AMD Radeon Pro VII vs NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data pits the NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation against the AMD Radeon Pro VII across two shared benchmark suites, and the results are decisive in favor of the NVIDIA card. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4500 Ada scores 160,786 against the Radeon Pro VII's 90,148. That is a 78.4% advantage, a massive gap that reflects not just a generational shift but a fundamental difference in compute throughput and driver optimization for general-purpose workloads. The Geekbench Vulkan test shows an even wider margin: the RTX 4500 Ada reaches 171,401, while the Radeon Pro VII manages 92,862, a delta of 84.6%. These are not marginal wins; the NVIDIA part essentially doubles the AMD card's performance in both APIs tested.

Context from the database's nearest-rival data reinforces the scale of this victory. The RTX 4500 Ada's average benchmark score of 166,094 places it in the 97th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all within 2.2% of its score: the NVIDIA RTX A5500 is 0.5% behind, the AMD Radeon PRO W7800 is 0.7% behind, and the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB trails by 2.2%. The Radeon Pro VII, by contrast, sits at the 93rd percentile with an average score of 97,131, and its closest competitor is the AMD Radeon RX 7900M at just 0.4% behind. Even the NVIDIA RTX A4500, an older workstation card, is 6% ahead of the Radeon Pro VII in average score. The head-to-head deltas of 78.4% and 84.6% are far larger than any delta seen within each card's own rival cluster, confirming that the RTX 4500 Ada is not merely better, it is in a different performance class.

The only benchmark where the Radeon Pro VII has a recorded score and the RTX 4500 Ada does not is Geekbench Metal, where the AMD card scores 108,383. This is an Apple-centric API, and the absence of a Metal result for the NVIDIA card means no direct comparison is possible in that test. However, the OpenCL and Vulkan results alone are sufficient to establish the overall winner: the RTX 4500 Ada wins 2 out of 2 shared head-to-head tests, with the Radeon Pro VII recording zero wins.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation has an average benchmark score of 166,094, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro VII's 97,131. This places the NVIDIA card in the 97th percentile of all GPUs, while the AMD card sits in the 93rd percentile.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the shared Geekbench tests?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4500 Ada leads by 78.4% (160,786 vs 90,148). In Geekbench Vulkan, the lead expands to 84.6% (171,401 vs 92,862). Both deltas far exceed the differences between either card and its nearest rivals.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon Pro VII have any benchmark where it wins?

A: No. Across the two shared head-to-head tests, the AMD card records zero wins. It does have a Geekbench Metal score of 108,383, but no Metal score exists for the NVIDIA card, so no comparison can be made.

Q: How does the Radeon Pro VII compare to its own nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon Pro VII's average score of 97,131 is 5% higher than the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (92,466) and 6% higher than the NVIDIA RTX A4500 (91,671). It is 0.4% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7900M (97,487) and 4.7% behind the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (101,872).

Q: What is the percentile ranking difference between the two cards?

A: The RTX 4500 Ada ranks in the 97th percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon Pro VII ranks in the 93rd percentile. The NVIDIA card is among the top 3% of all GPUs, whereas the AMD card is in the top 7%.

Q: Are both cards currently in production?

A: No. The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation has an active production status, while the AMD Radeon Pro VII is listed as end-of-life.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation is the clear winner for virtually every compute-heavy workstation task that relies on OpenCL or Vulkan. Its 78.4% lead in OpenCL and 84.6% lead in Vulkan translate to substantial real-world advantages in rendering, simulation, and general GPU compute. The card's FP32 throughput of 39.63 TFLOPS, combined with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 432.0 GB/s, makes it suitable for large datasets and complex shader workloads. The presence of 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores also gives it hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI inference, features entirely absent from the Radeon Pro VII.

The AMD Radeon Pro VII, despite its losses, retains niches where its specific hardware characteristics matter. Its memory subsystem is a standout: 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus provides 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth, more than double the RTX 4500 Ada's 432.0 GB/s. For workloads that are bandwidth-bound rather than compute-bound, such as certain medical imaging or seismic processing tasks, that HBM2 advantage could still be relevant. Its FP16 performance of 26.11 TFLOPS is also higher than its FP32 rate, indicating a 2:1 ratio that can accelerate mixed-precision workflows. Additionally, the card supports six mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs versus the NVIDIA card's four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, making it more flexible for multi-display configurations. However, the Radeon Pro VII's production status is end-of-life, and its compute performance is unequivocally lower, so these advantages are narrow and increasingly moot.

For most users, the database's recorded data points to the RTX 4500 Ada as the superior choice across the board. The only scenario where the Radeon Pro VII might be preferred is a legacy deployment that specifically requires its HBM2 bandwidth or its six display outputs, and where the software stack does not benefit from NVIDIA's RT and tensor core acceleration.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on almost every specification. The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation has a base clock of 2070 MHz and a boost clock of 2580 MHz, while the AMD Radeon Pro VII operates at 1400 MHz base and 1700 MHz boost. Memory configurations differ fundamentally: the NVIDIA card uses 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus for 432.0 GB/s bandwidth, whereas the AMD card uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus for 1.02 TB/s bandwidth. The memory clock rates also differ, with the NVIDIA card running at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) and the AMD card at 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective).

Compute resources are heavily in NVIDIA's favor. The RTX 4500 Ada has 7680 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, compared to the Radeon Pro VII's 3840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The NVIDIA card also adds 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores, while the AMD card has none. Pixel rate is 206.4 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 108.8 GPixel/s for AMD, and texture rate is 619.2 GTexel/s versus 408.0 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 39.63 TFLOPS versus 13.06 TFLOPS, and FP16 performance is 39.63 TFLOPS (1:1) versus 26.11 TFLOPS (2:1). The NVIDIA card draws 210 W with no external power connectors, while the AMD card draws 250 W and requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector. Suggested PSU ratings are 550 W for NVIDIA and 600 W for AMD.

Physical dimensions differ as well: the NVIDIA card is 245 mm (9.6 inches) long and 112 mm (4.4 inches) tall, while the AMD card is 305 mm (12 inches) long and 111 mm (4.4 inches) tall. Both are dual-slot designs. Display outputs are 4x DisplayPort 1.4a on the NVIDIA card and 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a on the AMD card. API support is also different: NVIDIA supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while AMD supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6. Finally, the release dates differ: the RTX 4500 Ada launched on August 8, 2023, while the Radeon Pro VII launched on May 12, 2020. The NVIDIA card has no launch MSRP in the database; the AMD card has a launch MSRP of 1,899 USD.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two cards is generational and profound. The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD103 chip fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It packs 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.1M per mm². The AMD Radeon Pro VII is based on the older GCN 5.1 architecture, using the Vega 20 chip fabricated on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die, with a transistor density of just 40.0M per mm². This means the NVIDIA chip has more than three times the transistor count and nearly three times the density, despite being only slightly larger physically.

The NVIDIA card belongs to the Workstation Ada generation, with its predecessor listed as Workstation Ampere and its successor as Blackwell PRO W. The AMD card is from the Radeon Pro Vega (Vega II Series) generation, with its predecessor as Radeon Pro Polaris and its successor as Radeon Pro Navi. The RTX 4500 Ada implements dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for AI workloads, features that the Vega 20 chip lacks entirely. This is not a minor feature difference; it changes the types of tasks the card can accelerate. The Ada Lovelace architecture also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, indicating a more modern feature set than the Radeon Pro VII's DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3.

The process node advantage is significant. The 5 nm node allows the NVIDIA card to run at much higher clocks (2070 MHz base, 2580 MHz boost) while consuming less power (210 W vs 250 W). The AMD card's 7 nm process, while advanced for its 2020 launch, cannot match the frequency or efficiency of Ada Lovelace. The FP16 ratio also differs: the NVIDIA card computes FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, meaning no throughput penalty for half-precision work, whereas the AMD card uses a 2:1 ratio, trading off FP32 throughput for FP16. This makes the RTX 4500 Ada more versatile for mixed-precision scientific computing and AI inference, where FP16 is common. The Radeon Pro VII's HBM2 memory, with its 4096-bit bus, is a legacy advantage that cannot overcome the compute and feature disparities. In summary, the architecture differences explain the benchmark results: newer node, more transistors, higher clocks, and dedicated accelerators all favor the NVIDIA card.