AMD Radeon Pro W5500X vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile Comparison

# FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X has an average benchmark score of 27,973, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile averages 25,740. The AMD part leads by roughly 8.7% in aggregate benchmark performance.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in their nearest rival standings?

A: The Radeon Pro W5500X sits at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs, sitting just 0.2% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti and 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7800M. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile sits at the 71st percentile, running 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 and 0.4% behind the AMD FirePro D700.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The Radeon Pro W5500X comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile doubles that to 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, producing 512.0 GB/s — more than double the bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and texture mapping units?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has 7,424 shading units and 232 TMUs, vastly outnumbering the Radeon Pro W5500X's 1,536 shading units and 96 TMUs. The NVIDIA part also has 96 ROPs versus 32 on the AMD card.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same API levels?

A: Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. However, the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Radeon Pro W5500X is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1).

Q: What is the production status and release timeline for these cards?

A: Both are end-of-life products. The Radeon Pro W5500X launched on December 10, 2019, while the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile followed on January 24, 2022. The AMD card had a launch MSRP of 599 USD.

# Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different architectural generations and design philosophies. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture, using the Navi 14 chip manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile uses the Ampere architecture with the GA103 chip, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm node. Both are end-of-life products, but their underlying designs diverge sharply.

Transistor counts tell a dramatic story. The GA103 chip packs 22,000 million transistors into a 496 mm² die, while the Navi 14 has just 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die. The transistor density is similar — 44.4M per mm² for NVIDIA versus 40.5M per mm² for AMD — but the sheer scale of the NVIDIA chip is far larger. This size difference enables the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile to house 7,424 shading units, 232 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, compared to 1,536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs on the Radeon Pro W5500X.

A critical architectural split is the presence of dedicated hardware on the NVIDIA part. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile includes 58 ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the Radeon Pro W5500X, which lists no RT or tensor cores at all. This gives the mobile NVIDIA GPU capabilities in ray-traced workloads and AI-accelerated tasks that the AMD card cannot match at the hardware level.

Clock speeds and power behavior also differ. The Radeon Pro W5500X runs at a base clock of 1187 MHz and boosts to 1757 MHz, while the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has a lower base of 810 MHz and a boost of 1260 MHz. Despite the lower clocks, the NVIDIA card outputs far more raw compute due to its massive shader count. The AMD card has a TDP of 125 W with a suggested PSU of 300 W, whereas the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile is rated at 115 W and requires no power connectors, reflecting its mobile-oriented design.

Memory architecture follows the same pattern of NVIDIA superiority. The Radeon Pro W5500X uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 1750 MHz memory clock (14 Gbps effective), yielding 224.0 GB/s. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 2000 MHz memory clock (16 Gbps effective), producing 512.0 GB/s — more than double the bandwidth. The bus interface also differs: the AMD card uses Apple MPX, while the NVIDIA card uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs are limited to 2x HDMI 2.0b on the AMD card, while the NVIDIA card's outputs are portable device dependent.

# Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head benchmark table is empty, meaning no direct same-test comparisons exist for both GPUs. However, the available benchmark data allows a meaningful cross-evaluation through their average scores and percentile placements.

The Radeon Pro W5500X's single benchmark result — a Geekbench Metal score of 27,973 — places it at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals bracket it tightly: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti scores 28,020 (0.2% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 7800M scores 27,883 (0.3% lower). This indicates the W5500X performs within a narrow band of high-end desktop GPUs from a previous generation, with the 980 Ti essentially matching it.

The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile's benchmark suite is broader, spanning multiple tests. Its Geekbench OpenCL score is 117,866, and its Geekbench Vulkan score is 107,502 — both massive numbers that dwarf the W5500X's single Metal score. However, its Passmark scores tell a mixed story: G3D score of 19,288, GPU compute score of 8,471, G2D score of 818, and DirectX scores ranging from 88 (DX12) to 201 (DX9). The average benchmark score of 25,740 places it at the 71st percentile, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 at 25,726 (0.1% lower) and the AMD FirePro D700 at 25,842 (0.4% higher).

The average score difference favors the Radeon Pro W5500X by 2,233 points (27,973 versus 25,740). This is notable because the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has vastly more hardware — 4.8 times the shading units, 3 times the ROPs, and more than double the memory bandwidth. The fact that the AMD card still edges ahead in average score suggests the NVIDIA mobile part may be thermally or power constrained, or that its benchmark suite includes tests that penalize certain workloads.

The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile's raw compute capabilities are clear from its FP32 rating of 18.71 TFLOPS versus the W5500X's 5.398 TFLOPS — a 3.5x advantage. Its pixel rate is 121.0 GPixel/s versus 56.22 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 292.3 GTexel/s versus 168.7 GTexel/s. Yet these massive theoretical advantages do not translate into a higher average benchmark score, indicating real-world performance is influenced by factors beyond raw specs.

# Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every specification field. The process node and foundry differ completely: AMD uses 7 nm TSMC, while NVIDIA uses 8 nm Samsung. Transistor count is 6,400 million versus 22,000 million, and die size is 158 mm² versus 496 mm². Shading units are 1,536 versus 7,424, TMUs are 96 versus 232, and ROPs are 32 versus 96.

Ray tracing and tensor cores exist only on the NVIDIA card: 58 RT cores and 232 tensor cores versus none on the AMD card. Clock speeds differ, with the AMD card having higher base and boost clocks (1187 MHz / 1757 MHz) compared to the NVIDIA card (810 MHz / 1260 MHz). Memory is 8 GB versus 16 GB, bus width is 128-bit versus 256-bit, and bandwidth is 224.0 GB/s versus 512.0 GB/s.

The FP32 compute is 5.398 TFLOPS versus 18.71 TFLOPS, and FP16 performance differs in ratio: the AMD card achieves 10.80 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the NVIDIA card hits 18.71 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). TDP is 125 W versus 115 W. The AMD card has a suggested PSU of 300 W and is dual-slot, while the NVIDIA card has no PSU suggestion and no power connectors. The AMD card uses Apple MPX bus interface with 2x HDMI 2.0b outputs, while the NVIDIA card uses PCIe 4.0 x16 with portable device dependent outputs.

DirectX support differs: the AMD card supports 12_1, while the NVIDIA card supports 12 Ultimate (12_2). The AMD card has a launch MSRP of 599 USD, while the NVIDIA card has no MSRP listed. The Radeon Pro W5500X has no predecessor or successor listed, while the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile lists GeForce 20 Mobile as its predecessor.

# Where Each One Wins

The Radeon Pro W5500X wins on average benchmark score, holding a 2,233-point lead over the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile. It also wins on percentile placement, sitting at the 73rd percentile versus the 71st percentile for the NVIDIA card. The AMD card achieves this with significantly lower power consumption relative to its performance class, and its dual-slot design with dedicated display outputs (2x HDMI 2.0b) makes it suitable for fixed workstation configurations using Apple MPX connectivity.

The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile wins decisively on raw computational muscle. Its FP32 throughput of 18.71 TFLOPS is nearly 3.5 times the AMD card's 5.398 TFLOPS. It has 58 ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads that the Radeon Pro W5500X cannot handle. Its 16 GB memory capacity and 512.0 GB/s bandwidth provide 2x the memory and more than 2x the bandwidth, which is critical for large datasets and high-resolution textures. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support adds features like mesh shaders and variable rate shading that the AMD card lacks.

In terms of use cases, the Radeon Pro W5500X is better suited for Metal-based workflows on Apple platforms, given its Geekbench Metal score of 27,973 and its Apple MPX bus interface. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile excels in general-purpose GPU compute, evidenced by its Geekbench OpenCL score of 117,866, and in cross-platform Vulkan workloads with a score of 107,502.

# The Verdict

The data presents a clear but nuanced picture. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X wins on average benchmark score (27,973 versus 25,740) and percentile ranking (73rd versus 71st). However, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile holds overwhelming advantages in raw specifications: 3.5x the FP32 compute, 4.8x the shading units, 2x the memory capacity, and more than 2x the memory bandwidth. It also adds dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores that the AMD card entirely lacks.

The choice between these two GPUs depends on the workload. For Apple-centric workflows using Metal APIs and requiring a stable, dual-slot workstation card with HDMI outputs, the Radeon Pro W5500X is the stronger pick. Its higher average benchmark score and better percentile placement indicate it delivers more consistent performance in its target environment. The 599 USD launch MSRP also positions it as a defined workstation product.

For users needing maximum compute throughput, large memory capacity for big datasets, or any ray-traced or AI-accelerated workloads, the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile is the clear choice. Its 16 GB frame buffer and 512.0 GB/s bandwidth enable workloads that would be impossible or severely bottlenecked on the 8 GB, 224.0 GB/s AMD card. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support and PCIe 4.0 x16 interface provide modern connectivity and API access.

The verdict is that neither card is universally superior. The Radeon Pro W5500X wins the average benchmark comparison and is the better option for Metal-based Apple ecosystems. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile wins the specification war and is the better option for compute-heavy, ray-traced, or AI-accelerated workloads. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile's lower average score despite vastly superior hardware suggests real-world thermal or power constraints on mobile platforms, so buyers should weigh synthetic averages against their actual application requirements. The data supports choosing the AMD card for compatibility and consistent scores, and the NVIDIA card for raw capability and future-proofing through DirectX 12 Ultimate and dedicated RT/tensor hardware.