AMD Radeon PRO W6800 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and AMD Radeon PRO W6800 are both end-of-life, high-end workstation-class graphics cards, yet they represent fundamentally different design philosophies from their respective manufacturers. The data places them in a near-identical performance tier, with the AMD card’s average benchmark score of 133,588 edging out the NVIDIA card’s 131,911 by a mere 1.3%. Both sit in the 97th percentile of all GPUs, meaning they are elite performers, but the path each takes to that tier diverges sharply in architecture, memory configuration, and raw compute characteristics.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark results paint a clear picture of two distinct compute profiles. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti dominates the compute-oriented tests, while the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 holds a statistical edge in the overall average score due to a single additional benchmark result. In the two direct head-to-head comparisons available, the RTX 3090 Ti wins both decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA card scores 205,978 against the AMD card’s 120,399, a massive 71.1% advantage. Similarly, in Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 3090 Ti posts 184,015 versus 109,228, a 68.5% lead. These are not marginal wins; they represent a fundamental advantage in general-purpose compute throughput for the NVIDIA architecture.

However, the AMD Radeon PRO W6800’s overall average score of 133,588 is not solely derived from those two tests. It also includes a Geekbench Metal score of 171,137, a test the NVIDIA card does not have a corresponding result for in the data. This Metal result, likely reflecting Apple ecosystem compatibility, is what pushes the AMD card’s average slightly above the NVIDIA card’s. For users working in environments that leverage Metal, the W6800 is the clear choice. Conversely, for pure OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, the RTX 3090 Ti is overwhelmingly faster. The RTX 3090 Ti wins 2 out of the 2 head-to-head tests, while the W6800 wins none, but the average score suggests the W6800 has strengths outside those specific APIs.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two cards is stark. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA102 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. This chip packs 28,300 million transistors into a 628 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 45.1M per mm². The AMD Radeon PRO W6800, in contrast, uses the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 21 chip, manufactured on a more advanced 7 nm process at TSMC. It contains 26,800 million transistors on a smaller 520 mm² die, achieving a higher density of 51.5M per mm². The process node advantage allows AMD to pack more transistors per area, though the NVIDIA chip is larger overall.

The compute resource allocation could not be more different. The RTX 3090 Ti fields 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units, along with 84 dedicated ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores. The W6800 counters with just 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, plus 60 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores whatsoever. This explains the massive FP32 performance gap: the RTX 3090 Ti delivers 40.00 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the W6800 manages only 17.83 TFLOPS. Notably, the AMD card’s FP16 performance of 35.67 TFLOPS is achieved at a 2:1 ratio, nearly doubling its FP32 rate, whereas the NVIDIA card maintains a 1:1 ratio at 40.00 TFLOPS for FP16.

FAQ

Q: Which card has more memory, and does it matter?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W6800 has 32 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti has 24 GB of GDDR6X on a wider 384-bit bus. The W6800’s larger capacity suits massive datasets, but the RTX 3090 Ti’s memory type and bus width give it a bandwidth advantage of 1.01 TB/s versus the W6800’s 512.0 GB/s.

Q: How do their power requirements compare?

A: The NVIDIA card is far more power-hungry, with a TDP of 450 W and a suggested PSU of 850 W, using a single 16-pin connector. The AMD card has a 250 W TDP, requires a 600 W PSU, and uses one 6-pin plus one 8-pin connector. This makes the W6800 significantly easier to integrate into existing systems.

Q: Are they both current-generation products?

A: No, both are end-of-life. The AMD Radeon PRO W6800 was released on 2021-06-07, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti launched later on 2022-01-26. The NVIDIA card’s predecessor is the GeForce 20 series, with a successor in the GeForce 40 series; the AMD card’s predecessor is the Radeon Pro Vega, with no successor listed.

Q: Which card is better for ray tracing?

A: The data shows the NVIDIA card has 84 ray tracing cores, while the AMD card has 60. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), so they are feature-equivalent, but the higher RT core count suggests the RTX 3090 Ti has more dedicated hardware for ray tracing workloads.

Q: What display outputs do they offer?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The AMD Radeon PRO W6800 offers 6x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a. The AMD card’s six mini-DisplayPort outputs are oriented toward multi-display professional setups, while NVIDIA includes an HDMI port for consumer displays.

Q: How do their physical dimensions differ?

A: The RTX 3090 Ti is substantially larger, measuring 336 mm in length, 140 mm in height, and 61 mm in width, requiring a triple-slot bracket. The W6800 is more compact at 267 mm by 120 mm by 50 mm, fitting in a dual-slot configuration. This makes the AMD card much easier to fit in space-constrained chassis.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge on nearly every core specification. The process node differs (8 nm Samsung versus 7 nm TSMC), as do the transistor counts (28,300 million versus 26,800 million) and die sizes (628 mm² versus 520 mm²). Clock speeds tell a story of their own: the NVIDIA card has a base clock of 1560 MHz and a boost of 1860 MHz, while the AMD card starts at 1575 MHz and boosts to a much higher 2322 MHz. The memory subsystems are entirely different: 24 GB GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus versus 32 GB GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, with bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s versus 512.0 GB/s. The shading unit count is over 2.8x higher on the NVIDIA card (10,752 versus 3,840), and the RTX 3090 Ti includes 336 tensor cores that the W6800 lacks entirely. Pixel and texture rates are close, but the NVIDIA card leads in texture rate at 625.0 GTexel/s versus 557.3 GTexel/s, while the AMD card wins pixel rate at 222.9 GPixel/s versus 208.3 GPixel/s. Power envelopes differ wildly, with the RTX 3090 Ti at 450 W versus the W6800 at 250 W. The cards also differ in slot width (triple versus dual), power connectors (1x 16-pin versus 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin), suggested PSU (850 W versus 600 W), and display outputs (HDMI plus DisplayPort versus six mini-DisplayPort). Physical dimensions favor the AMD card as well, being shorter, lower, and thinner. Their API support is identical, both featuring DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, but the AMD card also includes a Geekbench Metal benchmark score, indicating macOS driver support, which the NVIDIA card lacks in the data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The direct benchmark comparisons leave no ambiguity about compute supremacy. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti’s score of 205,978 absolutely crushes the AMD Radeon PRO W6800’s 120,399. That translates to a 71.1% delta, meaning the NVIDIA card is nearly three-quarters faster in this OpenCL workload. This result aligns with the raw FP32 specifications, where the RTX 3090 Ti’s 40.00 TFLOPS more than doubles the W6800’s 17.83 TFLOPS. The NVIDIA architecture’s massive shading unit count (10,752 versus 3,840) and tensor core array appear to deliver a decisive advantage in general compute.

The Geekbench Vulkan test tells a similar story, albeit slightly less lopsided. The RTX 3090 Ti scores 184,015 against the W6800’s 109,228, a 68.5% lead. Vulkan is a low-level graphics API, and the NVIDIA card’s superior texture rate of 625.0 GTexel/s, compared to the AMD card’s 557.3 GTexel/s, likely contributes to this margin. The AMD card does win the pixel rate battle at 222.9 GPixel/s versus 208.3 GPixel/s, but this does not translate into a benchmark victory in the available tests.

The overall average scores, however, tell a more nuanced story. The AMD card’s average of 133,588 is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA card’s 131,911. This is solely due to the inclusion of the Geekbench Metal score of 171,137 for the W6800, which has no NVIDIA counterpart in the data. If Metal performance is a priority, the W6800 is not just competitive; it is the only one of the two with a recorded result. For OpenCL and Vulkan, the RTX 3090 Ti is the clear victor, with margins that dwarf the 1.3% average score difference. The data suggests a simple split: raw compute and gaming-adjacent APIs favor NVIDIA, while Apple ecosystem compatibility and memory capacity favor AMD.