AMD Radeon Pro W5500 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Comparison

# FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 records an average benchmark score of 17208, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 sits at 15679. That places the RTX 3070 roughly 9.7% higher overall, and the percentile data confirms the gap: the RTX 3070 ranks in the 61st percentile of all GPUs, while the W5500 ranks in the 58th.

Q: How do the two cards compare in compute workloads?

A: The RTX 3070 dominates compute-heavy tasks. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 112821 versus 45615, a 147.3% advantage. In Passmark GPU Compute, the margin is 133%, with scores of 11195 versus 4804. The W5500 does not win a single compute-oriented benchmark in the head-to-head set.

Q: Does the W5500 win any benchmark at all?

A: Yes, one: Geekbench Vulkan. There, the W5500 scores 42021 against the RTX 3070's 21022, a 50% swing in AMD's favor. This is the only head-to-head test where the W5500 comes out ahead, making it a narrow but real point of differentiation for Vulkan-based applications.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: Both cards use 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, but the bus widths differ. The RTX 3070 has a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the W5500 has a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. The effective memory clock is identical at 14 Gbps.

Q: How do the architectural features differ?

A: The RTX 3070 is built on NVIDIA's Ampere architecture with 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, 96 raster operation units, 46 ray tracing cores, and 184 tensor cores. The W5500 uses AMD's RDNA 1.0 architecture with 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, and it has no dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores.

Q: What is the physical size and power requirement difference?

A: The RTX 3070 is a dual-slot card with a 220 W TDP and requires a 550 W suggested power supply, using a 1x 12-pin connector. The W5500 is a single-slot card with a 125 W TDP, a 300 W suggested PSU, and a 1x 6-pin connector. Both are nearly identical in length (242 mm versus 241 mm) and height (112 mm versus 111 mm).

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data splits cleanly: the RTX 3070 wins 8 of 9 head-to-head benchmarks, while the W5500 wins exactly one. The RTX 3070's territory is every DirectX test, every OpenCL test, G2D, G3D, and compute. The W5500's single victory is Vulkan, where it doubles the RTX 3070's score. That makes the W5500 a specialist for Vulkan-centric workloads, while the RTX 3070 is the general-purpose performer across the board.

For gaming and DirectX pipelines, the RTX 3070 is decisively ahead. In Passmark DirectX 11, it scores 182 versus 56, a 225% margin. In DirectX 12, the gap is 117.9% (85 versus 39). Even in legacy DirectX 9, the RTX 3070 leads by 96% (247 versus 126). The pattern is consistent: the RTX 3070 holds a massive advantage in every legacy and modern DirectX API tested.

For professional compute, the RTX 3070 again leads. The OpenCL score difference is 147.3%, and the Passmark GPU Compute gap is 133%. The W5500's higher FP16 throughput (10.45 TFLOPS versus 20.31 TFLOPS on the RTX 3070, but at a 2:1 ratio versus 1:1) does not translate into any compute benchmark win. The RTX 3070's raw FP32 performance of 20.31 TFLOPS is nearly four times the W5500's 5.224 TFLOPS, and that shows in every compute result.

The W5500's Vulkan win is not trivial. A 50% advantage in Geekbench Vulkan suggests that applications built on Vulkan, especially those that leverage AMD's RDNA 1.0 design, may see better performance on the W5500. However, this is a single data point, and the RTX 3070 still holds a higher overall percentile rank and average score.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design philosophies. The RTX 3070 uses NVIDIA's Ampere architecture on an 8 nm Samsung process, with 17,400 million transistors packed into a 392 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 44.4 million per mm². The W5500 uses AMD's RDNA 1.0 architecture on a 7 nm TSMC process, with 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die, for a density of 40.5 million per mm².

The RTX 3070's chip is the GA104, a mainstream Ampere part with a full complement of modern features: dedicated ray tracing cores (46) and tensor cores (184). The W5500's chip is Navi 14, which has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. This is a structural difference: the RTX 3070 is designed to accelerate ray-traced workloads and AI inference, while the W5500 is a pure rasterization and compute part.

The FP16 capability also differs. The RTX 3070 achieves 20.31 TFLOPS FP16 with a 1:1 ratio to FP32, meaning it does not double-rate FP16. The W5500 achieves 10.45 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, so it double-issues FP16 relative to its 5.224 TFLOPS FP32. For mixed-precision workloads that heavily use FP16, the W5500's architecture is more efficient, but its absolute FP16 throughput is still less than half of the RTX 3070's.

The display outputs differ as well: the RTX 3070 offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the W5500 offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a with no HDMI. The bus interface also varies, with the RTX 3070 using PCIe 4.0 x16 and the W5500 using PCIe 4.0 x8, a difference that can matter for bandwidth-hungry workloads.

Specification Differences

The most striking specification gap is in shading units: 5888 on the RTX 3070 versus 1408 on the W5500, a 4.2x difference. Texture mapping units follow the same pattern (184 versus 88), and ROPs are 96 versus 32. The RTX 3070 also has a much wider memory bus (256-bit versus 128-bit), doubling the memory bandwidth to 448.0 GB/s versus 224.0 GB/s.

Clock speeds slightly favor the W5500. Its base clock is 1744 MHz and boost is 1855 MHz, while the RTX 3070 runs at 1500 MHz base and 1725 MHz boost. But the RTX 3070's massive shader count overwhelms the clock disadvantage, producing far higher pixel rate (165.6 GPixel/s versus 59.36 GPixel/s) and texture rate (317.4 GTexel/s versus 163.2 GTexel/s).

The RTX 3070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the W5500 supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is otherwise identical. Power and physical dimensions differ: the RTX 3070 is dual-slot with a 220 W TDP and a 550 W suggested PSU, while the W5500 is single-slot with a 125 W TDP and a 300 W suggested PSU.

Both cards are end-of-life. The RTX 3070 launched on 2020-08-31 with a launch MSRP of 499 USD. The W5500 launched on 2020-02-09 with a launch MSRP of 399 USD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The largest win for the RTX 3070 comes in Passmark DirectX 11, where it scores 182 versus the W5500's 56, a 225% advantage. That is the single biggest delta in the entire head-to-head set. The next largest is Passmark DirectX 10, with 150 versus 47, a 219.1% margin. These two legacy API tests show the RTX 3070's architectural superiority in older DirectX pipelines.

In modern APIs, the RTX 3070 still leads but by smaller margins. Passmark DirectX 12 shows 85 versus 39, a 117.9% gap. DirectX 9 shows 247 versus 126, a 96% gap. The RTX 3070 also wins Passmark G3D by 147.4% (22214 versus 8978) and Passmark G2D by 24.2% (1001 versus 806). The G2D gap is the smallest RTX 3070 win, indicating that 2D workloads are less sensitive to raw compute power.

Compute benchmarks follow the same trend. Geekbench OpenCL shows a 147.3% RTX 3070 lead (112821 versus 45615), and Passmark GPU Compute shows a 133% lead (11195 versus 4804). The W5500's sole win is Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 42021 against 21022, a 50% advantage. This is a stark reversal: the same card that trails by over 100% in OpenCL leads by 50% in Vulkan, suggesting a fundamental difference in how the two architectures handle Vulkan's command and memory model.

The overall win count is 8 to 1 in favor of the RTX 3070. The average benchmark score reflects this: 17208 versus 15679, a 9.7% gap. The RTX 3070's nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT at 17083 (0.7% behind) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 at 17037 (1% behind). The W5500's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti at 15548 (0.8% behind) and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 at 15852 (1.1% ahead). These rival positions confirm that the RTX 3070 sits in a higher performance tier than the W5500, even when compared against their respective peer groups.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the faster card in almost every measurable way. It wins 8 of 9 head-to-head benchmarks, holds a 9.7% higher average score, and ranks in the 61st percentile versus the W5500's 58th. For anyone running DirectX workloads, OpenCL compute, or general 3D rendering, the RTX 3070 is the clear choice. Its 4.2x shading unit advantage, 2x memory bandwidth, and dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores give it a structural lead that no single benchmark can overcome.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is not without merit. Its single Vulkan win, with a 50% margin, indicates that Vulkan-based applications may see better performance on this card. Its single-slot design and lower 125 W TDP make it easier to integrate into space-constrained or power-sensitive systems. The 2:1 FP16 ratio also suggests efficiency in FP16-heavy workloads, though the absolute throughput is still lower than the RTX 3070's.

Who should pick which? The RTX 3070 is the choice for anyone prioritizing raw performance across a broad range of APIs and compute tasks. The W5500 is the choice for a niche use case: Vulkan-centric workloads where the 50% advantage matters, and where a single-slot, lower-power card is a requirement. Beyond that niche, the RTX 3070's benchmark dominance leaves little room for argument. The recorded data shows a card that is faster in legacy APIs, modern APIs, and compute alike, with only a single Vulkan exception standing in the W5500's favor.