AMD Radeon Pro W5500X vs NVIDIA TITAN RTX Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark database contains an unusual comparison here: the NVIDIA TITAN RTX has a substantial portfolio of recorded test results, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X has only a single entry. That lone result, a Geekbench Metal score of 27,973, is the only direct numerical point of intersection between the two cards. The TITAN RTX does not have a recorded Metal score, and the W5500X has no entries for any of the tests in which the TITAN RTX appears, so a traditional head-to-head table is impossible to construct from the recorded data.

What the database does show is how each card positions itself against the broader field. The TITAN RTX has an average benchmark score of 31,676 across ten distinct tests. That average places it at the 76th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals in the ranking are the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell, which scores 31,532 and trails by 0.5 percent, and the Intel Arc Pro A30M, which scores 31,894 and leads by 0.7 percent. The spread among these four cards is remarkably tight, with the TITAN RTX sitting between a 1.5 percent deficit to the GRID M60-1Q and Quadro M5000 on one side, and a 0.5 percent gap to the RTX PRO 4500 on the other. This clustering suggests that the TITAN RTX's average score is not a dominant figure but rather a central value within a very narrow competitive band.

The W5500X, with its single Geekbench Metal result of 27,973, sits at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti at 28,020, which leads by 0.2 percent, and the AMD Radeon RX 7800M at 27,883, which trails by 0.3 percent. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 is close behind at 27,839, a 0.5 percent deficit, while the AMD FirePro S7150 leads by 0.5 percent with a score of 28,117. The W5500X, like the TITAN RTX, is surrounded by rivals within a single percentage point, but the absolute scores are roughly 3,700 points lower.

The raw gap between the two cards' average scores is 3,703 points, which translates to the TITAN RTX outperforming the W5500X by roughly 13 percent on the only comparable metric available. That is a meaningful margin in absolute terms, but the database structure limits the interpretation: the TITAN RTX's average is derived from DirectX, OpenCL, Vulkan, and PassMark workloads, while the W5500X's score comes exclusively from Apple's Metal API. The benchmarks do not share a single common test, so any comparison of absolute performance must be treated as an approximation based on aggregate averages rather than a direct apples-to-apples measurement.

Looking at the TITAN RTX's individual results, the card shows a wide performance envelope across APIs. Its strongest absolute result is the Geekbench OpenCL score of 144,858, followed by a Vulkan score of 136,073. In the PassMark suite, the G3D score of 20,491 stands out, while the compute score of 10,034 and the G2D score of 860 round out the picture. The DirectX results are more modest, with a DirectX 11 score of 189, a DirectX 9 score of 223, and a DirectX 12 score of 88. The card also records a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3,794. These numbers illustrate a card that is strong in compute and modern API workloads but less dominant in legacy DirectX tests, which is consistent with a high-end workstation-oriented product from the Turing generation.

The W5500X has no comparable spread to analyze. Its single Metal score of 27,973 is the entire dataset. That score, when placed against the rival cluster around it, indicates that the card performs at a level consistent with mid-range GPUs from the same era, but the lack of additional test data prevents any deeper characterization of its strengths or weaknesses across different APIs.

The Verdict

From the recorded data, the NVIDIA TITAN RTX is the faster card overall. Its average benchmark score of 31,676 exceeds the W5500X's average of 27,973 by 3,703 points, a margin of roughly 13 percent. The TITAN RTX also holds a higher percentile ranking at 76 compared to the W5500X's 73, meaning it sits closer to the top of the database's GPU hierarchy.

However, the verdict is not simply one of speed. The W5500X was designed for a specific ecosystem: its bus interface is Apple MPX, and its display outputs are limited to two HDMI 2.0b ports. The TITAN RTX uses PCIe 3.0 x16 and offers one HDMI 2.0 port, three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, and a USB Type-C connection. The W5500X belongs to the Radeon Pro Mac lineup, which suggests it was built for Mac Pro systems, while the TITAN RTX is a general-purpose workstation card. The data shows that users who require Metal performance on Apple platforms would be looking at the W5500X, while users who need broad API coverage across DirectX, Vulkan, and OpenCL workloads would gravitate toward the TITAN RTX.

The TITAN RTX also carries substantially more memory: 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus with 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, versus 8 GB on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s. That is a 16 GB difference in capacity and a 448.0 GB/s difference in bandwidth, both in favor of the TITAN RTX. For workloads that are memory-bound, such as large dataset processing or high-resolution texture streaming, the TITAN RTX has a clear structural advantage that the benchmark scores only partially capture.

The W5500X, meanwhile, is a lower-power card with a 125 W TDP and a suggested power supply of 300 W, compared to the TITAN RTX's 280 W TDP and 600 W suggested power supply. For systems with power constraints or smaller power supplies, the W5500X is the more practical choice. The data does not show a performance-per-watt metric, but the raw power figures are part of the record.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different architectural generations and manufacturing processes. The NVIDIA TITAN RTX uses the TU102 chip built on Turing architecture, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. The die measures 754 mm² and contains 18,600 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 24.7 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X uses the Navi 14 chip built on RDNA 1.0 architecture, also fabricated at TSMC but on a 7 nm process. Its die is 158 mm² with 6,400 million transistors, which works out to a density of 40.5 million per square millimeter. The W5500X's process node is more advanced, and its transistor density is significantly higher, but the TITAN RTX's much larger die gives it far more total transistors.

The compute resources differ substantially. The TITAN RTX has 4,608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units. It also includes 72 ray tracing cores and 576 tensor cores, features that the W5500X does not list at all. The W5500X has 1,536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The TITAN RTX's pixel rate is 169.9 GPixel/s versus 56.22 GPixel/s for the W5500X, and its texture rate is 509.8 GTexel/s versus 168.7 GTexel/s. In terms of raw throughput, the TITAN RTX delivers 16.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute compared to 5.398 TFLOPS for the W5500X. Both cards offer FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, with the TITAN RTX at 32.62 TFLOPS and the W5500X at 10.80 TFLOPS.

Memory architecture is another major divider. The TITAN RTX's memory runs at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed, using a 384-bit bus to achieve 672.0 GB/s. The W5500X also runs its GDDR6 at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed, but its 128-bit bus halves the bandwidth to 224.0 GB/s. The TITAN RTX's 24 GB capacity is triple the W5500X's 8 GB.

API support shows a generation gap. The TITAN RTX lists DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the W5500X supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both cards support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The TITAN RTX's DirectX 12_2 support reflects its newer feature set, including ray tracing and mesh shaders, which the RDNA 1.0-based W5500X does not offer. The absence of ray tracing and tensor cores on the W5500X is a clear architectural distinction.

Clock speeds are relatively close, with the TITAN RTX boosting to 1770 MHz versus the W5500X's 1757 MHz, but the base clocks differ more: 1350 MHz for the TITAN RTX versus 1187 MHz for the W5500X. The physical dimensions also differ. The TITAN RTX is 267 mm long, 116 mm tall, and 35 mm wide, while the W5500X has no recorded dimensions. Both are dual-slot cards, but the TITAN RTX requires two 8-pin power connectors, while the W5500X lists no power connectors at all, consistent with its Apple MPX interface that draws power from the system bus.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA TITAN RTX has an average benchmark score of 31,676, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X has an average of 27,973, a difference of 3,703 points in favor of the TITAN RTX.

Q: Does the W5500X support ray tracing?

A: No. The W5500X does not list any ray tracing cores or tensor cores in the database. The TITAN RTX, by contrast, has 72 ray tracing cores and 576 tensor cores.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The TITAN RTX has 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus with 672.0 GB/s bandwidth. The W5500X has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient?

A: The W5500X has a 125 W TDP and a suggested power supply of 300 W, while the TITAN RTX has a 280 W TDP and a suggested power supply of 600 W. The W5500X draws less power according to the recorded specifications.

Q: What API levels do the two cards support?

A: The TITAN RTX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The W5500X supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Both share OpenGL and Vulkan versions, but the TITAN RTX has a higher DirectX feature level.

Q: How does the W5500X compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The W5500X's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which leads by 0.2 percent with a score of 28,020. The AMD Radeon RX 7800M trails by 0.3 percent, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 trails by 0.5 percent, and the AMD FirePro S7150 leads by 0.5 percent.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA TITAN RTX wins in raw compute performance across every metric recorded in the database. Its FP32 throughput of 16.31 TFLOPS is triple the W5500X's 5.398 TFLOPS. Its texture rate of 509.8 GTexel/s is more than three times the W5500X's 168.7 GTexel/s. Its pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s is also roughly three times the W5500X's 56.22 GPixel/s. For anyone running GPU-accelerated compute workloads, rendering, or simulation tasks that scale with shading units and memory bandwidth, the TITAN RTX is the clear choice.

The TITAN RTX also wins in memory-heavy scenarios. The 24 GB frame buffer is a critical advantage for large neural network models, high-resolution textures, or datasets that exceed 8 GB. The bandwidth gap is equally stark: 672.0 GB/s versus 224.0 GB/s means the TITAN RTX can move data nearly three times faster, which directly impacts performance in memory-bound workloads.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X wins in system integration and power efficiency. Its Apple MPX bus interface and dual HDMI 2.0b outputs make it a natural fit for Mac Pro systems, where the TITAN RTX's PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and mix of DisplayPort and USB-C outputs would require additional adapters or may not be supported at all. The W5500X's 125 W TDP versus the TITAN RTX's 280 W TDP also makes it a better option for compact systems or those with limited power delivery. The fact that it requires no dedicated power connectors is a practical advantage in pre-built systems where cable routing and PSU headroom are constrained.

The W5500X also wins in transistor efficiency. Its 7 nm process and 40.5 million transistors per square millimeter show that AMD achieved a higher density with far fewer total transistors, which is a manufacturing advantage even if it does not translate to higher performance. For workloads that are specifically optimized for Metal on macOS, the W5500X has a recorded score that the TITAN RTX cannot match, since the TITAN RTX has no Metal benchmark in the database. That absence is not proof of inferiority, but it does mean the W5500X is the only one of the two with verified Metal performance data.

The production status of both cards is listed as end-of-life, and the TITAN RTX was released on December 17, 2018, while the W5500X followed on December 10, 2019. The TITAN RTX has a recorded successor in the GeForce 30 series, while the W5500X has no predecessor or successor listed. For users on Apple platforms, the W5500X is the only card with confirmed compatibility through its MPX interface. For everyone else, the TITAN RTX's broader API support, higher compute throughput, and larger memory pool make it the superior choice based on the recorded benchmark data. The choice ultimately depends on the target platform: Mac systems point to the W5500X, while general-purpose workstations point to the TITAN RTX.