AMD Radeon Pro Vega II vs NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive performance gap between these two workstation cards. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation scores 175,286, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II scores 99,048. That is a 77% advantage for the NVIDIA card. The margin is even larger in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 5000 Ada reaches 194,041 against the AMD's 99,621, a 94.8% lead. These are not close contests; the AMD card trails by roughly half in both compute workloads.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the RTX 5000 Ada's average benchmark score is 184,664, placing it at the 98th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA A100 SXM4 80 GB (183,725, 0.5% slower), the NVIDIA A100 SXM4 40 GB (187,147, 1.3% faster), the NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell (182,109, 1.4% slower), and the GeForce RTX 4090 D (178,050, 3.7% slower). Essentially, the RTX 5000 Ada sits in elite company, trading blows with datacenter accelerators.

The Radeon Pro Vega II, by contrast, averages 109,617 across its benchmark runs, landing at the 94th percentile. Its closest competitors are the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 (110,725, 1% faster), the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X (107,342, 2.1% slower), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo (106,750, 2.7% slower), and the NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile (113,944, 3.8% faster). The Vega II holds its ground against other AMD workstation parts, but it is clearly in a lower performance tier than the RTX 5000 Ada.

When comparing directly, the RTX 5000 Ada's OpenCL score is 77% higher, and its Vulkan score is 94.8% higher. The win count is 2 for NVIDIA, 0 for AMD. The data leaves no ambiguity about raw compute throughput.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation is built on the AD102 chip using the Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The die measures 609 mm² and packs 76,300 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 125.3 million per mm². In contrast, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II uses the Vega 20 chip with GCN 5.1 architecture, fabricated on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC. Its die is 331 mm² with 13,230 million transistors and a density of 40.0 million per mm².

The NVIDIA card features 12,800 shading units, 400 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. It also includes 100 ray tracing cores and 400 tensor cores, making it a fully modern accelerator with hardware support for RTX workloads. The AMD card has 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with no dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores. This is a fundamental architectural gap: the NVIDIA chip is designed for the latest graphics and compute features, while the AMD chip is based on older GCN 5.1, which lacks those specialized units.

Memory architecture also differs sharply. The RTX 5000 Ada uses 32 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Vega II uses 32 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, providing much higher bandwidth at 825.3 GB/s. Despite that bandwidth advantage, the AMD card still loses heavily in compute benchmarks, illustrating that raw memory speed is not enough to offset the NVIDIA's superior shader throughput and feature set.

Process node differences matter too. The 5 nm node on the NVIDIA chip allows for far higher transistor density and clock speeds. The RTX 5000 Ada boosts to 2550 MHz, while the Vega II boosts to 1720 MHz. Base clocks are 1155 MHz versus 1574 MHz, respectively; the AMD starts higher but cannot match the boost ceiling.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation wins every measured benchmark in this comparison. In OpenCL, it leads by 77%, and in Vulkan, by 94.8%. These are compute-heavy tests, so the data indicates the NVIDIA card is the superior choice for general GPU compute, rendering, or any workload that scales with shader count and core throughput.

The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II, however, does have one measurable advantage in the database: memory bandwidth. At 825.3 GB/s, it offers 43% more bandwidth than the NVIDIA's 576.0 GB/s. For certain bandwidth-bound tasks, such as large data staging or specific HBM-friendly workloads, this could narrow the gap, but the recorded compute benchmarks still show the NVIDIA card far ahead. The Vega II also has a higher base clock (1574 MHz vs 1155 MHz), which could help in lightly-threaded legacy applications, but that does not show up in the actual performance measurements.

The AMD card's only benchmark win is not against the RTX 5000 Ada; it posts a Geekbench Metal score of 130,183, which is a test the NVIDIA card does not have a recorded result for. That is an Apple-specific API, and the Vega II is a Radeon Pro Mac part, so it may hold an edge in macOS Metal environments. However, the head-to-head data only includes OpenCL and Vulkan, and there, the NVIDIA wins outright.

Specification Differences

A direct specification comparison shows where the two diverge:

• Process Node: 5 nm (NVIDIA) vs 7 nm (AMD)
• Transistors: 76,300 million (NVIDIA) vs 13,230 million (AMD)
• Die Size: 609 mm² (NVIDIA) vs 331 mm² (AMD)
• Transistor Density: 125.3M / mm² (NVIDIA) vs 40.0M / mm² (AMD)
• Base Clock: 1155 MHz (NVIDIA) vs 1574 MHz (AMD)
• Boost Clock: 2550 MHz (NVIDIA) vs 1720 MHz (AMD)
• Memory Type: GDDR6 (NVIDIA) vs HBM2 (AMD)
• Memory Bus Width: 256 bit (NVIDIA) vs 4096 bit (AMD)
• Memory Bandwidth: 576.0 GB/s (NVIDIA) vs 825.3 GB/s (AMD)
• Shading Units: 12,800 (NVIDIA) vs 4,096 (AMD)
• TMUs: 400 (NVIDIA) vs 256 (AMD)
• ROPs: 176 (NVIDIA) vs 64 (AMD)
• Ray Tracing Cores: 100 (NVIDIA) vs none (AMD)
• Tensor Cores: 400 (NVIDIA) vs none (AMD)
• Pixel Rate: 448.8 GPixel/s (NVIDIA) vs 110.1 GPixel/s (AMD)
• Texture Rate: 1,020.0 GTexel/s (NVIDIA) vs 440.3 GTexel/s (AMD)
• FP32: 65.28 TFLOPS (NVIDIA) vs 14.09 TFLOPS (AMD)
• FP16: 65.28 TFLOPS (1:1) (NVIDIA) vs 28.18 TFLOPS (2:1) (AMD)
• TDP: 250 W (NVIDIA) vs 475 W (AMD)
• Slot Width: Dual-slot (NVIDIA) vs Quad-slot (AMD)
• Power Connectors: 1x 16-pin (NVIDIA) vs not listed (AMD)
• Suggested PSU: 600 W (NVIDIA) vs 850 W (AMD)
• Bus Interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 (NVIDIA) vs Apple MPX (AMD)
• Display Outputs: 4x DisplayPort 1.4a (NVIDIA) vs 1x HDMI 2.0b + 4x Thunderbolt (AMD)
• DirectX: 12 Ultimate (12_2) (NVIDIA) vs 12 (12_1) (AMD)
• Vulkan: 1.4 (NVIDIA) vs 1.3 (AMD)
• Production Status: Active (NVIDIA) vs End-of-life (AMD)
• Release Date: 2023-08-08 (NVIDIA) vs 2019-06-02 (AMD)
• Launch MSRP (AMD only): 2,199 USD (stated once as launch MSRP)

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation is 77% faster, scoring 175,286 versus the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II's 99,048.

Q: Does the AMD card have any advantage in memory bandwidth?

A: Yes, the Vega II has 825.3 GB/s of HBM2 bandwidth on a 4096-bit bus, while the RTX 5000 Ada has 576.0 GB/s on a 256-bit bus. Even so, the NVIDIA still wins compute workloads.

Q: Which card has more shading units?

A: The NVIDIA has 12,800 shading units, compared to 4,096 on the AMD, a 3.1x difference.

Q: What is the FP32 performance difference?

A: The NVIDIA delivers 65.28 TFLOPS, while the AMD delivers 14.09 TFLOPS, making the NVIDIA card about 4.6x higher in single-precision compute.

Q: Is the AMD card still being produced?

A: No, the production status is end-of-life. The NVIDIA is listed as Active.

Q: What is the TDP of each?

A: The NVIDIA is 250 W, the AMD is 475 W. The AMD also suggests an 850 W power supply, while the NVIDIA suggests 600 W.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear choice for almost any workstation workload. The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation is not just ahead; it is ahead by 77% in OpenCL and 94.8% in Vulkan. It has 4.6x the FP32 throughput, 3.1x the shading units, 5.8x the pixel rate, and 2.3x the texture rate. It does so while drawing 225 W less power and occupying a dual-slot form factor versus the AMD's quad-slot. The NVIDIA card is also current production, with a newer architecture, hardware ray tracing and tensor cores, and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4.

The AMD Radeon Pro Vega II is a legacy product from 2019. It has higher memory bandwidth and a higher base clock, but those advantages do not translate into benchmark wins. Its only niche is Apple MPX systems, where it features Thunderbolt outputs and a Metal benchmark score of 130,183 (a test the NVIDIA does not have a record for). For anyone building or upgrading a professional workstation in a standard PC platform, the recorded data supports the RTX 5000 Ada without hesitation. For Mac Pro users who are locked into the MPX ecosystem, the Vega II remains a functional option, but it is a slower one. The database verdict is clear: pick the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation for performance, unless the Apple MPX interface is a hard requirement.