AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile Comparison

The Verdict

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is in a completely different performance class than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16. The benchmark data shows an overwhelming advantage for the NVIDIA part, with the RTX 4070 Mobile winning both shared tests by margins of nearly 400% or more. The RTX 4070 Mobile sits at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the Radeon Pro Vega 16 sits at the 68th percentile. That percentile gap understates the actual performance difference because the RTX 4070 Mobile's average benchmark score of 27,435 places it alongside desktop-class GPUs like the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (27,425, 0% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (27,565, -0.5% delta). The Radeon Pro Vega 16's average of 23,250 puts it in the same range as the NVIDIA P106-100 (23,249, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23,273, -0.1% delta).

For users choosing between these two, the decision is straightforward. The RTX 4070 Mobile is the pick for anyone running modern games, GPU-accelerated creative workloads, or compute tasks that leverage DirectX 12 Ultimate or Vulkan 1.4 features. The Radeon Pro Vega 16 is an end-of-life product from 2018 with a 4 GB HBM2 frame buffer and a GCN 5.0 architecture that lacks hardware ray tracing and tensor cores entirely. The data suggests the Vega 16 is only relevant for legacy Mac-based workflows where its Metal API support (Geekbench Metal score of 29,650) matters, but even then the raw compute gap is massive. The RTX 4070 Mobile leads by 497.8% in Geekbench OpenCL and by 396.4% in Geekbench Vulkan. There is no scenario in the recorded data where the AMD part wins, and the NVIDIA card is the only rational choice for new hardware adoption.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 in OpenCL?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109,197 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 18,268 for the Vega 16, which is a 497.8% advantage for the NVIDIA part. That is roughly a six-fold performance difference in this compute workload.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The Vega 16 has no ray tracing cores listed in its specifications, whereas the RTX 4070 Mobile includes 36 dedicated RT cores. The Vega 16 also lacks tensor cores, while the NVIDIA part has 144 tensor cores.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between these two GPUs?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon Pro Vega 16 uses 4 GB of HBM2 memory on a 1024-bit bus with 307.2 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD part has higher raw bandwidth due to the extremely wide HBM2 interface, but less than half the capacity.

Q: Which GPU has the better average benchmark score relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile averages 27,435, matching the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (27,425) and nearly matching the RTX 3090 (27,565, -0.5% delta). The Vega 16 averages 23,250, which is essentially tied with the NVIDIA P106-100 (23,249) and slightly below the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23,273, -0.1% delta).

Q: Is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 still in production?

A: No, the production status is listed as end-of-life. The RTX 4070 Mobile is marked as active production. The Vega 16 was released in November 2018, while the RTX 4070 Mobile came out in January 2023.

Q: What API level does each GPU support for DirectX?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The Radeon Pro Vega 16 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. The NVIDIA card also supports OpenGL 4.6, matching the AMD card's OpenGL 4.6 support.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile uses the AD106 chip built on TSMC's 5 nm process, implementing the Ada Lovelace architecture. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 uses the Vega 12 chip on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process, implementing the older GCN 5.0 architecture. This process gap alone explains a substantial portion of the performance differential: the NVIDIA chip packs 22,900 million transistors into a 188 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.8 million per square millimeter. The AMD chip's transistor count and die size are not recorded in the database, but the 14 nm node versus 5 nm node comparison is stark.

The architectural feature sets diverge sharply. The RTX 4070 Mobile includes 36 RT cores and 144 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads. The Vega 16 has no RT cores and no tensor cores listed, meaning it falls back to compute shaders for any ray tracing or machine learning tasks. The RTX 4070 Mobile also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes features like mesh shaders and variable rate shading, while the Vega 16 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Vulkan support also differs: the NVIDIA part runs Vulkan 1.4, the AMD part runs Vulkan 1.3.

The memory subsystems represent different design philosophies. The RTX 4070 Mobile uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega 16 uses 4 GB of HBM2 on a 1024-bit bus with 307.2 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD card's HBM2 stack provides higher bandwidth but half the capacity, which limits its ability to hold large textures or datasets. The NVIDIA card's larger frame buffer is better suited to modern game resolutions and compute workloads.

The Vega 16 also carries the "Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series)" generation label, indicating its primary target was Apple Mac systems. This is reflected in its API support: the database records a Geekbench Metal score of 29,650 for the AMD part, while no Metal score is recorded for the RTX 4070 Mobile. The NVIDIA card's portable-device-dependent display outputs and IGP slot width indicate it is designed for mobile integration, similar to the AMD part's IGP designation.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 4070 Mobile has 4,608 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 48 raster operation units. The Vega 16 has 1,024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. That is a 4.5x advantage in shading units for the NVIDIA part, a 2.25x advantage in TMUs, and a 1.5x advantage in ROPs.

Clock speeds also differ substantially. The RTX 4070 Mobile runs at a base clock of 1395 MHz and a boost clock of 1695 MHz. The Vega 16 runs at 815 MHz base and 1190 MHz boost. The NVIDIA card's memory runs at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective transfer, while the AMD card's HBM2 runs at 1200 MHz with 2.4 Gbps effective. The RTX 4070 Mobile's pixel rate is 81.36 GPixel/s versus 38.08 GPixel/s for the Vega 16, and the texture rate is 244.1 GTexel/s versus 76.16 GTexel/s.

Compute throughput shows the largest gap. The RTX 4070 Mobile delivers 15.62 TFLOPS FP32 and 15.62 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio). The Vega 16 delivers 2.437 TFLOPS FP32 and 4.874 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The NVIDIA card is 6.4x faster in FP32 and 3.2x faster in FP16, even though the AMD card's FP16 rate benefits from the 2:1 throughput ratio.

Power consumption differs by 40 W: the RTX 4070 Mobile has a 115 W TDP while the Vega 16 has a 75 W TDP. Both are listed as IGP slot width with no external power connectors. The bus interfaces also differ: the RTX 4070 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the Vega 16 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The NVIDIA card has active production status and a January 2023 release date; the AMD card is end-of-life with a November 2018 release date.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The shared benchmark results between these two GPUs are limited to Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the NVIDIA card wins both by enormous margins.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109,197 versus 18,268 for the Vega 16. This is a 497.8% delta, meaning the NVIDIA card is roughly six times faster. This result aligns with the raw FP32 compute figures: 15.62 TFLOPS versus 2.437 TFLOPS. The OpenCL workload exercises general-purpose compute across the shading units, and the RTX 4070 Mobile's 4,608 shading units at higher clocks simply overwhelm the Vega 16's 1,024 shading units. The Vega 16's higher memory bandwidth (307.2 GB/s versus 256.0 GB/s) does not compensate for the massive compute deficit.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 108,367 versus 21,832 for the Vega 16, a 396.4% delta. The Vulkan test leverages modern graphics APIs, where the RTX 4070 Mobile's Ada Lovelace architecture and Vulkan 1.4 support provide clear advantages over the Vega 16's Vulkan 1.3 support. The NVIDIA card's 36 RT cores and 144 tensor cores may also contribute to certain Vulkan workloads that utilize ray tracing or compute shader extensions.

The database records zero wins for the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 in head-to-head comparisons. The wins tally stands at 2 for the RTX 4070 Mobile and 0 for the Vega 16. The Vega 16's only recorded benchmark strength is its Geekbench Metal score of 29,650, which has no direct counterpart in the RTX 4070 Mobile's benchmark set, so no cross-comparison is possible. In every directly comparable test, the NVIDIA part dominates.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the RTX 4070 Mobile's average score of 27,435 places it in the company of desktop cards like the RTX 3090 and RX 6700 XT, while the Vega 16's 23,250 average places it alongside older or lower-tier parts like the R9 M290X and P106-100. The performance gap is not marginal; it is generational. The RTX 4070 Mobile represents a modern, active, high-performance mobile GPU, while the Vega 16 represents a legacy, end-of-life part that has been superseded by multiple generations of AMD and NVIDIA hardware.