AMD Radeon Pro W5700 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data presents a starkly one-sided contest in most workloads, but with one notable exception that flips the narrative entirely. Across the nine head-to-head benchmarks, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 claims eight victories, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 takes a single, decisive win.

The most dramatic divergence appears in the Geekbench Vulkan test. Here, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 scores 70,706 against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080's 33,620. That is a 110.3% advantage for AMD, meaning the Radeon Pro W5700 more than doubles the NVIDIA card's score in this specific API workload. This single result is the outlier that prevents the comparison from being a complete sweep, and it suggests a significant optimization or architectural affinity for Vulkan compute on the AMD side.

Every other head-to-head benchmark favors NVIDIA, and often by substantial margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3080 posts 152,423 versus the W5700's 74,613, a delta of 51% in NVIDIA's favor. This is a massive gap in general-purpose GPU compute, roughly doubling the AMD card's output. The Passmark GPU Compute test tells a similar story: 14,397 for NVIDIA against 6,495 for AMD, a 54.9% deficit for the Radeon Pro W5700.

DirectX workloads show consistent NVIDIA dominance as well. In Passmark DirectX 12, the RTX 3080 scores 100 against the W5700's 54, a 46% difference. DirectX 11 shows 207 versus 104, a 49.8% gap. DirectX 10 results are 170 versus 88, a 48.2% difference. Even the legacy DirectX 9 test favors NVIDIA, though by a smaller margin: 258 versus 225, a 12.8% deficit for AMD.

Rasterization performance follows the same pattern. The Passmark G3D score for the RTX 3080 is 25,086, while the Radeon Pro W5700 manages 14,520. That is a 42.1% lead for NVIDIA in overall 3D graphics performance. The 2D test is closer but still favors NVIDIA: 1,054 versus 899, a 14.7% gap.

The aggregate picture from the database's average benchmark scores reinforces this hierarchy, though the overall averages are closer than individual tests might suggest. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 has an average benchmark score of 25,726, placing it in the 71st percentile of all GPUs. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 has an average score of 23,172, which sits in the 68th percentile. This apparent contradiction, where the card with fewer head-to-head wins has a higher average score, is explained by the fact that the W5700's average includes its Vulkan result and other tests not shared in the head-to-head set. The nearest rivals for the W5700 include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile at 25,740 (0.1% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 6700M at 25,633 (0.4% behind), the AMD FirePro D700 at 25,842 (0.4% behind), and the AMD FirePro W7100 at 25,856 (0.5% behind). For the RTX 3080, the nearest rivals are the NVIDIA P106-100 at 23,249 (0.3% ahead), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 at 23,250 (0.3% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 6600M at 23,273 (0.4% ahead), and the AMD Radeon R9 M290X at 23,276 (0.4% ahead). The W5700's average places it in a higher performance tier overall, despite losing most direct comparisons.

The Verdict

The data supports a clear split decision based on workload type. For users whose primary applications rely on OpenCL, DirectX, or conventional 3D rasterization, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the dominant choice. Its 51% lead in OpenCL, 42.1% lead in G3D, and 54.9% lead in GPU compute represent enormous practical advantages. Anyone running compute-heavy tasks, CAD visualization, or DirectX-based rendering would see substantially better performance with the RTX 3080.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5700, however, holds a commanding position in Vulkan-based workloads. The 110.3% advantage in the Geekbench Vulkan test is not a marginal edge; it is a doubling of performance. For software stacks that are built around Vulkan compute or Vulkan rendering, the W5700 is clearly the better engineering choice. This could include certain Linux-based pipelines, Vulkan-native game engines, or specialized compute frameworks that leverage Vulkan's low-level access.

The database's percentile rankings add nuance. The W5700's 71st percentile versus the RTX 3080's 68th percentile indicates that, across all GPU benchmarks in the database, the AMD card tends to score higher on average. This is likely driven by its exceptional Vulkan result and possibly other tests not included in the direct comparison. The RTX 3080's lower percentile despite winning most head-to-head tests suggests that its performance is more variable across different benchmark suites, with some tests showing less impressive results.

In terms of thermal and power requirements, the two cards differ substantially, and this should factor into any purchasing decision. The RTX 3080 has a TDP of 320 W and a suggested power supply of 700 W, while the W5700 has a TDP of 205 W and a suggested power supply of 550 W. The NVIDIA card also uses a single 12-pin power connector, whereas the AMD card uses a 6-pin plus an 8-pin connector. For systems with limited power headroom or smaller power supplies, the W5700 is the more accommodating option.

Both cards are end-of-life products, so availability and driver maturity are no longer differentiating factors. The RTX 3080 was released later, in August 2020, compared to the W5700's November 2019 release. Neither card has a successor listed in the database for the AMD side, while the RTX 3080's successor is listed as the GeForce 40 series.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures and manufacturing processes. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 uses the Navi 10 chip based on RDNA 1.0 architecture, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 uses the GA102 chip based on Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. The process node difference is small but meaningful: 7 nm versus 8 nm, with the AMD card using the smaller node.

Transistor counts differ dramatically. The RTX 3080 packs 28,300 million transistors on a die size of 628 mm², giving a transistor density of 45.1M per mm². The W5700 has 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die, with a density of 41.0M per mm². The NVIDIA chip is nearly three times larger in transistor count and more than twice the die area. This scale difference explains much of the performance gap in compute-heavy workloads.

The memory subsystems are also architecturally distinct. The RTX 3080 uses 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus, delivering 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The W5700 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, with 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA card has both more memory capacity and significantly higher bandwidth, a 69.7% advantage in the latter. Memory clock speeds are 1188 MHz for the RTX 3080 (19 Gbps effective) versus 1750 MHz for the W5700 (14 Gbps effective).

Compute resource counts heavily favor NVIDIA. The RTX 3080 has 8,704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units. The W5700 has 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. This is a 3.78x difference in shading units, a 1.89x difference in TMUs, and a 1.5x difference in ROPs. The RTX 3080 also features 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores, while the W5700 has no dedicated ray tracing or tensor hardware listed.

The RTX 3080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the W5700 supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The NVIDIA card's newer DirectX feature level reflects its more recent architecture.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification field. Clock speeds: the W5700 has a base clock of 1400 MHz and a boost clock of 1880 MHz, while the RTX 3080 has a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz. The AMD card has a higher boost clock by 170 MHz, but this does not compensate for the NVIDIA card's massive compute resource advantage.

Pixel and texture rates follow the resource counts. The RTX 3080 achieves 164.2 GPixel/s and 465.1 GTexel/s, while the W5700 achieves 120.3 GPixel/s and 270.7 GTexel/s. The NVIDIA card leads by 36.5% in pixel rate and 71.8% in texture rate. Floating-point performance shows the largest gap: the RTX 3080 delivers 29.77 TFLOPS FP32, while the W5700 delivers 8.663 TFLOPS, a 3.44x difference. FP16 performance is 29.77 TFLOPS for NVIDIA (1:1 ratio) versus 17.33 TFLOPS for AMD (2:1 ratio).

Physical dimensions differ slightly. The W5700 is 267 mm long and 111 mm tall, while the RTX 3080 is 285 mm long, 112 mm tall, and 40 mm wide. Both are dual-slot cards. Display outputs vary: the W5700 offers 5x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a and 1x USB Type-C, while the RTX 3080 offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x16 for both.

The launch MSRP for the AMD Radeon Pro W5700 was 799 USD, and for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 it was 699 USD.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins the most head-to-head benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 wins 8 of 9 head-to-head tests. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 wins only the Geekbench Vulkan test.

Q: How large is the AMD card's Vulkan advantage?

A: The W5700 scores 70,706 in Geekbench Vulkan versus the RTX 3080's 33,620, a 110.3% lead. This is the largest margin in either direction across all shared benchmarks.

Q: Which card has higher memory bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 has 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth from 10 GB of GDDR6X on a 320-bit bus. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 has 448.0 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus.

Q: What is the difference in FP32 compute performance?

A: The RTX 3080 delivers 29.77 TFLOPS FP32, while the W5700 delivers 8.663 TFLOPS. The NVIDIA card is approximately 3.44 times faster in raw FP32 throughput.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 has an average benchmark score of 25,726, placing it in the 71st percentile. The RTX 3080 has an average score of 23,172, placing it in the 68th percentile.

Q: Do both cards support the same APIs?

A: Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The RTX 3080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the W5700 supports DirectX 12 (12_1).