AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded benchmark data places the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti in a dominant position over the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56. The database includes two direct comparison results, and the RTX 4070 Ti wins both decisively.

In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX 4070 Ti scores 176,953 points, while the Radeon Pro Vega 56 manages 61,930 points. This represents a performance gap of 65 percent, with the NVIDIA card delivering roughly three times the compute throughput in this workload. The margin is substantial enough to indicate that the AMD card is not merely slower, but in a different performance class entirely for OpenCL compute tasks.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, though the gap is even wider. The RTX 4070 Ti posts 213,808 points against 66,004 for the Radeon Pro Vega 56, a delta of 69.1 percent. Vulkan is often a strong API for AMD architectures, yet the raw compute advantage of the Ada Lovelace GPU overwhelms any architectural efficiency the Vega 10 chip might possess. Across both recorded head-to-head tests, the scoreboard reads two wins for NVIDIA and zero for AMD.

These deltas are not subtle. A 65 percent deficit means the AMD card would need over 2.8 times its current output to match the NVIDIA card in OpenCL. The Vulkan shortfall is even steeper, requiring about 3.2 times the performance to catch up. For any application leveraging these APIs, the RTX 4070 Ti is the clear choice based on measured data alone.

Looking at the broader average benchmark scores in the database reinforces this picture. The RTX 4070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 44,795, while the Radeon Pro Vega 56 averages 63,693. This inversion occurs because the AMD card's recorded benchmarks consist entirely of Geekbench tests, which tend to produce higher numerical scores than the mix of PassMark and 3DMark tests applied to the NVIDIA card. The percentile rankings, however, tell a more normalized story: the Radeon Pro Vega 56 sits in the 89th percentile among all GPUs, while the RTX 4070 Ti ranks in the 84th percentile. This suggests that while the NVIDIA card wins the direct comparisons decisively, the AMD card performs well against the broader GPU population in its tested workloads.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti scores 176,953 points versus 61,930 for the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56, giving NVIDIA a 65 percent advantage in this test.

Q: How large is the Vulkan performance gap?

A: The RTX 4070 Ti achieves 213,808 points in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Radeon Pro Vega 56 scores 66,004, a difference of 69.1 percent in favor of NVIDIA.

Q: What are the average benchmark scores for each card?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 56 has an average benchmark score of 63,693, and the RTX 4070 Ti has an average of 44,795, though these figures draw from different test sets.

Q: How do the two cards rank among all GPUs?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 56 falls in the 89th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 4070 Ti sits in the 84th percentile.

Q: What memory configurations do the two cards use?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 56 uses 8 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus, while the RTX 4070 Ti uses 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus.

Q: Which card has higher pixel and texture rates?

A: The RTX 4070 Ti achieves 208.8 GPixel/s and 626.4 GTexel/s, compared to the Radeon Pro Vega 56's 80.00 GPixel/s and 280.0 GTexel/s.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is fundamental. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 is built on the Vega 10 chip using GCN 5.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This is a mature design from 2017, and it shows in the transistor budget: 12,500 million transistors spread across a 495 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 25.3 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, by contrast, uses the AD104 chip with Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It packs 35,800 million transistors into a smaller 294 mm² die, achieving a density of 121.8 million per square millimeter. The density difference is stark: the NVIDIA chip crams nearly five times as many transistors per unit area.

Compute resources diverge sharply as well. The Radeon Pro Vega 56 has 3,584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. The RTX 4070 Ti more than doubles the shading unit count to 7,680, with 240 TMUs and 80 ROPs. Beyond the conventional units, the NVIDIA card adds 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, hardware that does not exist on the AMD chip at all. This reflects the generational gap: ray tracing and tensor acceleration are absent from the GCN 5.0 design.

Clock speeds also favor the newer GPU. The Radeon Pro Vega 56 runs at a base clock of 1138 MHz and boosts to 1250 MHz. The RTX 4070 Ti operates at a base of 2310 MHz and boosts to 2610 MHz, roughly twice the frequency. Memory clocks follow the same pattern: the AMD card's HBM2 runs at 786 MHz with 1572 Mbps effective data rate, while the NVIDIA card's GDDR6X runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective. The memory bus widths differ as well, with the AMD card using a wide 2048-bit interface versus the NVIDIA card's narrower 192-bit bus. This explains the bandwidth figures: the Radeon Pro Vega 56 delivers 402.4 GB/s, while the RTX 4070 Ti reaches 504.2 GB/s despite the narrower bus, thanks to the much faster memory technology.

The process node advantage also enables higher FP32 throughput. The Radeon Pro Vega 56 offers 8.960 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the RTX 4070 Ti delivers 40.09 TFLOPS, a factor of roughly 4.5. FP16 performance shows a similar split, though the AMD card achieves 17.92 TFLOPS via a 2:1 ratio, while the NVIDIA card maintains 40.09 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio, meaning it does not sacrifice FP32 throughput when running FP16 workloads.

Power characteristics reflect these differences. The Radeon Pro Vega 56 has a TDP of 210 W and draws power through no external connectors, as it is designed as an integrated GPU (IGP) in the Mac form factor. The RTX 4070 Ti has a TDP of 285 W, uses a single 16-pin power connector, and recommends a 600 W power supply. The slot widths also differ: the AMD card is listed as IGP, while the NVIDIA card is a dual-slot design.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear decision for most workloads. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti wins both direct benchmark comparisons by wide margins, delivering 65 percent more OpenCL performance and 69.1 percent more Vulkan performance than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56. For any user prioritizing raw compute throughput in these APIs, the RTX 4070 Ti is the objectively superior choice based on recorded measurements.

However, the Radeon Pro Vega 56 holds its own in the broader context. Its 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs exceeds the RTX 4070 Ti's 84th percentile, and its average benchmark score of 63,693 is higher than the NVIDIA card's 44,795, even though those averages draw from different test suites. This suggests the AMD card remains competitive for its era and intended use case, particularly in environments where its HBM2 memory and 2048-bit bus provide adequate bandwidth for specialized workloads.

Who should pick which? The RTX 4070 Ti is the choice for modern compute tasks, gaming, or any workload that can leverage its ray tracing cores, tensor cores, and higher FP32 throughput. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth also provide more capacity and speed for larger datasets. The Radeon Pro Vega 56, with its 8 GB of HBM2 and 402.4 GB/s bandwidth, may still serve older professional applications or systems where its IGP form factor and lack of external power connectors are advantages. Its end-of-life status for both cards, however, means neither is a future-proof investment. The RTX 4070 Ti's successor, the GeForce 50 series, and the Radeon Pro Vega 56's absence of a direct successor in this data, point toward the NVIDIA card being the more forward-looking option despite both being discontinued.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every specification category. The Radeon Pro Vega 56 uses a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, while the RTX 4070 Ti uses 5 nm from TSMC. Transistor counts are 12,500 million versus 35,800 million, and die sizes are 495 mm² versus 294 mm², giving densities of 25.3M per mm² and 121.8M per mm² respectively.

Clock speeds show the RTX 4070 Ti at 2310 MHz base and 2610 MHz boost, against the Radeon Pro Vega 56's 1138 MHz base and 1250 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ: the AMD card runs at 786 MHz with 1572 Mbps effective, while the NVIDIA card runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective. Memory capacity jumps from 8 GB HBM2 to 12 GB GDDR6X, with bus widths of 2048 bits versus 192 bits, resulting in bandwidth of 402.4 GB/s versus 504.2 GB/s.

Core counts differ substantially: shading units go from 3,584 to 7,680, TMUs from 224 to 240, and ROPs from 64 to 80. The RTX 4070 Ti adds 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the AMD card. Pixel rate rises from 80.00 GPixel/s to 208.8 GPixel/s, texture rate from 280.0 GTexel/s to 626.4 GTexel/s, and FP32 from 8.960 TFLOPS to 40.09 TFLOPS. FP16 scales from 17.92 TFLOPS at 2:1 to 40.09 TFLOPS at 1:1.

Power and physical specs also differ. TDP goes from 210 W to 285 W, slot width from IGP to dual-slot, and power connectors from none to a single 16-pin. The suggested PSU for the RTX 4070 Ti is 600 W. Bus interfaces advance from PCIe 3.0 x16 to PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs are similar, with both offering 1x HDMI and 3x DisplayPort, though the HDMI version differs: 2.0b on AMD versus 2.1 on NVIDIA. DirectX support moves from 12 (12_1) to 12 Ultimate (12_2), while OpenGL stays at 4.6 for both, and Vulkan advances from 1.3 to 1.4. The RTX 4070 Ti has physical dimensions of 285 mm length, 112 mm height, and 42 mm width, while the Radeon Pro Vega 56 lists no physical dimensions due to its IGP design. Release dates are August 2017 for the AMD card and January 2023 for the NVIDIA card.