AMD Radeon PRO W6400 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Comparison

The benchmark data presents a stark contrast between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 and the AMD Radeon PRO W6400. The RTX 4070 is a high-end consumer GPU from the GeForce 40-series, while the W6400 is a professional workstation card from AMD's Radeon Pro line. Their average benchmark scores are surprisingly close—37,648 for the RTX 4070 versus 37,157 for the W6400—a mere 1.3% difference. However, this aggregate similarity masks a massive divergence in individual workload performance, particularly in compute-oriented tests.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The direct comparison is limited to two compute benchmarks, and in both, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a dominant victory. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX 4070 scores 154,858 points, while the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 manages only 35,027 points. This translates to a delta of 342.1%, meaning the NVIDIA card is roughly 4.4 times faster in this specific OpenCL workload. The margin is nearly identical in the Geekbench Vulkan test, where the RTX 4070 scores 174,152 against the W6400's 39,286, a 343.3% advantage. These are not marginal wins; they represent a categorical difference in raw compute throughput.

The story becomes more nuanced when looking at the broader average score. The RTX 4070's average of 37,648 is built on a wide range of tests, including Passmark DirectX 9 (320), DirectX 10 (139), DirectX 11 (244), DirectX 12 (103), G2D (1164), G3D (26927), and GPU Compute (14720). The W6400's average of 37,157 is derived from only its Geekbench scores, which are far lower than the RTX 4070's. This suggests that the W6400's inclusion in the same performance tier is driven by its relative strength in specific professional applications that are not captured in the head-to-head tests, rather than by competitive compute performance.

The RTX 4070's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (delta of 0.1%) and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (delta of 0.4%), indicating it sits in a crowded mid-to-high performance band. The W6400's nearest rivals include the same RX Vega 56 and Tesla P4, but with negative deltas (-0.9% and -1.3% respectively), showing it is slightly slower than those cards. The direct head-to-head delta between the two cards is 1.3%, favoring the RTX 4070, but again, this is an average that hides the 342% gap in the specific tests where they intersect.

The Verdict

The data is unequivocal for compute-heavy tasks: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the superior choice. Its 342.1% lead in OpenCL and 343.3% lead in Vulkan leave no room for interpretation. Any workload that relies on these APIs—such as GPU-accelerated rendering, scientific simulation, or machine learning inference—will see massive performance gains with the RTX 4070. The RTX 4070 also holds a higher percentile ranking at 81 versus the W6400's 80, and it wins both head-to-head benchmarks, giving it a 2-0 record.

However, the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 is not without a case. Its average score of 37,157 places it within 1.3% of the RTX 4070's average, suggesting that in some unmeasured professional scenarios, it holds its own. The W6400 is a professional card with a 50 W TDP, and its architecture is designed for specific workstation tasks where its lower compute throughput is offset by other characteristics. The data shows that if your application does not leverage OpenCL or Vulkan heavily, and instead relies on other proprietary or driver-optimized paths, the W6400 could be a competitive option. Yet, based strictly on the provided benchmarks, the RTX 4070 is the clear winner for general compute.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 wins in every scenario that involves the benchmarks provided. Its victories in Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan make it the definitive choice for developers, researchers, and content creators who use cross-platform compute APIs. Its other benchmark scores—such as 26,927 in Passmark G3D and 14,720 in GPU Compute—further reinforce its strength in both graphics and computational workloads. The RTX 4070 is also the better option for users who require high memory bandwidth (504.2 GB/s) and a larger frame buffer (12 GB), which are critical for large datasets and high-resolution textures.

The AMD Radeon PRO W6400 wins only in the sense of efficiency and professional positioning. Its 50 W TDP and single-slot design make it suitable for dense, low-power workstation environments where the RTX 4070's 200 W TDP and dual-slot footprint would be impractical. The W6400 also has a higher base clock (2039 MHz vs 1920 MHz), though its boost clock is lower (2321 MHz vs 2475 MHz). For tasks that are not compute-bound, such as basic 2D CAD or multi-display professional output, the W6400's lower power draw and physical footprint could make it a more practical fit. However, in raw performance, it does not win a single head-to-head test.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 scores 154,858, which is 342.1% higher than the AMD Radeon PRO W6400's 35,027.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 win any benchmark?

A: No. In the provided head-to-head benchmarks, the RTX 4070 wins both the Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan tests. The W6400 has 0 wins in the head-to-head data.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The RTX 4070 has an average score of 37,648, while the W6400 averages 37,157. This gives the RTX 4070 a 1.3% lead in the average.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 4070 has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth. The W6400 has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 128.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What are the power consumption figures?

A: The RTX 4070 has a 200 W TDP and requires a 550 W suggested PSU. The W6400 has a 50 W TDP and a 250 W suggested PSU.

Q: How do their percentile rankings compare?

A: The RTX 4070 is in the 81st percentile of all GPUs, while the W6400 is in the 80th percentile.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 uses the AD104 chip based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It contains 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 121.8M per mm². The AMD Radeon PRO W6400 uses the Navi 24 chip based on the RDNA 2.0 architecture, also fabricated at TSMC but on a 6 nm process. It contains only 5,400 million transistors on a 107 mm² die, giving a density of 50.5M per mm². This means the RTX 4070 has over 6.6 times more transistors in a die that is nearly three times larger.

The RTX 4070 features 5,888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, alongside 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The W6400 has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with 12 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 4070's FP32 performance is 29.15 TFLOPS, and it offers FP16 at a 1:1 ratio (also 29.15 TFLOPS). The W6400's FP32 is just 3.565 TFLOPS, but its FP16 is 7.130 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, but the RTX 4070 has a significantly more complex execution engine.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets highlight the different market positions. The RTX 4070 has a base clock of 1920 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, while the W6400 has a higher base clock of 2039 MHz but a lower boost clock of 2321 MHz. The memory subsystem is a major differentiator: the RTX 4070 uses 12 GB of GDDR6X with a 192-bit interface and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth, while the W6400 uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with only 128.0 GB/s. The RTX 4070's memory clock is 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective), whereas the W6400's is 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective).

Physical and power specifications also diverge sharply. The RTX 4070 is a dual-slot card with a 200 W TDP, requiring a single 16-pin power connector and a 550 W suggested PSU. It measures 240 mm in length, 110 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The W6400 is a single-slot card with a 50 W TDP, has no power connectors, and requires only a 250 W PSU. Its dimensions are not listed in the data. The RTX 4070 uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface and offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the W6400 uses a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface and has only 2x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The RTX 4070 was released on 2023-04-11, while the W6400 came earlier on 2022-01-18.