AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo vs NVIDIA A10M Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The data splits cleanly along API lines. The NVIDIA A10M dominates in OpenCL compute, scoring 135,230 against the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's 98,432 — a 37.4% advantage that represents the only head-to-head benchmark available. This is not a marginal lead; it is a decisive gap that places the A10M in the 96th percentile of all GPUs, while the Vega II Duo sits at the 94th percentile.

The AMD card's strengths appear only in benchmark suites not shared in the head-to-head comparison. The Radeon Pro Vega II Duo posts a Geekbench Metal score of 122,522 and a Vulkan score of 99,296, while the A10M has no recorded Metal or Vulkan results in this data. For macOS-centric workflows that leverage Metal, the AMD card is the only option with measured performance. The A10M, by contrast, offers no display outputs at all, making it a pure compute accelerator rather than a workstation GPU for interactive use.

In practical terms, the A10M wins where raw FP32 throughput and OpenCL scalability matter. Its 23.44 TFLOPS FP32 rating dwarfs the Vega II Duo's 14.09 TFLOPS. The AMD card fights back with 28.18 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio), exceeding the A10M's 23.44 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio) — but only if the workload can exploit half-precision arithmetic and the software stack routes through Metal or Vulkan.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from fundamentally different design philosophies. The A10M uses the GA102 chip on Samsung's 8 nm process, packing 28,300 million transistors into a 628 mm² die with a density of 45.1 million transistors per mm². The Vega II Duo uses the Vega 20 chip on TSMC's 7 nm process, with 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die — a 40.0 million per mm² density. The A10M's transistor count is more than double, but the Vega 20's smaller, denser process node partially compensates.

The compute architectures diverge sharply. The A10M is Ampere generation with 7,168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, 80 ROPs, 56 RT cores, and 224 tensor cores. The Vega II Duo is GCN 5.1 with 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, but has no RT cores and no tensor cores. This explains the A10M's 23.44 TFLOPS FP32 versus the Vega II Duo's 14.09 TFLOPS — but the AMD card's texture rate of 440.3 GTexel/s actually exceeds the A10M's 366.2 GTexel/s, and its pixel rate of 110.1 GPixel/s trails only slightly behind the A10M's 130.8 GPixel/s.

Memory architecture is another major split. The A10M uses 20 GB of GDDR6 on a 320-bit bus, delivering 500.2 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega II Duo uses 32 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, delivering 1.02 TB/s — more than double the bandwidth. The AMD card's memory clock is just 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective) versus the A10M's 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective), but the vastly wider bus wins out. For memory-bound workloads, the Vega II Duo has a clear structural advantage.

The A10M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Vega II Duo is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6. The A10M supports Vulkan 1.4 versus the Vega II Duo's Vulkan 1.3. The A10M uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the Vega II Duo uses Apple MPX — a proprietary interface for Mac Pro systems. The A10M is single-slot with an 8-pin EPS connector and a 150 W TDP; the Vega II Duo is quad-slot with a 475 W TDP and no listed power connector. The AMD card requires an 850 W suggested PSU versus 450 W for the NVIDIA card.

The Verdict

Pick the NVIDIA A10M if you need maximum OpenCL compute performance. The 37.4% lead over the Vega II Duo in Geekbench OpenCL is the single largest performance gap in this comparison. The A10M also offers RT cores and tensor cores, which the AMD card lacks entirely, making it the only option here for ray tracing or AI inference workloads that can use those units. Its 150 W TDP and single-slot design make it dramatically easier to deploy in dense server environments.

Pick the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo if you are locked into the Apple Mac ecosystem. Its Apple MPX bus interface, HDMI 2.0b output, and four Thunderbolt outputs make it the only card in this comparison that can drive displays. The 32 GB HBM2 memory with 1.02 TB/s bandwidth is a structural advantage for large datasets that exceed the A10M's 20 GB capacity. The Metal benchmark score of 122,522 shows strong performance in Apple's native API, even if its OpenCL result is far behind the A10M.

The data does not support a single "best" card. The A10M wins the only shared benchmark by a wide margin, but the Vega II Duo's memory bandwidth, FP16 throughput, and display capabilities serve entirely different use cases. The A10M's 96th percentile ranking versus the Vega II Duo's 94th reflects the OpenCL-focused scoring, not the full picture.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher raw FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA A10M, with 23.44 TFLOPS FP32 versus the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's 14.09 TFLOPS.

Q: Does the AMD card have any performance advantage?

A: Yes. The Vega II Duo delivers 1.02 TB/s memory bandwidth versus the A10M's 500.2 GB/s, and its FP16 throughput of 28.18 TFLOPS exceeds the A10M's 23.44 TFLOPS.

Q: Can either card output video to a display?

A: Only the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo. It has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 4x Thunderbolt outputs. The NVIDIA A10M has no display outputs.

Q: What benchmark results exist for each card?

A: The A10M has one Geekbench OpenCL score of 135,230. The Vega II Duo has three scores: Geekbench Metal 122,522, Geekbench OpenCL 98,432, and Geekbench Vulkan 99,296.

Q: Which card supports ray tracing hardware?

A: Only the NVIDIA A10M, which has 56 RT cores. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo has no RT cores.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The AMD card has 32 GB of HBM2, while the NVIDIA card has 20 GB of GDDR6.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison is Geekbench OpenCL, and it is not close. The NVIDIA A10M scores 135,230 against the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's 98,432, a 37.4% delta. This is the kind of gap that changes hardware purchasing decisions. The A10M's nearest rivals in its own benchmark pool — the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation at 135,218 (0% delta) and the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 at 135,396 (-0.1% delta) — show it is clustered tightly with top-tier workstation cards. The Vega II Duo, by contrast, sits near the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X at 107,342 (-0.6% delta) and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 at 101,872 (4.8% delta).

The OpenCL result aligns with the architectural data. The A10M's 7,168 shading units and 23.44 TFLOPS FP32 should outperform the Vega II Duo's 4,096 shading units and 14.09 TFLOPS FP32, and the benchmark confirms it. However, the Vega II Duo's Metal score of 122,522 is worth noting — while no direct A10M Metal result exists, this figure indicates that the AMD card performs substantially better in Apple's API than in OpenCL. The Vulkan score of 99,296 is similarly close to its OpenCL result, suggesting consistent performance across APIs on the AMD side.

The A10M's 96th percentile ranking versus the Vega II Duo's 94th percentile is a summary of all benchmarks in the database, but the head-to-head OpenCL delta of 37.4% is the more meaningful number. It shows that in the one test both cards share, the NVIDIA part is in a different performance class. The AMD card's average benchmark score of 106,750 across three tests is dragged down by its OpenCL and Vulkan results, while its Metal score shows it can compete when the software is optimized for Apple's platform.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA A10M | AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Ampere | GCN 5.1 |

| Process Node | 8 nm (Samsung) | 7 nm (TSMC) |

| Transistors | 28,300 million | 13,230 million |

| Die Size | 628 mm² | 331 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 45.1M / mm² | 40.0M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 975 MHz | 1400 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1635 MHz | 1720 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective) | 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 20 GB GDDR6 | 32 GB HBM2 |

| Memory Bus Width | 320 bit | 4096 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 500.2 GB/s | 1.02 TB/s |

| Shading Units | 7168 | 4096 |

| TMUs | 224 | 256 |

| ROPs | 80 | 64 |

| RT Cores | 56 | None |

| Tensor Cores | 224 | None |

| FP32 | 23.44 TFLOPS | 14.09 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 23.44 TFLOPS (1:1) | 28.18 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| Pixel Rate | 130.8 GPixel/s | 110.1 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 366.2 GTexel/s | 440.3 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 150 W | 475 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Quad-slot |

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | 850 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | Apple MPX |

| Display Outputs | None | 1x HDMI 2.0b, 4x Thunderbolt |

| DirectX | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (12_1) |

| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |

| Vulkan | 1.4 | 1.3 |

| Generation | Server Ampere (Axx) | Radeon Pro Mac (Vega Series) |

| Production Status | End-of-life | End-of-life |

| Launch MSRP | None listed | 4,399 USD |