AMD Radeon Pro Vega II vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D Comparison

The GeForce RTX 4090 D and the Radeon Pro Vega II occupy very different corners of the GPU landscape, and the recorded data makes that clear immediately. The RTX 4090 D posts an average benchmark score of 178,050 across its tested workloads, placing it in the 98th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The Radeon Pro Vega II, meanwhile, averages 109,617, which sits in the 94th percentile. That gap of roughly 62% in average score is substantial, but the individual benchmark results reveal an even more lopsided story, particularly in compute-oriented tests.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains two direct comparisons between these cards, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D wins both by wide margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4090 D scores 278,621 against the Vega II’s 99,048. That is a delta of 181.3% in favor of NVIDIA, meaning the RTX 4090 D delivers nearly three times the OpenCL performance of the AMD card. The gap is slightly smaller in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 4090 D reaches 246,941 and the Vega II manages 99,621, a 147.9% advantage. Both results are consistent with the broader positioning of these products: the RTX 4090 D is a modern, high-end consumer workstation GPU, while the Vega II is a Mac-specific pro card from an earlier generation.

Looking at the average scores in context, the RTX 4090 D sits only 2.2% behind the NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell and 3.1% behind the NVIDIA A100 SXM4 80 GB, which are its nearest rivals in the database. That places it in the upper tier of professional compute hardware. The Vega II, by contrast, is 1% behind the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 and 2.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X, showing that it remains competitive within its own AMD pro lineup but occupies a much lower performance stratum. The head-to-head deltas of 181.3% and 147.9% are not close calls; they indicate a generational and architectural chasm between the two.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4090 D than the Radeon Pro Vega II in OpenCL?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4090 D scores 278,621 versus 99,048 for the Vega II, a 181.3% advantage for NVIDIA.

Q: Which card has higher memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 4090 D provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth over a 384-bit GDDR6X interface. The Vega II offers 825.3 GB/s over a 4096-bit HBM2 bus. NVIDIA’s figure is about 22% higher.

Q: Does the Vega II support ray tracing?

A: No. The Vega II has no dedicated ray tracing cores in its architecture. The RTX 4090 D includes 114 RT cores.

Q: What is the transistor density difference?

A: The RTX 4090 D packs 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, yielding 125.3 million transistors per mm². The Vega II has 13,230 million transistors on 331 mm², for a density of 40.0 million per mm².

Q: Which card has more shading units?

A: The RTX 4090 D has 14,592 shading units. The Vega II has 4,096, which is roughly 3.6 times fewer.

Q: What is the FP32 compute difference?

A: The RTX 4090 D delivers 73.54 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The Vega II delivers 14.09 TFLOPS. NVIDIA’s card is about 5.2 times higher.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different design philosophies and process nodes. The RTX 4090 D is built on NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It uses the AD102 chip, which contains 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. That transistor density of 125.3 million per mm² is a hallmark of modern, dense manufacturing. The Vega II, by contrast, uses AMD’s GCN 5.1 architecture, built on a 7 nm process, also by TSMC. Its Vega 20 chip holds 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die, for a density of 40.0 million per mm². The difference in node and density explains a large part of the performance gap.

Memory subsystems differ fundamentally as well. The RTX 4090 D uses 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, achieving 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The Vega II uses 32 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, achieving 825.3 GB/s. The Vega II has more memory capacity and a wider bus, but the newer GDDR6X on the NVIDIA card still provides higher bandwidth. The RTX 4090 D also runs its memory at 21 Gbps effective, while the Vega II’s HBM2 runs at 1612 Mbps effective.

Compute resources are starkly different. The RTX 4090 D has 14,592 shading units, 456 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. It also includes 114 RT cores and 456 tensor cores, enabling hardware ray tracing and AI acceleration. The Vega II has 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with no dedicated RT or tensor cores. Its FP16 throughput of 28.18 TFLOPS is exactly double its FP32 rate (2:1 ratio), whereas the RTX 4090 D runs FP16 at the same rate as FP32 (1:1), at 73.54 TFLOPS.

Power and physical dimensions also separate them. The RTX 4090 D has a TDP of 425 W, is a triple-slot card, uses a single 16-pin power connector, and recommends an 800 W PSU. The Vega II has a 475 W TDP, is a quad-slot card, lists no specific power connector (it uses Apple MPX bus interface), and recommends an 850 W PSU. The RTX 4090 D measures 304 mm in length, 137 mm in height, and 61 mm in width. The Vega II has no recorded dimensions in the database.

API support shows the NVIDIA card is newer: it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Vega II supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. Display outputs differ as well: the RTX 4090 D has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the Vega II has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 4x Thunderbolt, reflecting its Mac ecosystem focus.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear choice for most workloads. The RTX 4090 D wins both head-to-head benchmarks by margins of 181.3% and 147.9%, and it holds a 98th percentile ranking versus the Vega II’s 94th. If the task is compute-heavy, modern API support, or ray tracing, the RTX 4090 D is the only option of the two. The Vega II does have advantages in memory capacity (32 GB vs 24 GB) and a lower transistor density, but those do not translate into benchmark wins. The Vega II also has a higher launch MSRP of 2,199 USD versus the RTX 4090 D’s 1,599 USD, though pricing is not the focus here. For anyone choosing between these two based on recorded performance, the RTX 4090 D is the superior card across every measured test.

Specification Differences

The following fields differ between the two cards according to the database:

• Architecture: Ada Lovelace vs GCN 5.1
• Process node: 5 nm vs 7 nm
• Transistors: 76,300 million vs 13,230 million
• Die size: 609 mm² vs 331 mm²
• Transistor density: 125.3M / mm² vs 40.0M / mm²
• Base clock: 2280 MHz vs 1574 MHz
• Boost clock: 2520 MHz vs 1720 MHz
• Memory clock: 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective) vs 806 MHz (1612 Mbps effective)
• Memory size: 24 GB vs 32 GB
• Memory type: GDDR6X vs HBM2
• Memory bus width: 384 bit vs 4096 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 1.01 TB/s vs 825.3 GB/s
• Shading units: 14,592 vs 4,096
• TMUs: 456 vs 256
• ROPs: 176 vs 64
• RT cores: 114 vs none
• Tensor cores: 456 vs none
• Pixel rate: 443.5 GPixel/s vs 110.1 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 1,149.1 GTexel/s vs 440.3 GTexel/s
• FP32: 73.54 TFLOPS vs 14.09 TFLOPS
• FP16: 73.54 TFLOPS (1:1) vs 28.18 TFLOPS (2:1)
• TDP: 425 W vs 475 W
• Slot width: Triple-slot vs Quad-slot
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin vs none listed
• Suggested PSU: 800 W vs 850 W
• Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 vs Apple MPX
• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a vs 1x HDMI 2.0b, 4x Thunderbolt
• DirectX support: 12 Ultimate (12_2) vs 12 (12_1)
• Vulkan support: 1.4 vs 1.3
• Dimensions: 304 mm length, 137 mm height, 61 mm width vs not recorded
• Release date: 2023-12-27 vs 2019-06-02
• Launch MSRP: 1,599 USD vs 2,199 USD

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4090 D wins in every benchmark recorded in the database. Its 278,621 OpenCL score and 246,941 Vulkan score are both far beyond the Vega II’s 99,048 and 99,621 respectively. It also wins on raw specs that drive those results: higher FP32 and FP16 throughput, more shading units, more TMUs and ROPs, higher pixel and texture rates, and the presence of RT and tensor cores. Its 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is higher, and its 5 nm process gives it far greater transistor density. The RTX 4090 D is also more power-efficient per unit of compute, delivering 73.54 TFLOPS at 425 W versus 14.09 TFLOPS at 475 W for the Vega II.

The Vega II’s wins are narrower and mostly capacity-based. It has 32 GB of memory versus the RTX 4090 D’s 24 GB, which matters for very large datasets that exceed 24 GB. Its 4096-bit bus is also wider, though the bandwidth is lower. It is a quad-slot card with 4x Thunderbolt outputs, which aligns with Mac Pro integration, and it has a higher TDP at 475 W. But in the database’s measured tests, the Vega II does not win a single comparison. Its nearest rivals in the database, the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 and the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, sit close to its score, confirming that the Vega II is competitive within its own generation but not against the RTX 4090 D. The recorded data gives the RTX 4090 D two wins out of two possible head-to-head benchmarks, and that is the decisive pattern.