AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X vs NVIDIA CMP 30HX Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X and the NVIDIA CMP 30HX represent two divergent philosophies in GPU design: one is a professional-grade workstation part tailored for Apple’s Mac Pro ecosystem, while the other is a purpose-built mining accelerator stripped of display outputs. The benchmark data shows a clear overall winner, but the decision between them hinges entirely on workload requirements, system compatibility, and feature priorities. The Radeon Pro Vega 64X holds a substantial average score advantage of 80,959 versus 63,842 for the CMP 30HX, placing it at the 92nd percentile of all GPUs compared to the 89th percentile for the NVIDIA part. However, the CMP 30HX offers a lower thermal envelope and a more compact physical footprint, making it a niche choice for specific compute-heavy tasks where power efficiency matters more than raw compute throughput.

The Verdict

The data unequivocally favors the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X for any user prioritizing raw compute performance. Its average benchmark score of 80,959 is 26.8% higher than the NVIDIA CMP 30HX’s 63,842, and it wins the only shared head-to-head benchmark decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD card scores 78,467 against the NVIDIA card’s 65,199, a 20.4% advantage. This makes the Radeon Pro Vega 64X the only rational choice for OpenCL-heavy workloads such as rendering, scientific simulation, or professional content creation, provided the system can accommodate its 250 W TDP and integrated form factor. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX, by contrast, should only be selected by users who specifically require a dual-slot, 229 mm card with a 125 W TDP and a 300 W suggested PSU, and who can tolerate its PCIe 1.0 x4 interface and complete lack of display outputs. Its 89th percentile ranking places it just behind the AMD part, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP with an identical average score of 63,830, suggesting the CMP 30HX offers no unique performance value. For almost every scenario described in the data, the Radeon Pro Vega 64X is the superior product.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is stark. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X is built on GlobalFoundries’ 14 nm process, packing 12,500 million transistors into a massive 495 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 25.3 million per mm². Its Vega 10 chip uses the GCN 5.0 architecture and belongs to the Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series) generation. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX, in contrast, utilizes TSMC’s 12 nm process with a TU116 chip based on the Turing architecture, containing just 6,600 million transistors on a 284 mm² die, for a density of 23.2 million per mm². This represents a fundamental generational and design philosophy difference: AMD opted for a massive, high-bandwidth chip while NVIDIA chose a smaller, more power-efficient design.

Memory configurations further separate these cards. The Radeon Pro Vega 64X features 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth at 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective). The CMP 30HX comes with only 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, achieving 336.0 GB/s at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The AMD card’s memory bandwidth is 52.4% higher, a critical factor for memory-bound workloads. Compute resources also diverge wildly: the Vega 64X has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, while the CMP 30HX has just 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. This translates to 12.03 TFLOPS of FP32 performance for AMD versus 5.027 TFLOPS for NVIDIA, a 139% advantage for the former. Both cards support DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan (1.3 for AMD, 1.4 for NVIDIA), but neither has dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores. The AMD card is an integrated GPU (IGP) with no power connectors and portable-device-dependent outputs, while the NVIDIA card is a dual-slot unit requiring a single 8-pin connector and measuring 229 mm by 111 mm by 35 mm.

Where Each One Wins

The Radeon Pro Vega 64X wins in every performance metric recorded in the benchmark data. Its Geekbench Metal score of 83,450 highlights its strength in Apple’s Metal API, which is absent from the CMP 30HX entirely. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD card’s 78,467 score beats the NVIDIA card’s 65,199 by 20.4%, demonstrating superior general-purpose compute capability. The AMD card also excels in theoretical throughput: its 375.8 GTexel/s texture rate is 139% higher than the CMP 30HX’s 157.1 GTexel/s, and its 93.95 GPixel/s pixel rate surpasses 85.68 GPixel/s. With 16 GB of memory versus 6 GB, the Vega 64X can handle far larger datasets without spilling to system memory. Its 512.0 GB/s bandwidth is essential for tasks like large-scale data processing or high-resolution texture streaming.

The NVIDIA CMP 30HX wins in power efficiency and physical design. At 125 W TDP, it consumes exactly half the power of the Vega 64X’s 250 W, making it far easier to cool in dense mining rigs. Its dual-slot form factor and 229 mm length are conventional, whereas the AMD card’s IGP design limits it to specific integrated platforms. The CMP 30HX also has a higher boost clock of 1785 MHz versus 1468 MHz, though this does not translate into performance wins. Its Vulkan 1.4 support is newer than the AMD card’s Vulkan 1.3, which could matter for specific applications using the latest API features. The NVIDIA part’s PCIe 1.0 x4 interface is a severe bottleneck, but its 300 W suggested PSU requirement makes it deployable in systems where the AMD card’s power draw would be prohibitive.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has better overall benchmark performance?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X scores 80,959 on average versus 63,842 for the NVIDIA CMP 30HX, a 26.8% advantage. It also wins the shared Geekbench OpenCL test with 78,467 against 65,199, a 20.4% margin.

Q: Can the NVIDIA CMP 30HX be used for display output?

A: No. The CMP 30HX has no display outputs at all, making it unsuitable for any workstation or gaming use that requires connecting a monitor directly to the card.

Q: What memory capacity and bandwidth differences exist between the two?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 64X has 16 GB of HBM2 with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the CMP 30HX has 6 GB of GDDR6 with 336.0 GB/s. The AMD card offers 52.4% more bandwidth and 166.7% more memory capacity.

Q: How do their power requirements compare?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 64X has a 250 W TDP and requires no external power connectors, while the CMP 30HX has a 125 W TDP and needs a single 8-pin connector with a 300 W suggested PSU.

Q: Which card is better for OpenCL workloads?

A: The Radeon Pro Vega 64X is significantly better, scoring 78,467 in Geekbench OpenCL compared to the CMP 30HX’s 65,199. This 20.4% lead makes it the clear choice for OpenCL-based compute tasks.

Q: Are there any benchmark tests where the NVIDIA card wins?

A: No. In the head-to-head benchmark data, the AMD card wins the only shared test (Geekbench OpenCL), and the CMP 30HX has no recorded wins in any comparison metric.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark shared between these two GPUs is Geekbench OpenCL, and the result is conclusive. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X posts a score of 78,467, while the NVIDIA CMP 30HX manages 65,199. This represents a 20.4% delta in favor of AMD, a substantial margin that reflects the fundamental compute resource disparity between the two cards. The Vega 64X’s 4096 shading units and 12.03 TFLOPS of FP32 performance simply overwhelm the CMP 30HX’s 1408 shading units and 5.027 TFLOPS. This advantage compounds in memory-intensive tasks, where the AMD card’s 512.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 336.0 GB/s gives it a 52.4% edge in data throughput.

Looking beyond the shared test, the AMD card’s Geekbench Metal score of 83,450 further demonstrates its compute prowess, though this test has no direct NVIDIA equivalent in the data. The average benchmark scores tell the same story: the Vega 64X’s 80,959 average places it 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 and 1.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, while the CMP 30HX’s 63,842 average is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP (63,830, 0% delta) and only 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (63,693). In practical terms, the CMP 30HX sits in a performance class populated by mid-range AMD parts, whereas the Vega 64X competes with top-tier workstation and consumer GPUs. The theoretical specifications reinforce this gap: the Vega 64X delivers 375.8 GTexel/s versus 157.1 GTexel/s for the CMP 30HX, a 139% difference in texture fill rate, and 93.95 GPixel/s versus 85.68 GPixel/s in pixel fill rate. Every measurable benchmark and specification in the data points to the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X as the overwhelmingly faster GPU, with the NVIDIA CMP 30HX offering only its lower power draw and conventional physical design as compensatory advantages.