AMD Radeon Pro W5500 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell and AMD Radeon Pro W5500 represent two vastly different eras of professional workstation graphics. The data shows a generational chasm: the RTX PRO 6000 is an active, 600 W flagship built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, while the W5500 is an end-of-life, 125 W part on 7 nm. Their benchmark scores, however, tell a nuanced story—the RTX PRO 6000 averages 16,408 points across its single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 run, placing it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, while the W5500 averages 15,679 points across ten varied tests, sitting just one percentile lower at 58. This near-parity in overall percentile masks a massive difference in workload suitability, raw specification, and architectural capability.

The Verdict

The data dictates a clear split decision. The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is the only choice for professionals demanding maximum compute throughput, massive memory capacity, and modern API support. Its 126.0 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 96 GB of GDDR7 memory are in a different universe from the W5500’s 5.224 TFLOPS and 8 GB GDDR6. If your workload is GPU-bound rendering, AI inference, or large dataset manipulation, the RTX PRO 6000 is the definitive pick from this dataset.

Conversely, the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 serves a legacy or low-power niche. Despite being end-of-life, its average benchmark score of 15,679 is only 4.4% lower than the RTX PRO 6000’s 16,408, and it holds its own in specific legacy DirectX tests. The W5500 is the sensible choice for single-slot, 125 W installations where the RTX PRO 6000’s dual-slot, 600 W footprint is impossible. It is also the only card here with a launch MSRP of 399 USD, though pricing is not a factor in performance analysis.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell wins decisively in every modern compute metric. Its 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth is 8x the W5500’s 224.0 GB/s, enabling far faster data movement. Its FP32 throughput of 126.0 TFLOPS is 24x higher, and its FP16 performance matches at 126.0 TFLOPS (1:1), whereas the W5500’s FP16 is 10.45 TFLOPS (2:1). The RTX PRO 6000 also brings dedicated 188 RT cores and 752 tensor cores, features completely absent from the W5500 (null values). This makes the NVIDIA card the winner for ray tracing, AI acceleration, and any modern graphics workload.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 wins in legacy API compatibility and efficiency metrics. Its PassMark DirectX 9 score of 126 is the highest of any single test on either card, suggesting strong performance for older applications. It also wins on physical footprint—single-slot versus dual-slot—and power draw, with a 125 W TDP requiring only a 300 W suggested PSU compared to the NVIDIA’s 1000 W suggestion. The W5500’s 7 nm process, while older, is more modest; its transistor density of 40.5M / mm² is lower than the RTX PRO 6000’s 122.9M / mm², but it achieves this with far fewer resources.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is stark. NVIDIA’s GB202 chip uses the Blackwell 2.0 architecture on a 5 nm process from TSMC, packing 92,200 million transistors onto a 750 mm² die. AMD’s Navi 14 uses the RDNA 1.0 architecture on a 7 nm process, with just 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die. This translates to a transistor density of 122.9M / mm² for NVIDIA versus 40.5M / mm² for AMD, showing how much more complex the Blackwell design is.

Memory configurations diverge completely. The RTX PRO 6000 has 96 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, with a memory clock of 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The W5500 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 224.0 GB/s, also at 1750 MHz but only 14 Gbps effective. The NVIDIA card’s 24064 shading units, 752 TMUs, and 192 ROPs dwarf the W5500’s 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The RTX PRO 6000 also supports PCIe 5.0 x16 versus the W5500’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface.

API support differs as well. The RTX PRO 6000 targets DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the W5500 tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1) and also supports Vulkan 1.4. Both support OpenGL 4.6. Display outputs are similar in count (4x), but the RTX PRO 6000 uses DisplayPort 2.1b versus the W5500’s DisplayPort 1.4a.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is the clear winner, with 126.0 TFLOPS FP32 and 126.0 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1). The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 delivers 5.224 TFLOPS FP32 and 10.45 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1).

Q: How much memory bandwidth difference is there?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 offers 1.79 TB/s from 96 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus. The W5500 provides 224.0 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus—a 8x bandwidth advantage for NVIDIA.

Q: Does the AMD card support ray tracing or AI acceleration?

A: No. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 has null values for RT cores and tensor cores, meaning it lacks dedicated hardware for these tasks. The RTX PRO 6000 has 188 RT cores and 752 tensor cores.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W5500, with a 125 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU, is far more efficient than the 600 W RTX PRO 6000, which requires a 1000 W suggested PSU.

Q: What is the form factor difference?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 is a dual-slot card measuring 304 mm x 137 mm x 40 mm. The W5500 is a single-slot card measuring 241 mm x 111 mm, with no width specified.

Q: Which card has better legacy DirectX support?

A: The AMD W5500 scores higher in PassMark DirectX 9 (126) and DirectX 10 (47) tests than any single benchmark result reported for the RTX PRO 6000, indicating stronger legacy API performance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Direct benchmark comparisons are limited because the headToHeadBenchmarks list is empty, and each card uses different test suites. The RTX PRO 6000 has a single result: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, scoring 16,408. This places it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival is the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 at 16,415 (0% delta), followed by the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT at 16,361 (+0.3% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M at 16,351 (+0.4% delta). Interestingly, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 scores 16,504, which is -0.6% delta relative to the RTX PRO 6000.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500’s average benchmark score of 15,679 comes from ten tests. Its highest single score is 54,302 in Geekbench Metal, followed by 45,615 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 42,021 in Geekbench Vulkan. Its PassMark G3D score is 8,978, with a GPU compute score of 4,804. The W5500’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti at 15,548 (+0.8% delta), followed by the AMD Radeon R9 M380 at 15,521 (+1% delta). The AMD Radeon RX 7700 scores 15,852 (-1.1% delta), and the AMD Radeon R9 370X scores 15,862 (-1.2% delta).

Interpreting these numbers, the RTX PRO 6000’s 16,408 score is 4.6% higher than the W5500’s 15,679 average. However, the W5500’s percentile rank of 58 is nearly identical to the RTX PRO 6000’s 59, suggesting that in the broader GPU landscape, both cards occupy a similar performance tier despite their massive architectural differences. The RTX PRO 6000’s win in the single DX12 test is expected given its 24x FP32 advantage, but the W5500’s strong Geekbench Metal and OpenCL scores indicate that its compute capabilities are not trivial, especially in cross-platform APIs.

The biggest wins for the RTX PRO 6000 are in theoretical throughput and memory bandwidth—126.0 TFLOPS versus 5.224 TFLOPS FP32, and 1.79 TB/s versus 224.0 GB/s. The biggest wins for the W5500 are in specific legacy tests: its PassMark DirectX 9 score of 126 and DirectX 10 score of 47 are the only benchmark results where it shows a clear numerical strength, as the RTX PRO 6000 has no corresponding scores to compare. The W5500’s lower TDP and single-slot design are also wins for constrained environments. The data overall shows that while the RTX PRO 6000 is the superior modern workstation GPU, the W5500 remains a viable option for legacy support and low-power scenarios.