AMD Radeon Pro W6600X vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600X occupy opposite ends of the GPU landscape in the recorded data. One is a 5 nm flagship with 24 GB of GDDR6X and an average benchmark score of 178050; the other is a compact 7 nm workstation card built for Apple's MPX platform, averaging 107342. Both are end-of-life products, both sit in the upper percentiles of the database, and they were never designed to compete with each other. That asymmetry is exactly what makes this comparison worth walking through.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4090 D wins on raw throughput, everywhere the data measures it. Its average benchmark score of 178050 sits in the 98th percentile against all GPUs in the database, and its individual results back that up: 8587 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), 278621 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 246941 in Geekbench Vulkan. The W6600X posts a single recorded score, 107342 in Geekbench Metal, which places it in the 94th percentile. The gap between the two average scores is large: the 4090 D's average is roughly 66 percent higher than the W6600X's.

The W6600X wins on efficiency and integration. Its TDP is 120 W against the 4090 D's 425 W, and the suggested PSU for a W6600X system is 300 W versus 800 W for the 4090 D. It is a dual-slot card with no external power connectors because it draws everything through the Apple MPX interface. The 4090 D is a triple-slot card requiring a 16-pin power connector and a physically large cooler, 304 mm long, 137 mm tall, and 61 mm wide. If the question is which card fits inside a Mac Pro module bay, the answer is the W6600X by default: the 4090 D uses PCIe 4.0 x16 and cannot be installed in an MPX slot at all.

Architecture Differences

These two cards come from different design philosophies two GPU generations apart. The RTX 4090 D is built on TSMC's 5 nm process using NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture and the AD102 chip. It packs 76,300 million transistors onto a 609 mm² die, a density of 125.3M per mm². The W6600X uses TSMC's 7 nm process, AMD's RDNA 2.0 architecture, and the much smaller Navi 23 chip: 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, at 46.7M per mm². The die alone is nearly three times smaller on the AMD card while holding roughly one-seventh the transistors.

The functional block counts tell the same story. The 4090 D has 14592 shading units, 456 TMUs, 176 ROPs, 114 RT cores, and 456 tensor cores. The W6600X has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 32 RT cores, with no tensor cores listed in the database. That last point matters for anyone running AI workloads: the 4090 D has dedicated tensor hardware, the W6600X does not, at least not as a separate unit.

Clocks are closer than you might expect. The 4090 D runs a 2280 MHz base and 2520 MHz boost; the W6600X runs 2068 MHz base and 2479 MHz boost. The performance difference comes almost entirely from scale, not frequency.

Memory is another hard split. The 4090 D carries 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus at 21 Gbps effective, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The W6600X has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus at 16 Gbps effective, for 256.0 GB/s. That is a threefold capacity difference and roughly a fourfold bandwidth difference.

Both cards support the same API targets in the database: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Both are marked end-of-life. The 4090 D launched on December 27, 2023, succeeded the GeForce 30 series and precedes the GeForce 50 series. The W6600X launched on August 2, 2021, with no listed predecessor or successor.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in the recorded benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4090 D, by a wide margin. Its average benchmark score of 178050 exceeds the W6600X's 107342 by roughly 66 percent, and it sits in the 98th percentile versus the 94th for the AMD card.

Q: Can the RTX 4090 D be installed in a Mac Pro?

A: No. The W6600X uses the Apple MPX bus interface, while the 4090 D uses PCIe 4.0 x16. They are not mechanically or electrically interchangeable platforms.

Q: How do the power requirements compare?

A: The 4090 D has a 425 W TDP, needs a 16-pin power connector, and carries an 800 W suggested PSU rating. The W6600X has a 120 W TDP, no external power connectors, and a 300 W suggested PSU rating.

Q: Do both cards have ray tracing and AI acceleration hardware?

A: Both have RT cores, 114 on the 4090 D versus 32 on the W6600X. Tensor cores are listed only on the 4090 D (456 of them); the W6600X shows no tensor cores in the database.

Q: Which card is in the same performance neighborhood as other GPUs?

A: The 4090 D's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell (182109 average, 2.2 percent ahead), A100 SXM4 80 GB (183725, 3.1 percent ahead), RTX 5000 Ada Generation (184664, 3.6 percent ahead), and A100 SXM4 40 GB (187147, 4.9 percent ahead). The W6600X trades blows with the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo (0.6 percent ahead of it), sits 2.1 percent behind the Radeon Pro Vega II, 3.1 percent behind the Radeon PRO W7900, and 5.4 percent ahead of the Quadro RTX 6000.

Q: How much memory does each card have, and what type?

A: The 4090 D has 24 GB of GDDR6X with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth. The W6600X has 8 GB of GDDR6 with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Specification Differences

| Field | RTX 4090 D | Radeon Pro W6600X |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | RDNA 2.0 |

| Chip | AD102 | Navi 23 |

| Process node | 5 nm | 7 nm |

| Transistors | 76,300 million | 11,060 million |

| Die size | 609 mm² | 237 mm² |

| Transistor density | 125.3M / mm² | 46.7M / mm² |

| Base clock | 2280 MHz | 2068 MHz |

| Boost clock | 2520 MHz | 2479 MHz |

| Memory size | 24 GB | 8 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR6X | GDDR6 |

| Bus width | 384 bit | 128 bit |

| Bandwidth | 1.01 TB/s | 256.0 GB/s |

| Shading units | 14592 | 2048 |

| TMUs | 456 | 128 |

| ROPs | 176 | 64 |

| RT cores | 114 | 32 |

| Tensor cores | 456 | None listed |

| FP32 | 73.54 TFLOPS | 10.15 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 73.54 TFLOPS (1:1) | 20.31 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| Pixel rate | 443.5 GPixel/s | 158.7 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 1,149.1 GTexel/s | 317.3 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 425 W | 120 W |

| Slot width | Triple-slot | Dual-slot |

| Power connectors | 1x 16-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 800 W | 300 W |

| Bus interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | Apple MPX |

| Display outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | No outputs |

| Launch MSRP | 1,599 USD | 699 USD |

| Release date | December 27, 2023 | August 2, 2021 |

Note the FP16 ratio difference as well: the 4090 D matches its FP32 rate at half precision (1:1), while the W6600X doubles its FP32 rate (2:1) but still lands far below the NVIDIA card in absolute terms.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

There are no direct head-to-head benchmark entries recorded between these two cards, and no shared test names in their individual result sets: the 4090 D appears in 3DMark Steel Nomad, Geekbench OpenCL, and Geekbench Vulkan, while the W6600X appears only in Geekbench Metal. The comparison therefore rests on each card's average score and its standing against its own nearest rivals.

On that basis the 4090 D's 178050 average puts it within touching distance of datacenter and professional hardware: the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is only 2.2 percent ahead at 182109, the A100 SXM4 80 GB is 3.1 percent ahead at 183725, and the RTX 5000 Ada Generation is 3.6 percent ahead at 184664. Even the A100 SXM4 40 GB, at 187147, is just 4.9 percent clear of it. For a consumer-branded card to sit that close to A100-class hardware in the averages is the standout takeaway of the dataset.

The W6600X's 107342 average places it in a tighter cluster of workstation GPUs. It actually beats the Quadro RTX 6000 by 5.4 percent (101872 average), edges the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo by 0.6 percent (106750), and trails the Radeon Pro Vega II by 2.1 percent (109617) and the Radeon PRO W7900 by 3.1 percent (110725). In other words, the W6600X competes within its class; the 4090 D punches above its class.

The Verdict

The recorded data makes this a platform decision before it is a performance decision. If the target machine is a Mac Pro with an MPX bay, the W6600X is the only option of the two, full stop. It delivers 94th-percentile performance, a modest 120 W TDP, and no external cabling, and its benchmark cluster shows it trading wins with Vega II-era and Quadro RTX 6000-class workstation hardware.

For everything else, the RTX 4090 D dominates the numbers. Its 98th-percentile average of 178050, its 73.54 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, its 24 GB of GDDR6X at 1.01 TB/s, and its 456 tensor cores make it the card for demanding rendering, compute, and AI work among the two. The cost of that performance is physical and electrical: 425 W of TDP, a 16-pin connector, an 800 W suggested PSU, and a triple-slot, 304 mm-long body. It also carries no display-output compromises, with HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors, whereas the W6600X lists no outputs at all because it relies on the host system's display path.

Both cards are end-of-life, so availability rather than launch MSRP (1,599 USD for the 4090 D, 699 USD for the W6600X) will drive any purchase. Choose the W6600X for a low-power Apple workstation upgrade; choose the 4090 D when maximum throughput is the requirement and the chassis and PSU can support it.