AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 vs AMD Radeon RX 9070 Comparison

AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 occupy vastly different corners of the GPU landscape. The Pro Vega 20 is an end-of-life mobile integrated part from 2018, built for professional Mac workflows, while the RX 9070 is an active, desktop-focused RDNA 4 graphics card from 2025. The database shows a clear generational chasm, with the RX 9070 outperforming the Pro Vega 20 by massive margins in every shared benchmark, though the older card still holds its own in specific legacy contexts. This analysis uses only recorded measurements and specifications to compare the two.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 scores 131,539 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 79.7% higher than the Pro Vega 20's 26,679. The RX 9070 wins this test outright.

Q: How big is the gap in Geekbench Vulkan performance?

A: The RX 9070 records 58,705 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Pro Vega 20 scores 26,410. The delta is 55%, making the RX 9070 the clear winner in this API.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The Pro Vega 20 uses 4 GB of HBM2 with a 1024-bit bus and 189.4 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 9070 uses 16 GB of GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: When was each card released?

A: The Pro Vega 20 launched on November 13, 2018, and is marked as end-of-life. The RX 9070 launched on March 5, 2025, and is currently active in production.

Q: Which GPU has a higher boost clock?

A: The RX 9070 boosts to 2520 MHz, which is nearly double the Pro Vega 20's 1283 MHz boost clock. The base clocks are also far apart: 1330 MHz for the RX 9070 versus 815 MHz for the Pro Vega 20.

Q: What are the transistor counts?

A: The RX 9070 has 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die. The Pro Vega 20's transistor count is not recorded in the database.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 9070 wins every benchmark where both cards have recorded scores. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 delivers 131,539 points versus the Pro Vega 20's 26,679, a gap of 79.7%. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 9070 scores 58,705 against 26,410, a 55% advantage. The Pro Vega 20's only meaningful edge lies in its form factor and power profile: it is an integrated GPU (IGP) with a 100 W TDP, making it suitable for compact, power-limited systems where a discrete dual-slot card like the RX 9070 with a 220 W TDP would not fit. The Pro Vega 20 also supports PCIe 3.0 x16, which is backward-compatible with older platforms, whereas the RX 9070 requires PCIe 5.0 x16 for full bandwidth. For raw compute and gaming workloads, the RX 9070 is the only choice; the Pro Vega 20 is a legacy part for specific professional Mac environments.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different architectural eras. The Pro Vega 20 uses GCN 5.0 (Vega 12 chip) on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, while the RX 9070 uses RDNA 4.0 (Navi 48 chip) on a 4 nm process from TSMC. This node shrink is a primary driver of the performance gap: the RX 9070 packs 53,900 million transistors into 357 mm², achieving a density of 151.0M transistors per mm², whereas the Pro Vega 20's transistor density is not recorded. The RX 9070 also introduces dedicated ray tracing cores (56 of them), which the Pro Vega 20 lacks entirely. Shader organization differs as well: the RX 9070 has 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, versus the Pro Vega 20's 1280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The RX 9070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Pro Vega 20 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Specification Differences

The most striking specification gap is memory. The Pro Vega 20 has 4 GB of HBM2 with a 1024-bit bus and 189.4 GB/s bandwidth, while the RX 9070 has 16 GB of GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 9070's memory clock runs at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective), compared to the Pro Vega 20's 740 MHz (1480 Mbps effective). Compute throughput follows the same pattern: the RX 9070 delivers 36.13 TFLOPS FP32 and 36.13 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio), while the Pro Vega 20 manages 3.284 TFLOPS FP32 and 6.569 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). Pixel and texture rates are also lopsided: the RX 9070 hits 322.6 GPixel/s and 564.5 GTexel/s, versus 41.06 GPixel/s and 102.6 GTexel/s for the Pro Vega 20. Power draw differs significantly, with the RX 9070 rated at 220 W and requiring dual 8-pin power connectors plus a 550 W suggested PSU, while the Pro Vega 20 is an IGP with 100 W TDP and no power connector listed. The RX 9070 uses PCIe 5.0 x16 and has display outputs of 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a; the Pro Vega 20 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 with display outputs described as portable device dependent.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct comparisons between these GPUs. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 scores 131,539 against the Pro Vega 20's 26,679. This is a 79.7% win for the RX 9070, meaning the newer card is nearly five times faster in raw compute throughput. The gap is so large that the Pro Vega 20 trails even the RX 9070's nearest rivals by a wide margin; the RX 9070 sits within 1.2% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, while the Pro Vega 20 is within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 in its own benchmark pool. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 9070 scores 58,705 versus 26,410 for the Pro Vega 20, a 55% advantage. This narrower gap suggests the Pro Vega 20's GCN architecture handles Vulkan relatively better than OpenCL, but it still loses decisively. The RX 9070 also appears in additional benchmarks not shared with the Pro Vega 20, including 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 (6290), Passmark DirectX 10 (141), DirectX 11 (281), DirectX 12 (74), DirectX 9 (343), G2D (1280), G3D (25381), and GPU Compute (14737), which further confirms its broad superiority in modern workloads.

The Verdict

The RX 9070 is the definitive choice for anyone needing current-generation performance. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks by margins of 55% and 79.7%, offers 16 GB of memory versus 4 GB, and provides modern features like ray tracing cores and PCIe 5.0 support. Its percentile rank of 69 against all GPUs places it in the upper midrange, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and AMD Radeon RX 6800S, all within a 1.2% performance band. The Pro Vega 20, by contrast, ranks at the 73rd percentile but only because its benchmark pool is narrower; its average score of 27,839 is actually higher than the RX 9070's 23,877 average, but this is misleading since the RX 9070's average includes many more diverse tests like Passmark and 3DMark. The Pro Vega 20 is a legacy part, best suited for older Mac Pro or iMac systems where its IGP form factor and 100 W TDP are acceptable. It cannot keep pace with the RX 9070 in any recorded metric, and its end-of-life status means no future driver optimizations are likely. For a new build, the RX 9070 is the only rational pick; for a vintage professional Mac, the Pro Vega 20 remains a functional, power-efficient option. The data is unambiguous: the RX 9070 is the superior GPU in every measurable way, and the Pro Vega 20 should be considered only for compatibility with very specific legacy hardware.