AMD Radeon Pro 580X vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile Comparison

# Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data paints a stark picture of generational separation. In the two directly comparable tests, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile dominates the AMD Radeon Pro 580X by margins that approach or exceed 300 percent. The largest gap appears in Geekbench OpenCL, where the RTX 4090 Mobile scores 180,831 against the Radeon Pro 580X's 36,426 — a delta of 396.4 percent. That is not an incremental improvement; it is a five-fold performance jump that places the two GPUs in entirely different performance tiers.

Geekbench Vulkan tells a similar story, albeit slightly less lopsided. The RTX 4090 Mobile posts 170,774 compared to the Radeon Pro 580X's 40,115, a 325.7 percent advantage. Both scores reinforce the same conclusion: regardless of API, the RTX 4090 Mobile delivers roughly four to five times the raw compute throughput of the older AMD part. The wins ledger reflects this, with the NVIDIA card taking both head-to-head tests while the AMD card records zero victories.

The average benchmark scores further contextualize the gulf. The RTX 4090 Mobile carries an average score of 43,667 across its benchmark suite, placing it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs. The Radeon Pro 580X averages 38,706, sitting in the 82nd percentile. While the percentile gap appears modest — just two points — the absolute score difference of roughly 5,000 points masks a significant architectural and performance chasm. The Radeon Pro 580X's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A (delta 0 percent) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (delta 0.9 percent), while the RTX 4090 Mobile sits within 0.9 percent of the NVIDIA RTX A6000 and edges the Quadro M6000 by 0.8 percent. In short, the NVIDIA card competes with workstation-class silicon, while the AMD card trades blows with entry-level mobile parts.

# Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs spans nearly a full decade of design philosophy. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It houses the AD103 chip, packing 45,900 million transistors into a 379 mm² die — a transistor density of 121.1 million per square millimeter. This is a modern, power-efficient design that leverages advanced node scaling to achieve massive compute density.

The AMD Radeon Pro 580X, by contrast, uses the GCN 4.0 architecture on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. Its Ellesmere chip contains just 5,700 million transistors spread across a 232 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.6 million per square millimeter. That represents roughly one-fifth the transistor density of the NVIDIA chip, highlighting how far process technology advanced between the two releases. The AMD part launched in March 2019; the NVIDIA card arrived in January 2023, and the node shrink from 14 nm to 5 nm is the primary enabler of the NVIDIA card's performance supremacy.

Feature support diverges just as sharply. The RTX 4090 Mobile includes 76 dedicated ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads. The Radeon Pro 580X lists no ray tracing or tensor cores — a fundamental capability gap. API support also favors NVIDIA: the RTX 4090 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon Pro 580X maxes out at DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. OpenGL support is identical at 4.6, but the DirectX and Vulkan version differences matter for modern game and compute workloads.

# Where Each One Wins

The data shows no scenario where the Radeon Pro 580X outperforms the RTX 4090 Mobile in shared benchmarks — the NVIDIA card wins both head-to-head tests outright. However, the two cards target different ecosystems, and the AMD part does have a niche. The Radeon Pro 580X supports Apple's MPX bus interface and features dual HDMI 2.0b outputs, making it a purpose-built solution for Mac Pro systems. Its Geekbench Metal score of 39,577 indicates respectable performance in Apple's graphics API, though no direct Metal comparison against the NVIDIA card exists in the data. For users locked into the Mac ecosystem at the time of its release, the Radeon Pro 580X was a competent choice.

The RTX 4090 Mobile, meanwhile, wins decisively in every measurable compute and graphics workload. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 180,831 is 396.4 percent higher than the AMD card's 36,426, making it the clear choice for OpenCL-based compute tasks. Its Vulkan score of 170,774 versus 40,115 (325.7 percent advantage) solidifies its position for cross-platform graphics workloads. The NVIDIA card also benefits from a broader benchmark portfolio — it has nine recorded tests spanning DirectX 9 through 12, G2D, G3D, and compute, while the AMD card only has three Geekbench entries. This suggests the RTX 4090 Mobile is a general-purpose workhorse, whereas the Radeon Pro 580X was optimized for a narrower Mac-centric use case.

# Specification Differences

The specification sheet reveals the full extent of the generational leap. The RTX 4090 Mobile ships with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 580X offers half the capacity — 8 GB of GDDR5 — on the same 256-bit bus, yielding just 218.9 GB/s. That bandwidth deficit alone (357.1 GB/s) would bottleneck any modern workload.

Compute resources are equally lopsided. The RTX 4090 Mobile fields 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs. The Radeon Pro 580X counters with 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and just 32 ROPs. Pixel rate tells the story: 189.8 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 38.40 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate follows suit: 515.3 GTexel/s versus 172.8 GTexel/s. Floating-point performance — 32.98 TFLOPS for the RTX 4090 Mobile against 5.530 TFLOPS for the Radeon Pro 580X — shows a near six-fold gap in raw compute.

Clock speeds favor the NVIDIA card as well. The RTX 4090 Mobile runs at a 1335 MHz base and 1695 MHz boost, with memory at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). The Radeon Pro 580X clocks at 1100 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost, with memory at 1710 MHz (6.8 Gbps effective). Notably, the AMD card draws more power — 185 W versus 120 W for NVIDIA — yet delivers far less performance, underscoring the efficiency gains of the 5 nm process. Both cards are integrated (IGP form factor), but the Radeon Pro 580X connects via Apple MPX while the RTX 4090 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16. The NVIDIA card's production status is Active; the AMD card is End-of-life.

# FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in OpenCL workloads?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile is 396.4 percent faster than the AMD Radeon Pro 580X in Geekbench OpenCL, scoring 180,831 versus 36,426.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro 580X support ray tracing?

A: No. The Radeon Pro 580X lists no ray tracing cores, while the RTX 4090 Mobile includes 76 dedicated RT cores.

Q: How much memory bandwidth does each card provide?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile delivers 576.0 GB/s from 16 GB of GDDR6, while the Radeon Pro 580X offers 218.9 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR5.

Q: What is the power draw difference between the two?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile has a 120 W TDP, whereas the Radeon Pro 580X draws 185 W — despite being significantly slower.

Q: Which API versions do each support?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The Radeon Pro 580X supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Q: Are there any benchmarks where the Radeon Pro 580X wins?

A: No. In the two head-to-head tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan), the RTX 4090 Mobile wins both. The Radeon Pro 580X has no recorded wins in the data.