AMD Radeon Pro 580 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 580 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile are separated by nearly eight years of GPU architecture, and the benchmark data reflects a decisive generational gap. In the two directly comparable tests, the RTX 5080 Mobile delivers a 77% higher OpenCL score and a 74.5% higher Vulkan score, positioning it as the clear performance leader despite the Radeon Pro 580's respectable showing in its own right.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile wins decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 166,986 compared to the Radeon Pro 580's 38,457, representing a 77% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 5080 Mobile scores 169,754 versus 43,285, a 74.5% lead.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in overall benchmark percentiles?

A: The Radeon Pro 580 sits at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, while the RTX 5080 Mobile sits at the 81st percentile. Despite this near-equal ranking, the RTX 5080 Mobile's average benchmark score of 38,349 is lower than the Radeon Pro 580's 40,318, due to different test suites being used.

Q: What are the closest rivals for each GPU according to the data?

A: The Radeon Pro 580's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 with an average score of 40,377, a mere 0.1% difference. The RTX 5080 Mobile's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 with a score of 38,299, just 0.1% behind. Notably, the AMD Radeon Pro 580X appears as a rival to the RTX 5080 Mobile, scoring 38,706.

Q: Which GPU has more memory and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5080 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 580 has 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing 217.0 GB/s. This gives the RTX 5080 Mobile over four times the memory bandwidth.

Q: What is the production status and release timeline for each?

A: The Radeon Pro 580 is end-of-life, released on June 4, 2017. The RTX 5080 Mobile is active production, released on April 1, 2025. The RTX 5080 Mobile's predecessor is the GeForce 40 Mobile series.

Q: Do these GPUs support the same graphics APIs?

A: No. The Radeon Pro 580 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The RTX 5080 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, adding ray tracing and mesh shader capabilities through the 12_2 feature level.

Architecture Differences

The Radeon Pro 580 is built on AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture using the Ellesmere chip, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This architecture dates to 2017 and represents the last generation of GCN before AMD transitioned to RDNA. The chip contains 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.6M per mm². It features 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. The GCN 4.0 design has no dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores, relying entirely on traditional shader processing for all workloads.

In contrast, the RTX 5080 Mobile uses NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 architecture on the GB203 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. This is a substantially larger and more complex chip, containing 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 120.6M per mm² — nearly five times denser than the Radeon Pro 580. The Blackwell design includes 7,680 shading units, 240 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 60 dedicated ray tracing cores, and 240 tensor cores. These specialized units enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based features that the GCN 4.0 architecture cannot perform in hardware.

The clock behavior also differs fundamentally. The Radeon Pro 580 runs at a base clock of 1100 MHz with a 1200 MHz boost, while the RTX 5080 Mobile has a lower base of 975 MHz but boosts to 1500 MHz. The RTX 5080 Mobile compensates with far higher shader count and architectural efficiency. Memory architecture diverges sharply: the Radeon Pro 580 uses GDDR5 at 6.8 Gbps effective, while the RTX 5080 Mobile uses GDDR7 at 28 Gbps effective. The PCIe interface also differs, with the Radeon Pro 580 using PCIe 3.0 x16 and the RTX 5080 Mobile using PCIe 5.0 x16, providing four times the interconnect bandwidth.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data covers two tests, both dominated by the RTX 5080 Mobile. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5080 Mobile scores 166,986 against the Radeon Pro 580's 38,457. This represents a 77% delta in favor of NVIDIA, meaning the RTX 5080 Mobile delivers approximately 4.3 times the raw compute throughput in this cross-platform compute benchmark. The OpenCL test stresses general-purpose GPU compute, where the RTX 5080 Mobile's 7,680 shading units and 23.04 TFLOPS FP32 performance utterly overwhelm the Radeon Pro 580's 2,304 shaders and 5.530 TFLOPS.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap narrows slightly but remains enormous. The RTX 5080 Mobile scores 169,754 versus the Radeon Pro 580's 43,285, a 74.5% delta. This shows the RTX 5080 Mobile maintaining roughly a 3.9x advantage in Vulkan graphics and compute workloads. The slightly smaller delta in Vulkan compared to OpenCL suggests the Radeon Pro 580's GCN architecture handles Vulkan's explicit control model relatively better than OpenCL's more abstracted interface, but the fundamental hardware disparity remains overwhelming.

The RTX 5080 Mobile's additional benchmark suite shows its versatility. Its PassMark G3D score of 27,711 and GPU compute score of 12,134 indicate strong rasterization and compute performance across DirectX 10, 11, and 12 tests. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,952 further confirms modern gaming capability. The Radeon Pro 580 lacks these specific benchmark entries, making direct comparison impossible, but its average benchmark score of 40,318 across its three tests (Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan) demonstrates it performs admirably for its 2017 vintage.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon Pro 580 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | GCN 4.0 | Blackwell 2.0 |

| Process Node | 14 nm | 5 nm |

| Foundry | GlobalFoundries | TSMC |

| Transistors | 5,700 million | 45,600 million |

| Die Size | 232 mm² | 378 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 24.6M / mm² | 120.6M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1100 MHz | 975 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1200 MHz | 1500 MHz |

| Memory Size | 8 GB GDDR5 | 16 GB GDDR7 |

| Memory Clock | 6.8 Gbps effective | 28 Gbps effective |

| Memory Bandwidth | 217.0 GB/s | 896.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 2304 | 7680 |

| TMUs | 144 | 240 |

| ROPs | 32 | 96 |

| RT Cores | None | 60 |

| Tensor Cores | None | 240 |

| Pixel Rate | 38.40 GPixel/s | 144.0 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 172.8 GTexel/s | 360.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 5.530 TFLOPS | 23.04 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 5.530 TFLOPS (1:1) | 23.04 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 185 W | 80 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 5.0 x16 |

| DirectX Support | 12 (12_0) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan Support | 1.3 | 1.4 |

| Production Status | End-of-life | Active |

| Release Date | June 4, 2017 | April 1, 2025 |

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5080 Mobile wins every head-to-head benchmark category. Its advantages are most pronounced in raw compute, where the 77% OpenCL delta and 74.5% Vulkan delta demonstrate overwhelming superiority. The 16 GB GDDR7 memory with 896.0 GB/s bandwidth provides 4.1 times the bandwidth of the Radeon Pro 580, making it far better suited for large datasets, high-resolution textures, and AI workloads. The 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores enable hardware ray tracing and DLSS-style features that the Radeon Pro 580 cannot execute in hardware at all. The 23.04 TFLOPS FP32 performance is 4.2 times the Radeon Pro 580's 5.530 TFLOPS. The RTX 5080 Mobile also achieves this with a 185 W lower TDP (80 W versus 185 W), making it dramatically more power-efficient.

The Radeon Pro 580's wins are more contextual than absolute. Its 82nd percentile ranking versus the RTX 5080 Mobile's 81st percentile shows it remains competitive against the broader GPU landscape, even if not against this specific rival. Its higher average benchmark score of 40,318 versus 38,349 reflects the different test methodologies, with Geekbench Metal (39,213) being a strong result for a 2017 GPU. The Radeon Pro 580's nearest rival is the RTX 5070, just 0.1% ahead, indicating it still trades blows with modern mid-range GPUs in some workloads. For users on older systems with PCIe 3.0, the Radeon Pro 580 avoids any bottleneck from newer interface requirements. Its 8 GB GDDR5 memory, while smaller, remains sufficient for 1080p gaming and professional 2D/3D workloads from its era.

The Verdict

The data unequivocally favors the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile for any user prioritizing performance, future-proofing, or efficiency. With a 77% lead in OpenCL and 74.5% in Vulkan, it is not merely faster — it is in a different performance class entirely. The 4.2x FP32 advantage, 4.1x memory bandwidth, and 8 GB additional VRAM make it the clear choice for modern gaming, 3D rendering, machine learning, or any compute-heavy task. The 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores provide hardware capabilities the Radeon Pro 580 lacks entirely. Critically, the RTX 5080 Mobile achieves all this at 80 W TDP versus 185 W, meaning it delivers vastly more performance per watt. Its active production status and 2025 release ensure ongoing driver support and compatibility with current software.

The AMD Radeon Pro 580 should only be selected by users constrained to legacy systems with PCIe 3.0 and no upgrade path, or those running software specifically optimized for GCN architecture. Its 82nd percentile ranking and average score of 40,318 show it remains a functional GPU for basic tasks, but its 2017 end-of-life status and 14 nm process place it firmly in the past. For anyone choosing between these two, the RTX 5080 Mobile wins on every measurable metric — performance, memory, features, efficiency, and longevity. The Radeon Pro 580's only theoretical advantage is its lower power draw in absolute terms (185 W is still higher than 80 W, so this is not even true) — the verdict is unambiguous: the RTX 5080 Mobile is the superior GPU by every data point in this comparison.