AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 vs AMD Radeon PRO W7600 Comparison

The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 represent two distinct eras of AMD professional graphics, and the benchmark data clearly favors the newer contender. Across the two shared head-to-head tests, the Radeon PRO W7600 secures a decisive victory in both, with an average benchmark score of 87108 compared to the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 72379. The W7600 also holds a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs, sitting at the 93rd percentile versus the Vega 64's 91st, indicating its performance places it in a higher tier of the overall hardware landscape. The data confirms a generational shift, where architectural advancements have allowed a modern, power-efficient card to outperform a once-flagship part with a much larger memory footprint.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most direct comparison comes from the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the Radeon PRO W7600 scores 81528 against the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 71094. This translates to a 14.7% advantage for the W7600. This is a substantial lead in a compute-heavy API, showing that the newer RDNA 3.0 architecture's raw throughput, measured at 19.99 TFLOPS FP32, is more effective than the older GCN 5.0 design's 11.06 TFLOPS, despite the Vega 64 having double the shading units (4096 vs 2048). The data suggests that per-stream-processor efficiency has improved dramatically, allowing the W7600 to overcome the Vega 64's hardware count advantage.

The divide widens significantly in the Vulkan API test. Here, the Radeon PRO W7600 achieves a score of 92688, while the Radeon Pro Vega 64 trails at 74174. The delta expands to 25%, a massive margin that highlights the W7600's superior driver optimization and architectural support for modern graphics APIs. The Radeon Pro Vega 64's Vulkan support is listed as 1.3, while the W7600 supports Vulkan 1.4, and the newer card's support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus the older card's DirectX 12 (12_1) likely contributes to this gap. This result indicates that the W7600 is not just faster in raw compute but is also better equipped for contemporary rendering workloads.

Looking at the broader context from the nearestRivals data, the W7600's average score of 87108 places it just 0.4% behind the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 (87445) and 1.7% ahead of the NVIDIA CMP 40HX (85637). This positions the W7600 as a highly competitive mid-range professional card, capable of trading blows with older NVIDIA workstation flagships. Conversely, the Radeon Pro Vega 64's average score of 72379 puts it in a different performance class, sitting 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal (72098) but 1.4% behind the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition (73370). The W7600's 25% victory in Vulkan is its largest win, while its 14.7% OpenCL lead is also significant, leaving the Vega 64 without a single benchmark victory in this head-to-head comparison.

FAQ

Q: Based on the benchmark data, which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 is faster, scoring 81528 compared to the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 71094, a 14.7% difference.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the Vulkan benchmark?

A: The Radeon PRO W7600 leads by 25% in Geekbench Vulkan, with a score of 92688 versus the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 74174.

Q: Which GPU has a higher overall benchmark average?

A: The Radeon PRO W7600 has an average benchmark score of 87108, which is significantly higher than the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 72379.

Q: How does the Radeon PRO W7600 compare to its closest rival, the NVIDIA Quadro GP100?

A: The data shows the W7600 is nearly identical in performance, with its average score of 87108 being only 0.4% lower than the Quadro GP100's 87445.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Radeon Pro Vega 64 and the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 64's average score of 72379 is 1.4% lower than the Vega Frontier Edition's 73370, placing it just behind that particular rival.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro Vega 64 win any benchmarks in this head-to-head comparison?

A: No, the data shows the Radeon PRO W7600 wins both shared benchmark tests (OpenCL and Vulkan), giving it 2 wins and the Vega 64 0 wins.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 is the clear winner in this comparison, taking both available benchmark tests. Its 25% advantage in Vulkan suggests it is the superior choice for applications that leverage modern, low-overhead graphics APIs. This makes it well-suited for real-time rendering, viewport interaction in DCC applications, and any workload that utilizes Vulkan's efficient multi-threading. Its 14.7% lead in OpenCL also makes it the better pick for general-purpose GPU compute tasks that rely on this API, such as certain simulation and rendering workloads. The W7600's higher average score and 93rd percentile ranking reinforce its position as the more capable overall performer.

The Radeon Pro Vega 64, despite having no benchmark wins, still holds a unique advantage in its memory configuration. With 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus, it offers 402.4 GB/s of bandwidth, which is higher than the W7600's 288.0 GB/s. While this doesn't translate to a win in the provided compute benchmarks, this memory capacity and bandwidth could be beneficial in specific scenarios that require loading very large datasets that exceed the W7600's 8 GB frame buffer. However, the data does not include a test that demonstrates this advantage, so its practical benefit remains unquantified here. For all measured metrics, the W7600 is the definitive winner.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ substantially in their core specifications, reflecting their different design goals and technological generations. The Radeon PRO W7600 features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 64 render output units (ROPs), alongside 32 dedicated ray tracing cores. In contrast, the Radeon Pro Vega 64 has 4096 shading units and 256 TMUs but also has 64 ROPs and no dedicated ray tracing cores. The clock speeds also tell a story of architectural efficiency: the W7600 runs at a base of 1720 MHz and boosts to 2440 MHz, while the Vega 64 operates at a much lower 1250 MHz base and 1350 MHz boost. This explains how the W7600 achieves higher pixel and texture rates of 156.2 GPixel/s and 312.3 GTexel/s, respectively, compared to the Vega 64's 86.40 GPixel/s and 345.6 GTexel/s.

The memory subsystems are fundamentally different. The W7600 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, resulting in a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The Vega 64, on the other hand, uses 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a massive 2048-bit bus, which gives it a higher bandwidth of 402.4 GB/s. The board power is also a major differentiator, with the W7600 rated at 130 W and requiring a single 6-pin power connector, while the Vega 64 is rated at 250 W and is listed as an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with no power connectors, as it is designed for portable devices. The W7600 is a single-slot card with 4x DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, whereas the Vega 64's display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent." Finally, the W7600 uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the Vega 64 uses the older PCIe 3.0 x16 standard.

Architecture Differences

These two cards are built on entirely different architectures, which explains their performance disparity. The Radeon PRO W7600 is based on the Navi 33 chip and uses the RDNA 3.0 architecture, with the codename "Hotpink Bonefish." It is manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC, allowing for a die size of just 204 mm² and a transistor count of 13,300 million. This results in a high transistor density of 65.2M per mm². The Radeon Pro Vega 64, conversely, uses the Vega 10 chip and the older GCN 5.0 architecture. It is built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries, leading to a much larger die size of 495 mm² with 12,500 million transistors, and a lower density of 25.3M per mm².

The architectural differences extend to feature support. The W7600's RDNA 3.0 architecture brings support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, enabling advanced features like hardware ray tracing, which the 32 RT cores handle. It also supports FP16 at a 2:1 rate, achieving 39.98 TFLOPS. The Vega 64's GCN 5.0 architecture only supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3, and it lacks dedicated ray tracing hardware. While it also supports FP16 at a 2:1 rate (22.12 TFLOPS), its older design is less efficient at these tasks. The generation field also differs, with the W7600 belonging to the "Radeon Pro Navi (Navi III Series)" and the Vega 64 to the "Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series)," indicating their different target platforms. The W7600 is an active product released on 2023-08-02, while the Vega 64 is end-of-life and was released on 2017-06-26.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 is the superior GPU. It wins both the Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan tests by significant margins of 14.7% and 25%, respectively. Its average benchmark score of 87108 is substantially higher than the Radeon Pro Vega 64's 72379, and it also holds a better percentile ranking (93rd vs 91st). For any workload measured by these APIs, the W7600 is the clear choice. Its modern RDNA 3.0 architecture, with its higher clock speeds and dedicated ray tracing cores, delivers performance that the older GCN 5.0 design cannot match.

The Radeon Pro Vega 64's only potential advantage lies in its 16 GB of HBM2 memory and higher 402.4 GB/s bandwidth, which could be relevant for specific large-dataset workloads. However, this advantage does not manifest in any of the benchmark results provided. Therefore, for users prioritizing raw compute and graphics performance as measured by Geekbench, the Radeon PRO W7600 is the definitive pick. The data suggests that anyone considering a professional GPU should look to the W7600, as it represents a more modern and capable solution, leaving the Vega 64 as a legacy part that is outclassed in this comparison.