AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Comparison

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 in OpenCL?

A: The RTX 5090 scores 334,370 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 scores 53,757. That is a 522% advantage for the RTX 5090.

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79,842, compared to 60,140 for the Radeon Pro Vega 48. The RTX 5090 also sits at the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 sits at the 88th percentile.

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

A: The RTX 5090 uses 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 uses 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 402.4 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Do both GPUs support ray tracing?

A: No. The RTX 5090 has 170 dedicated RT cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). The Radeon Pro Vega 48 has no RT cores listed and only supports DirectX 12 (12_1).

Q: What are the manufacturing process nodes?

A: The RTX 5090 is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 is built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries.

Q: What is the production status of each card?

A: The RTX 5090 is listed as Active in production, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 is End-of-life.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 represent two very different eras of GPU design. The RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using the GB202 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 uses the older GCN 5.0 architecture with the Vega 10 chip, produced on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This process gap alone explains a substantial portion of the performance difference: the RTX 5090 packs 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 122.9 million per mm². The Radeon Pro Vega 48 contains 12,500 million transistors on a 495 mm² die, for a density of 25.3 million per mm².

The compute resources diverge sharply. The RTX 5090 has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. It also includes 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, reflecting a modern GPU design with dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI workloads. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 has 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It has no listed RT cores or tensor cores, indicating a design that predates those specialized units. The RTX 5090 also supports Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 supports Vulkan 1.3.

Memory architecture is another fundamental split. The RTX 5090 uses 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 uses 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus, delivering 402.4 GB/s. Although the Vega 48 has a wider bus, the much higher effective memory clock of the RTX 5090 (1750 MHz, 28 Gbps effective versus 786 MHz, 1572 Mbps effective) gives it more than four times the bandwidth. The RTX 5090 also uses a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 uses PCIe 3.0 x16.

The physical and power characteristics are equally distinct. The RTX 5090 is a dual-slot card with a 1x 16-pin power connector and a 575 W TDP, requiring a 950 W suggested PSU. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with no power connectors and no TDP listed. The RTX 5090 has explicit dimensions (304 mm length, 137 mm height, 40 mm width) and display outputs of 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 lists its display outputs as "Portable Device Dependent" and has no dimensions recorded.

Production status also differs: the RTX 5090 is Active, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 is End-of-life. The RTX 5090 was released on 2025-01-29, with a launch MSRP of 1,999 USD. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 was released on 2019-03-18, with no launch MSRP recorded.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5090 wins every head-to-head benchmark recorded in the database. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 334,370 versus 53,757 for the Radeon Pro Vega 48, a 522% delta. In Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 376,728 versus 57,653, a 553.4% delta. The wins total 2 for the RTX 5090 and 0 for the Radeon Pro Vega 48 across the shared tests.

The RTX 5090 is positioned for high-end desktop workloads. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute make it suitable for large datasets, ray-traced rendering, and compute-heavy tasks. Its 680 tensor cores and 170 RT cores add dedicated acceleration for AI inference and real-time ray tracing, which the Radeon Pro Vega 48 cannot match. The RTX 5090 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), whereas the Radeon Pro Vega 48 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1).

The Radeon Pro Vega 48, as an IGP with portable-device-dependent display outputs, is built for a different context entirely. Its 8 GB of HBM2 memory and 402.4 GB/s bandwidth are modest by comparison, but it consumes no external power connectors and has no TDP listed, making it a low-power integrated solution. Its strength is not raw performance but integration into a portable device. The database shows it scoring 69,010 in Geekbench Metal, a test the RTX 5090 does not have recorded, which suggests the Vega 48 is optimized for Apple's Metal API in its target environment.

In terms of percentile placement, the RTX 5090 ranks at the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon Pro Vega 48 ranks at the 88th. Despite the massive performance gap in the head-to-head tests, the Vega 48 is not a low-end part; its average score of 60,140 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, which has an average score of 60,347 in the nearest rivals list. The RTX 5090, by contrast, sits near the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959) in its nearest rivals.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every specification category. The following table highlights the fields where the two diverge:

• Chip: GB202 (RTX 5090) versus Vega 10 (Radeon Pro Vega 48)
• Architecture: Blackwell 2.0 versus GCN 5.0
• Generation: GeForce 50 versus Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series)
• Process node: 5 nm versus 14 nm
• Foundry: TSMC versus GlobalFoundries
• Transistors: 92,200 million versus 12,500 million
• Die size: 750 mm² versus 495 mm²
• Transistor density: 122.9M / mm² versus 25.3M / mm²
• Memory size: 32 GB versus 8 GB
• Memory type: GDDR7 versus HBM2
• Memory bus width: 512 bit versus 2048 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 1.79 TB/s versus 402.4 GB/s
• Memory clock: 1750 MHz, 28 Gbps effective versus 786 MHz, 1572 Mbps effective
• Shading units: 21,760 versus 3,072
• TMUs: 680 versus 192
• ROPs: 176 versus 64
• RT cores: 170 versus none listed
• Tensor cores: 680 versus none listed
• Pixel rate: 423.6 GPixel/s versus 76.80 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 1,636.8 GTexel/s versus 230.4 GTexel/s
• FP32 compute: 104.8 TFLOPS versus 7.373 TFLOPS
• FP16 compute: 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1) versus 14.75 TFLOPS (2:1)
• TDP: 575 W versus none listed
• Slot width: Dual-slot versus IGP
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin versus None
• Suggested PSU: 950 W versus none listed
• Bus interface: PCIe 5.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16
• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1b, 3x DisplayPort 2.1b versus Portable Device Dependent
• DirectX support: 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus 12 (12_1)
• Vulkan support: 1.4 versus 1.3
• Dimensions: 304 mm x 137 mm x 40 mm versus none recorded
• Production status: Active versus End-of-life
• Release date: 2025-01-29 versus 2019-03-18
• Launch MSRP: 1,999 USD versus none recorded

Fields that are the same or absent in both include the base and boost clocks (the Radeon Pro Vega 48 has neither listed), the game clock (absent for both), and the predecessor/successor fields (the Radeon Pro Vega 48 has neither).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two shared benchmarks between the RTX 5090 and the Radeon Pro Vega 48: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. The RTX 5090 wins both by overwhelming margins.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5090 scores 334,370. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 scores 53,757. The delta is 522% in favor of the RTX 5090. This is not a marginal lead; it is a six-fold difference in raw compute throughput as measured by OpenCL. The FP32 figures support this: the RTX 5090 delivers 104.8 TFLOPS, while the Vega 48 delivers 7.373 TFLOPS, a ratio of roughly 14 to 1. The OpenCL delta is smaller than the FP32 ratio, but both point in the same direction: the RTX 5090 has vastly more compute capacity.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 5090 scores 376,728. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 scores 57,653. The delta is 553.4%, the largest margin in the head-to-head set. Vulkan is a low-level API that exposes GPU hardware more directly, and the RTX 5090's modern architecture, with its dedicated RT and tensor cores, appears to scale better under this workload. The Vega 48's GCN 5.0 architecture, with no RT or tensor cores, cannot keep pace.

Looking beyond the head-to-head tests, the RTX 5090's broader benchmark suite shows consistent strength. It scores 18,355 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 39,650 in Passmark G3D, and 26,756 in Passmark GPU Compute. Its Passmark DirectX scores are 226 (DX10), 341 (DX11), 185 (DX12), and 395 (DX9), with a Passmark G2D score of 1,413. These results are not directly comparable to the Vega 48, which only has Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan scores recorded, but they illustrate the RTX 5090's broad applicability across different rendering APIs.

The Radeon Pro Vega 48's best recorded result is 69,010 in Geekbench Metal, a test that the RTX 5090 does not have in the database. This highlights the Vega 48's intended role: it is an IGP designed for portable devices where Metal is the primary graphics API. Its OpenCL and Vulkan scores are far below the RTX 5090, but the Metal score shows it is not without merit in its own ecosystem.

In the nearest rivals analysis, the RTX 5090's average score of 79,842 places it 0.3% above the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 0.6% above the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396). It is 1.1% above the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940) and 1.4% below the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959). The Radeon Pro Vega 48's average score of 60,140 is 0.3% below the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60,326) and 0.3% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (60,347). It is 2.5% above the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (58,657) and 2.8% above the NVIDIA P102-100 (58,528).

The data shows that the RTX 5090 and Radeon Pro Vega 48 occupy entirely different performance tiers. The RTX 5090 is one of the fastest GPUs in the database, while the Vega 48 is a capable but older integrated solution. The head-to-head results leave no ambiguity: the RTX 5090 is the clear winner in every shared benchmark, with margins of 522% and 553.4%.