AMD Radeon Pro W5700 vs AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and AMD Radeon Pro W5700 represent two distinct generations of AMD graphics architecture, and the benchmark data shows a clear performance hierarchy between them. Across ten head-to-head comparisons, the RX 6700 XT secures nine wins, while the Pro W5700 manages a single, albeit significant, victory. With an average benchmark score of 27,425 for the RX 6700 XT versus 25,726 for the Pro W5700, the data indicates a decisive overall performance lead for the newer consumer card, despite the Pro W5700's professional workstation positioning.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The largest margin of victory for the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT appears in the Passmark DirectX 11 test, where it scores 173 against the Pro W5700's 104, representing a substantial 66.3% advantage. This is followed closely by the Passmark GPU Compute benchmark, with the RX 6700 XT scoring 9,336 versus 6,495, a 43.7% lead. The DirectX 12 test shows a similar story, with the RX 6700 XT at 77 and the Pro W5700 at 54, a 42.6% difference. These results suggest that in modern API workloads, the RDNA 2.0 architecture provides a significant throughput advantage over the older RDNA 1.0 design.

In the Geekbench Metal test, the RX 6700 XT scores 130,896, which is 46.2% higher than the Pro W5700's 89,557. This is a considerable gap for an Apple-centric API, indicating the RX 6700 XT's raw compute capabilities translate well across different interfaces. The Passmark G3D score also heavily favors the RX 6700 XT, with 19,786 versus 14,520, a 36.3% improvement. Even in the legacy DirectX 10 test, the RX 6700 XT holds a 40.9% edge (124 vs. 88), and the DirectX 9 test shows a smaller but still positive 7.6% lead (242 vs. 225).

The single win for the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 comes in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark, where it scores 74,613 against the RX 6700 XT's 44,152. This represents a 40.8% advantage for the Pro W5700, a remarkable reversal of the trend seen in other tests. This outlier suggests that the Pro W5700's driver optimization for OpenCL compute workloads is exceptionally strong, potentially making it a better choice for specific scientific or rendering tasks that rely heavily on this API. The RX 6700 XT also wins the Geekbench Vulkan test (93,500 vs. 70,706, a 32.2% lead) and the Passmark G2D test (951 vs. 899, a 5.8% lead), rounding out its dominant performance profile.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT demonstrates its strength across almost every benchmark category, establishing itself as the superior choice for general graphics performance, gaming, and modern compute workloads. Its wins in DirectX 11, DirectX 12, Vulkan, and Metal tests indicate that it is well-optimized for contemporary graphics APIs and game engines. The 66.3% lead in DirectX 11 is particularly telling, as this API remains widely used in many game titles, and the 42.6% lead in DirectX 12 shows its forward-looking capabilities. For users seeking maximum frame rates in gaming or GPU-accelerated rendering with modern APIs, the data consistently points to the RX 6700 XT.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5700's victory in Geekbench OpenCL is its sole bright spot, but it is a notable one. The 40.8% margin over the RX 6700 XT in this test suggests that the Pro W5700 has specialized driver optimizations for OpenCL compute tasks. This makes it a potentially better choice for professional applications that rely heavily on OpenCL, such as certain video editing suites, scientific simulation software, or custom compute pipelines. The Pro W5700's 8 GB of VRAM on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is higher than the RX 6700 XT's 384.0 GB/s, potentially benefiting memory-bandwidth-intensive OpenCL workloads. However, this single win is insufficient to overcome the RX 6700 XT's dominance in the other nine tests.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures, which explains their divergent benchmark results. The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is based on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using the Navi 22 chip, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It contains 17,200 million transistors on a 335 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 51.3 million per mm². In contrast, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 uses the older RDNA 1.0 architecture with the Navi 10 chip, also on a 7 nm TSMC process, but with only 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die, giving a density of 41.0 million per mm². The RX 6700 XT's larger, denser chip provides a substantial raw compute advantage.

Clock speeds further differentiate the two. The RX 6700 XT operates at a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz. The Pro W5700 is significantly slower in this regard, with a base clock of 1400 MHz and a boost clock of 1880 MHz. This clock speed disparity directly contributes to the RX 6700 XT's higher pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s versus 120.3 GPixel/s, and its texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s versus 270.7 GTexel/s. The RX 6700 XT also boasts a higher FP32 throughput of 13.21 TFLOPS compared to the Pro W5700's 8.663 TFLOPS, and its FP16 performance of 26.43 TFLOPS (2:1) more than doubles the Pro W5700's 17.33 TFLOPS (2:1).

Memory configurations also differ. The RX 6700 XT comes with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, running at an effective speed of 16 Gbps, yielding 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Pro W5700 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a wider 256-bit bus, but at a lower effective speed of 14 Gbps, resulting in higher total bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The Pro W5700 also lacks the dedicated ray tracing cores found in the RX 6700 XT, which has 40 of them, explaining the latter's support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus the Pro W5700's DirectX 12 (12_1). The RX 6700 XT also features a higher shading unit count (2560 vs. 2304) and TMU count (160 vs. 144), while both have 64 ROPs.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT has an average benchmark score of 27,425, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 has an average score of 25,726.

Q: In which benchmark does the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 outperform the RX 6700 XT?

A: The Pro W5700 wins the Geekbench OpenCL test, scoring 74,613 compared to the RX 6700 XT's 44,152, a 40.8% advantage.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between the two cards in any single test?

A: The largest gap is in the Passmark DirectX 11 test, where the RX 6700 XT scores 173 versus the Pro W5700's 104, a 66.3% difference in favor of the RX 6700 XT.

Q: How do the memory bandwidths compare between the two cards?

A: The Pro W5700 has a higher memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s due to its 256-bit bus, while the RX 6700 XT offers 384.0 GB/s over a 192-bit bus.

Q: Does the Pro W5700 support hardware ray tracing?

A: No, the Pro W5700 has no ray tracing cores, whereas the RX 6700 XT includes 40 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Q: What is the transistor count difference between the two chips?

A: The RX 6700 XT's Navi 22 chip has 17,200 million transistors, while the Pro W5700's Navi 10 chip has 10,300 million transistors.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the clear performance winner for the vast majority of use cases. Its dominance in DirectX 11, DirectX 12, Vulkan, Metal, and compute tests, with leads ranging from 5.8% to 66.3%, makes it the obvious choice for gaming, general GPU acceleration, and modern graphics workloads. The RX 6700 XT also holds a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs at 72, compared to the Pro W5700's 71, and its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, with a negligible 0.5% difference in average score. This places the RX 6700 XT in the company of flagship-class hardware.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 should only be considered by users with specific, OpenCL-centric professional workloads, where its 40.8% advantage in that single test could be decisive. Its higher memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, powered by a 256-bit bus, may also benefit certain compute tasks that are highly sensitive to memory throughput. However, for any other application, the RX 6700 XT's superior shading units, clock speeds, and compute throughput make it the superior product. The Pro W5700's launch MSRP was 799 USD, compared to the RX 6700 XT's launch MSRP of 479 USD, further reinforcing the RX 6700 XT's position as the more rational choice for most buyers. Given its end-of-life status for both cards, the data shows that the RX 6700 XT is the more capable and well-rounded GPU, while the Pro W5700's appeal is limited to a narrow set of professional OpenCL applications.