Despite the massive head-to-head margins, both cards rank in the upper tier, highlighting how the Pro 580’s age does not completely drop it out of contention for certain workloads.

Q: How does the RTX 5080’s average score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 5080’s average benchmark score is 56,083. It is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698). It trails the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by 2.2% (that rival scores 57,367).

Q: Which GPU has the higher boost clock?

A: The RTX 5080 boosts to 2617 MHz, while the Radeon Pro 580 boosts to 1200 MHz. The NVIDIA card’s boost clock is more than double that of the AMD card.

The Verdict

From the recorded data, the choice is unambiguous for any workload that uses OpenCL or Vulkan: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the superior performer. Its scores are roughly five to six times higher in the shared tests, and its percentile ranking (87th versus 82nd) reflects a broader lead across the entire GPU landscape. Anyone needing maximum compute throughput in modern APIs should choose the RTX 5080 without hesitation.

However, the Radeon Pro 580 is not without a niche. Its end-of-life production status and its 2017 release date place it firmly in legacy territory, but its performance is still competitive with current mid-range parts like the RTX 5070 (within 0.1% in average score). The Pro 580’s integrated form factor (listed as IGP slot width, with no power connectors) suggests it was designed for space-constrained or portable systems where discrete power delivery is impossible. For those environments, the data shows it remains a serviceable option, though it will not handle the same compute loads as a modern flagship.

The database also indicates the Pro 580’s nearest rivals are all within a narrow band (from 39,568 to 40,870), meaning that for its intended class, it is not an outlier in either direction. The RTX 5080, by contrast, sits in a higher performance tier where even its closest rivals are separated by less than 3% in either direction. The verdict is straightforward: pick the RTX 5080 for raw performance, pick the Radeon Pro 580 only if the integrated form factor and legacy compatibility are absolute requirements.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ on nearly every core specification. The RTX 5080 uses 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 580 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, also on a 256-bit bus, but only reaches 217.0 GB/s. That is a 4.4x bandwidth advantage for the NVIDIA card, directly feeding its higher fill rates.

The RTX 5080 has 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units. The Radeon Pro 580 has 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The NVIDIA card also includes 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores, while the AMD part lists none for either feature. Pixel rate for the RTX 5080 is 293.1 GPixel/s versus 38.40 GPixel/s for the Pro 580, and texture rate is 879.3 GTexel/s versus 172.8 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 56.28 TFLOPS versus 5.530 TFLOPS.

The RTX 5080’s base clock is 2295 MHz with a boost of 2617 MHz, while the Pro 580 runs at 1100 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost. Memory clocks differ as well: the RTX 5080 runs at 1875 MHz (30 Gbps effective), while the Pro 580 runs at 1695 MHz (6.8 Gbps effective). Power draw is 360 W for the NVIDIA card versus 185 W for the AMD card. The RTX 5080 uses a single 16-pin power connector and suggests a 750 W PSU; the Pro 580 lists no power connectors and no suggested PSU. Bus interface is PCIe 5.0 x16 for the RTX 5080 and PCIe 3.0 x16 for the Pro 580. Display outputs are 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b for NVIDIA, while AMD lists “Portable Device Dependent.” The RTX 5080 is dual-slot and measures 304 mm in length; the Pro 580 has no listed dimensions.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is as wide as the benchmark gap. The RTX 5080 is built on NVIDIA’s Blackwell 2.0 architecture, using the GB203 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It packs 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 120.6M per mm². The Radeon Pro 580 uses AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture, built around the Ellesmere chip, on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It contains 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, with a density of 24.6M per mm². That means the RTX 5080 has eight times the transistor count, albeit on a much larger die.

The RTX 5080 belongs to the GeForce 50 series, with a generation of “GeForce 50,” and its predecessor is the GeForce 40 series, with a successor in the GeForce 60 series. The Radeon Pro 580 is part of the “Radeon Pro Mac (500 Series)” generation, with no listed predecessor or successor. The RTX 5080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Pro 580 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The NVIDIA card’s higher Vulkan version and DirectX feature level align with its newer architecture.

The RTX 5080’s tensor cores and ray tracing cores are absent from the Pro 580 entirely, meaning any workload that relies on those features (such as AI inference or ray-traced rendering) is simply not possible on the AMD part. The Pro 580’s integrated design (IGP slot width) and lack of discrete power connectors further distinguish it as a mobile or embedded solution, whereas the RTX 5080 is a full-sized add-in card.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5080 wins every shared benchmark test, and the margins are enormous. In OpenCL, it is 513.4% ahead, and in Vulkan, it is 490.2% ahead. That makes it the clear choice for any compute-heavy workload that uses these APIs, including general-purpose GPU computing, rendering, and modern game engines that leverage Vulkan. Its higher bandwidth (960.0 GB/s versus 217.0 GB/s) also makes it better suited for large dataset processing, and its FP32 throughput of 56.28 TFLOPS versus 5.530 TFLOPS suggests it can handle tasks like scientific simulation or video encoding far more quickly. The RTX 5080 also wins on raw feature set: ray tracing cores and tensor cores are present only on the NVIDIA side, so any ray-traced or AI-accelerated task has no equivalent on the Pro 580.

The Radeon Pro 580’s wins are more contextual. It has no head-to-head benchmark victories, but its data shows it holds its own against modern mid-range rivals. Its average score of 40,318 is within 1.4% of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 and within 0.6% of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100. It also beats the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile by 1.9%. For legacy applications that rely on older APIs (it supports DirectX 12_0, not 12_2), the Pro 580 remains functional. Its integrated form factor and lack of external power connectors make it the only viable option in systems where discrete GPU power delivery is impossible, such as certain portable or all-in-one Mac designs. Its Geekbench Metal score of 39,213, while not comparable to the RTX 5080, indicates it can still accelerate Metal-based workloads on Apple platforms.

In summary, the RTX 5080 wins on absolute performance, modern feature support, and API compliance. The Radeon Pro 580 wins only on integration flexibility and legacy compatibility, but even then, its performance is modest by modern standards, sitting at the 82nd percentile versus the RTX 5080’s 87th. The data does not support any scenario where the Pro 580 outperforms the RTX 5080 in the tests they share.