AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo vs NVIDIA A10G Comparison

The NVIDIA A10G and AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo are both end-of-life workstation cards that occupy the same lofty percentile tier, yet the benchmark data reveals they achieve this status through very different means. The A10G holds a clear aggregate advantage, with an average benchmark score of 151,963 against the Duo’s 143,766, a 5.7% gap that places the NVIDIA part ahead in its nearest-rival list. The Duo, meanwhile, sees the A10G as its closest competitor with a -5.4% delta, meaning the NVIDIA card outranks it by that margin. Both sit in the 98th percentile of all GPUs, so neither is a slouch, but the head-to-head numbers show a distinct pattern: the A10G wins both shared tests, and it wins them decisively.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two cards share two benchmark tests, and in both, the NVIDIA A10G emerges victorious. In Geekbench OpenCL, the A10G scores 158,063 against the Duo’s 124,927, a commanding 26.5% lead. That is not a marginal win; it is a substantial margin that suggests the A10G’s compute architecture is far more efficient in raw OpenCL throughput. The Vulkan test tells a similar story, albeit with a narrower gap: the A10G posts 145,863 versus the Duo’s 125,622, a 16.1% advantage. These are the only two head-to-head comparisons available, and the NVIDIA card wins both, giving it a clean 2-0 record.

The implications are worth unpacking. A 26.5% OpenCL delta is the kind of difference that changes workflow decisions, not just benchmark bragging rights. For users running OpenCL-heavy applications, the A10G delivers over a quarter more performance, which translates directly to shorter render times or faster simulation runs. The Vulkan gap, while smaller, is still significant at 16.1%, indicating that the A10G’s graphics pipeline also holds a solid edge in that API. Notably, the Duo does not have a Vulkan score in its own benchmark list that rivals the A10G; its best non-Metal result is 125,622, which is 16.1% below the NVIDIA part’s Vulkan output.

However, the Duo has a weapon the A10G lacks: a Geekbench Metal score. The Duo posts 180,749 in Metal, a figure that towers over its own OpenCL and Vulkan results (124,927 and 125,622, respectively). That Metal score is 44.7% higher than its OpenCL score and 43.8% higher than its Vulkan score. This suggests the Duo is heavily optimized for Apple’s Metal API, which aligns with its Mac-centric design. The A10G has no Metal benchmark listed, so a direct comparison in that API is impossible from the data, but the Duo’s Metal figure is the single highest score across both cards in any test.

Architecture Differences

The chasm in performance between the two cards is rooted in fundamentally different design philosophies. The NVIDIA A10G uses the GA102 chip on the Ampere architecture, fabricated on Samsung’s 8 nm process. It packs 28,300 million transistors onto a 628 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 45.1 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo, by contrast, uses the Navi 21 chip on RDNA 2.0, built on TSMC’s 7 nm node. It contains 26,800 million transistors on a smaller 520 mm² die, achieving a higher density of 51.5 million per square millimeter.

The core configurations diverge sharply. The A10G boasts 9,216 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs, along with 72 ray tracing cores and 288 tensor cores. The Duo, despite being a dual-GPU card, lists just 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with 60 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores at all. This is a striking difference: the A10G has 2.4 times the shading units, yet the Duo’s dual-die design means those numbers may not tell the full story. The clock speeds favor AMD, with the Duo boosting to 1967 MHz versus the A10G’s 1710 MHz, but the A10G compensates with raw parallelism.

Memory setups are also divergent. The A10G uses 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 600.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The Duo offers 32 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, but only reaches 512.0 GB/s. Despite having more capacity, the Duo’s narrower bus limits its bandwidth to 14.7% less than the A10G. The A10G’s memory clock is listed at 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective), while the Duo’s runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), but the wider bus wins out for the NVIDIA part.

Compute throughput tells a similar story. The A10G delivers 31.52 TFLOPS FP32 and the same 31.52 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio). The Duo manages only 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 but reaches 30.21 TFLOPS FP16 thanks to a 2:1 ratio. In FP32, the A10G is more than double the Duo, a 108.5% advantage. In FP16, the A10G still leads by 4.3%, though the Duo’s ratio-based approach narrows the gap.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the NVIDIA A10G is the clear winner in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. Its 26.5% OpenCL lead and 16.1% Vulkan lead make it the obvious choice for compute tasks that rely on those APIs. The 31.52 TFLOPS FP32 figure reinforces this, as it is over double the Duo’s 15.11 TFLOPS, suggesting the A10G is built for heavy numerical lifting. The 600.2 GB/s bandwidth also supports this, as memory-intensive workloads will benefit from the wider pipe.

The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo, however, wins in the Metal API, where its 180,749 score is unmatched by anything the A10G can show. That single data point implies the Duo is tailored for Apple ecosystems, particularly Mac Pro systems where Metal is the primary graphics API. Its 32 GB of VRAM also gives it a capacity advantage, which could matter for extremely large datasets that exceed the A10G’s 24 GB. The Duo’s higher boost clock of 1967 MHz and higher pixel rate of 188.8 GPixel/s (versus the A10G’s 164.2 GPixel/s) suggest it may handle certain rasterization tasks more efficiently, despite the A10G’s overall compute lead.

Texture rate is nearly a wash, with the A10G at 492.5 GTexel/s and the Duo at 472.1 GTexel/s, a 4.3% difference. The Duo also has a higher transistor density (51.5M/mm² vs 45.1M/mm²), which could imply better power efficiency per transistor, though its 400 W TDP dwarfs the A10G’s 150 W.

The Verdict

The data points to the NVIDIA A10G as the superior choice for general compute and cross-platform graphics workloads. It wins both shared benchmarks, offers more than double the FP32 throughput, and provides higher memory bandwidth. The 26.5% OpenCL and 16.1% Vulkan leads are not trivial; they represent real-world performance gaps in applications that use those APIs. For users running Linux or Windows workstations with OpenCL or Vulkan dependencies, the A10G is the data-backed pick.

The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo is the pick for Mac-centric workflows. Its Metal score of 180,749 is the standout figure in the entire dataset, and its 32 GB VRAM capacity exceeds the A10G’s 24 GB. If the target environment is a Mac Pro with Metal-accelerated software, the Duo’s performance in that API is likely to outstrip the A10G, even if the A10G wins in other areas. The Duo’s 400 W TDP and quad-slot design are also indicators that it is built for a specific, high-power Mac chassis, not general-purpose deployment.

There is no universal winner here. The A10G dominates in raw compute and cross-API performance, while the Duo dominates in Metal and capacity. The choice hinges entirely on the software stack and operating system.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA A10G, with an average score of 151,963 compared to the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo’s 143,766, a 5.7% difference.

Q: How large is the OpenCL performance gap between the two?

A: The A10G scores 158,063 in Geekbench OpenCL versus the Duo’s 124,927, giving the NVIDIA card a 26.5% lead.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo win any benchmark test?

A: The head-to-head data shows the Duo wins zero shared tests, but it posts a Geekbench Metal score of 180,749, which is higher than any score the A10G achieves in OpenCL or Vulkan.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The Duo offers 32 GB of GDDR6, while the A10G has 24 GB. However, the A10G’s bandwidth is higher at 600.2 GB/s versus the Duo’s 512.0 GB/s.

Q: How do their FP32 compute performances compare?

A: The A10G delivers 31.52 TFLOPS FP32, which is more than double the Duo’s 15.11 TFLOPS.

Q: Which card has a higher boost clock?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo boosts to 1967 MHz, while the NVIDIA A10G boosts to 1710 MHz.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA A10G | AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo |

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

| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 2.0 |

| Process Node | 8 nm (Samsung) | 7 nm (TSMC) |

| Transistors | 28,300 million | 26,800 million |

| Die Size | 628 mm² | 520 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 45.1M / mm² | 51.5M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1320 MHz | 1800 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1710 MHz | 1967 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective) | 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 24 GB | 32 GB |

| Memory Bus Width | 384 bit | 256 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 600.2 GB/s | 512.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 9216 | 3840 |

| TMUs | 288 | 240 |

| ROPs | 96 | 96 |

| RT Cores | 72 | 60 |

| Tensor Cores | 288 | None |

| Pixel Rate | 164.2 GPixel/s | 188.8 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 492.5 GTexel/s | 472.1 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 31.52 TFLOPS | 15.11 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 31.52 TFLOPS (1:1) | 30.21 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 150 W | 400 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Quad-slot |

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | 800 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | Apple MPX |

| Display Outputs | No outputs | 1x HDMI 2.14x Thunderbolt |

| Dimensions (L×H) | 267 mm × 112 mm | 267 mm × 120 mm |

| Release Date | 2021-04-11 | 2021-08-02 |

| Launch MSRP | None | 4,999 USD |