AMD Radeon Pro 580 vs NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile and AMD Radeon Pro 580 represent two distinct generations of professional mobile graphics, split by architecture philosophy and era. The data shows a clear overall winner in raw compute, but the Radeon Pro 580 counters with advantages in memory capacity and texture throughput. Below is a systematic comparison based strictly on the benchmark results and specifications provided.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile leads with an average benchmark score of 47743, while the AMD Radeon Pro 580 scores 40318. This puts the NVIDIA part at the 85th percentile of all GPUs, compared to the AMD’s 82nd percentile.

Q: How do the two compare in OpenCL performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile wins decisively, scoring 48703 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 38457 for the AMD Radeon Pro 580. That is a 26.6% advantage for the NVIDIA GPU.

Q: Is the Radeon Pro 580 competitive in any cross-platform API?

A: In Geekbench Vulkan, the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile still wins, but by a smaller margin: 46782 versus 43285, a difference of 8.1%. The AMD part does not win either of the two head-to-head tests.

Q: What memory configuration does each GPU offer?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 176.0 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD Radeon Pro 580 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 217.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and texture mapping units?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 580 has 2304 shading units and 144 TMUs. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile has 2048 shading units and 64 TMUs.

Q: What is the transistor count and die size difference?

A: The NVIDIA chip (GA107) contains 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. The AMD chip (Ellesmere) contains 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile dominates in compute-heavy workloads that leverage OpenCL and Vulkan. In OpenCL, its 48703 score eclipses the Radeon Pro 580’s 38457 by a wide margin, making it the clear choice for tasks that scale with raw FP32 throughput or benefit from the Ampere architecture’s feature set. The Vulkan result reinforces this pattern, with NVIDIA ahead by 8.1%, suggesting better driver optimization or hardware scheduling for modern graphics APIs.

The AMD Radeon Pro 580, while losing both head-to-head benchmark tests, wins in memory-centric scenarios. Its 8 GB frame buffer is double the NVIDIA’s 4 GB, and its 217.0 GB/s bandwidth is 23% higher than the 176.0 GB/s of the RTX A1000 Mobile. For applications that require large datasets resident in VRAM — such as high-resolution texture sets or multi-layer compositing — the Radeon Pro 580 provides more headroom. Its texture rate of 172.8 GTexel/s is also substantially higher than the NVIDIA’s 72.96 GTexel/s, indicating a strong advantage in purely texture-bound operations.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA107 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. This is a modern design that includes dedicated ray tracing cores (16) and tensor cores (64), enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI inference. The architecture supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. Its transistor density is 43.5M per mm², reflecting a dense, power-efficient layout.

The AMD Radeon Pro 580 uses the older GCN 4.0 architecture with the Ellesmere chip, produced on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It has no dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores, and its DirectX support is limited to 12 (12_0), with Vulkan 1.3 and OpenGL 4.6. The transistor density is 24.6M per mm², lower than NVIDIA’s, but the die is physically larger at 232 mm² versus 200 mm². The GCN design relies on a high count of shading units (2304) and TMUs (144) to achieve performance, rather than specialized hardware.

The process node difference (8 nm vs 14 nm) and the presence of RT/tensor cores are the fundamental architectural splits. NVIDIA’s part is designed for modern workloads that can use ray tracing or tensor operations, while AMD’s part is a pure rasterization engine with a wide memory bus.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every core specification. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile has a base clock of 630 MHz and a boost clock of 1140 MHz. The AMD Radeon Pro 580 runs higher at 1100 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ: NVIDIA uses 1375 MHz (11 Gbps effective) GDDR6, while AMD uses 1695 MHz (6.8 Gbps effective) GDDR5.

Shading units: NVIDIA has 2048, AMD has 2304. TMUs: NVIDIA has 64, AMD has 144. ROPs are equal at 32 each. Pixel rate is close — 36.48 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 38.40 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate diverges sharply: 72.96 GTexel/s for NVIDIA versus 172.8 GTexel/s for AMD. FP32 performance stands at 4.669 TFLOPS for NVIDIA and 5.530 TFLOPS for AMD, with both offering 1:1 FP16 rates of 4.669 TFLOPS and 5.530 TFLOPS respectively.

Power consumption is a major differentiator: the NVIDIA part has a TDP of 60 W, while the AMD part draws 185 W. Both are listed as IGP slot width with no power connectors. Bus interface differs: NVIDIA uses PCIe 4.0 x8, AMD uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are portable device dependent for both. The NVIDIA GPU was released on 2022-03-29, while the AMD GPU dates to 2017-06-04. Both are end-of-life products.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The first head-to-head test is Geekbench OpenCL. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile scores 48703, while the AMD Radeon Pro 580 scores 38457. This is a 26.6% win for NVIDIA. In practical terms, this means the NVIDIA part is over a quarter faster in a generic compute workload that stresses FP32 and memory access patterns.

The second test is Geekbench Vulkan. Here the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile scores 46782, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580 scores 43285. The delta narrows to 8.1%, but NVIDIA still wins. The Vulkan result suggests that when both GPUs are pushed through a modern graphics API, the NVIDIA architecture’s scheduling and driver efficiency offset the AMD part’s higher raw texture and shading throughput.

Across the two available benchmark tests, NVIDIA wins both, with a combined record of 2 wins and 0 losses. The average benchmark score confirms this: 47743 for NVIDIA versus 40318 for AMD, a difference of approximately 18.4%. The Radeon Pro 580’s closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, scores 40377, which is only 0.1% higher than the AMD part — showing that the Radeon Pro 580 sits at a competitive level against a modern mid-range desktop GPU, but not against the RTX A1000 Mobile.

The Verdict

The data points to one conclusion: the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile is the faster GPU in every benchmark test recorded. Its OpenCL lead of 26.6% and Vulkan lead of 8.1% are not marginal; they represent a substantial performance gap. For users who prioritize compute performance, modern API support, or ray tracing capabilities, the NVIDIA part is the only choice between these two. Its 60 W TDP also makes it far more suitable for thin-and-light mobile workstations compared to the 185 W AMD part.

The AMD Radeon Pro 580 should be selected only when its specific strengths matter more than raw compute scores. It has double the memory (8 GB versus 4 GB), higher bandwidth (217.0 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s), and a texture rate of 172.8 GTexel/s that dwarfs the NVIDIA’s 72.96 GTexel/s. For texture-heavy workloads that fit within its larger frame buffer, the AMD part may deliver smoother performance despite losing synthetic benchmarks. Its higher FP32 throughput (5.530 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS) also gives it a theoretical edge in pure compute tasks that are not captured by the OpenCL and Vulkan tests included here.

In summary, the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile wins the head-to-head comparison on the strength of its benchmark scores and architectural modernity. The Radeon Pro 580 remains viable for memory-bound professional tasks, but the benchmark data does not support it as an overall superior product. Choose NVIDIA for performance, AMD for VRAM capacity and texture throughput.