AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo vs NVIDIA L20 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive performance gap between the NVIDIA L20 and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo. Across the two shared benchmark tests, the L20 wins both, with the largest margin appearing in Geekbench OpenCL. The L20 scores 274276 points, while the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo manages 98432 points. That is a delta of 178.6% in favor of the NVIDIA card. In practical terms, the L20 delivers nearly three times the raw compute throughput in this workload, a gap that dwarfs the differences typically seen between generationally adjacent workstation cards.

The second shared test, Geekbench Vulkan, shows a similar but slightly narrower advantage. The L20 posts 228018 points against the AMD card's 99296 points, a 129.6% delta. While the absolute scores are lower for both cards in Vulkan compared to OpenCL, the relative positioning is unchanged: the L20 leads by a wide margin. The Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's Vulkan score is only 0.9% higher than its OpenCL result, whereas the L20's Vulkan score is 16.9% lower than its OpenCL result, yet the NVIDIA card still nearly doubles the AMD card's output in both APIs.

Context from the database's nearest rival lists reinforces the magnitude of this lead. The L20's average benchmark score is 251147, placing it in the 99th percentile of all GPUs. Its closest competitor in the database, the NVIDIA L40, scores 284111, which is 11.6% higher, and the RTX 6000 Ada Generation scores 287237, 12.6% higher. Meanwhile, the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's average score of 106750 sits in the 94th percentile, with its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X, scoring 107342, a margin of only 0.6%. The gap between the two cards in question, roughly 135% based on average scores, is far larger than the gap between either card and its own nearest rivals. The data indicates the L20 operates in a completely different performance tier.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA L20 has an average benchmark score of 251147, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's average of 106750.

Q: How large is the performance difference in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA L20 scores 274276 points, which is 178.6% higher than the AMD card's 98432 points.

Q: Does the AMD card win any shared benchmark test?

A: No. The head-to-head data records two tests, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo loses both.

Q: What is the percentile ranking of each card?

A: The NVIDIA L20 ranks in the 99th percentile of all GPUs, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo ranks in the 94th percentile.

Q: How does the AMD card compare to its nearest rival in the database?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's average score of 106750 is only 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X's score of 107342.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of each card?

A: The NVIDIA L20 has a bandwidth of 864.0 GB/s, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo has a higher bandwidth of 1.02 TB/s.

Architecture Differences

The two cards represent fundamentally different architectural generations. The NVIDIA L20 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using the AD102 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It integrates 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 125.3 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo uses the older GCN 5.1 architecture with the Vega 20 chip, built on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC. It packs 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die, a density of 40.0 million per square millimeter. The density difference is stark: the L20 crams over three times as many transistors per area, a direct consequence of the newer node and more complex compute units.

The execution resources differ in kind as well as scale. The L20 carries 11,776 shading units, 368 texture mapping units, and 128 raster output units. It also includes 92 dedicated ray tracing cores and 368 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the AMD card, which has no ray tracing or tensor core hardware. The Radeon Pro Vega II Duo relies on 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. In raw pixel throughput, the L20 achieves 322.6 GPixel/s versus 110.1 GPixel/s for the AMD card. Texture rate follows suit: 927.4 GTexel/s for the L20, 440.3 GTexel/s for the Vega II Duo.

The floating point capabilities show a similar split. The L20 delivers 59.35 TFLOPS in both FP32 and FP16, operating at a 1:1 ratio. The AMD card manages 14.09 TFLOPS in FP32 and 28.18 TFLOPS in FP16, a 2:1 ratio. This means the L20 offers more than four times the FP32 throughput and more than double the FP16 throughput, even before considering the tensor core acceleration available on the NVIDIA card.

The AMD card does hold one architectural advantage: memory. It uses 32 GB of HBM2 with a 4096-bit bus, yielding 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth. The L20 uses 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, producing 864.0 GB/s. The Vega II Duo's bandwidth is 18.1% higher, but the L20's larger capacity and far higher compute throughput mean this advantage rarely translates into a win in compute-bound workloads.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets diverge on nearly every measurable field. The NVIDIA L20 has a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo runs at 1400 MHz base and 1720 MHz boost. The L20's boost clock is 46.5% higher. Memory configuration differs: the L20 uses 48 GB of GDDR6 with a 384-bit bus, while the AMD card uses 32 GB of HBM2 with a 4096-bit bus. The L20's memory runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), the AMD card at 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective). The L20's bandwidth of 864.0 GB/s is lower than the AMD card's 1.02 TB/s, but the L20 has 50% more capacity.

Power and physical design show major differences. The L20 has a TDP of 275 W, requires a single 16-pin power connector, and fits a dual-slot form factor. The AMD card draws 475 W, nearly double the L20's power envelope, requires a suggested PSU of 850 W versus 600 W for the L20, and occupies a quad-slot form factor. The L20 measures 267 mm in length and 111 mm in height; the AMD card's dimensions are not recorded in the database. Power connector details for the AMD card are also absent.

Bus interface and display outputs differ entirely. The L20 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the AMD card uses the Apple MPX interface. Display outputs are 4x DisplayPort 1.4a on the L20, versus 1x HDMI 2.0b and 4x Thunderbolt on the AMD card. API support favors the L20: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (12_1), Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.3, with OpenGL 4.6 on both. The AMD card's launch MSRP is 4,399 USD; the L20's launch MSRP is not recorded.

The production status also separates them. The L20 is listed as Active, released in November 2023, with a predecessor of Server Ampere and a successor of Server Hopper. The AMD card is End-of-life, released in June 2019, with no predecessor or successor listed.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA L20 wins decisively in every workload covered by the shared benchmarks. Its 178.6% lead in Geekbench OpenCL and 129.6% lead in Geekbench Vulkan make it the clear choice for any compute-heavy task that relies on general-purpose GPU acceleration. The combination of 59.35 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, 92 ray tracing cores, and 368 tensor cores positions it for modern workloads that span traditional rasterization, ray-traced rendering, and AI-accelerated inference. The 48 GB GDDR6 frame buffer provides ample capacity for large datasets, and the 275 W TDP means it can be deployed in systems with modest power delivery.

The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo wins in exactly one measurable aspect: memory bandwidth. Its 1.02 TB/s exceeds the L20's 864.0 GB/s by 18.1%, and the 4096-bit HBM2 bus is a legacy design that still offers competitive bandwidth. In workloads that are purely bandwidth-bound and insensitive to compute throughput, such as certain large-memory copy operations or highly regular streaming algorithms, the AMD card could theoretically keep pace. However, the benchmark data shows no such scenario in the recorded tests, and the card's 14.09 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is less than a quarter of the L20's.

For deployment decisions, the L20 is the only rational choice in compute-centric environments. It offers higher performance, lower power consumption, a smaller form factor, an active production status, and a more modern API feature set. The AMD card's advantages are limited to bandwidth and its Apple MPX bus interface, which may matter in specific Mac Pro configurations where the L20 cannot be installed at all. The Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's end-of-life status and 475 W power draw make it a poor fit for new systems, though its 32 GB HBM2 pool and 1.02 TB/s bandwidth could still serve niche legacy workflows. The data is unambiguous: the L20 wins 2 out of 2 shared benchmarks, holds a 99th percentile ranking versus 94th, and delivers a 135% higher average score.