AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded benchmark data presents a stark contrast between these two flagship-class GPUs. In the two head-to-head tests where both cards produced comparable scores, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D decisively outperforms the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo. The NVIDIA card wins both direct comparisons, with the AMD card failing to secure a single victory in any shared workload.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5090 D scores 310,674 against the W6800X Duo's 124,335. That is a 60 percent deficit for the AMD card, meaning the NVIDIA GPU delivers roughly two and a half times the compute throughput in this API. The gap widens further in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 5090 D posts 376,915 versus 125,622 for the W6800X Duo, a 66.7 percent shortfall. The Vulkan result shows the NVIDIA architecture scaling more efficiently with a lower-level graphics API, pulling even further ahead than it already was in OpenCL.

Beyond the shared tests, the RTX 5090 D has additional benchmark coverage that the AMD card lacks. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the NVIDIA card records 14,326 points. Passmark results show 44,065 in G3D and 28,396 in GPU Compute, alongside DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 scores of 434, 231, 371, and 219 respectively. The W6800X Duo has no corresponding entries in those tests, so a direct comparison is impossible, but the sheer volume of NVIDIA's benchmark presence indicates a broader testing footprint.

Looking at aggregate performance, the database's average benchmark score tells a more nuanced story. The RTX 5090 D averages 77,712 across all its recorded tests, while the W6800X Duo averages 135,774. However, this discrepancy stems from the different test sets each card was subjected to. The AMD card's three Geekbench runs all land in the 124,000 to 157,000 range, while the NVIDIA card's Passmark DirectX tests drag its average down despite its much higher Geekbench and 3DMark scores. The percentile rankings reflect this: the W6800X Duo sits at the 96th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 5090 D sits at the 92nd percentile.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo claims its territory through consistency and legacy API performance. Its Geekbench Metal score of 157,365 is its strongest result, exceeding both its OpenCL and Vulkan numbers. This Metal advantage matters for macOS ecosystems, where the card's Apple MPX bus interface and Thunderbolt outputs align with professional Apple workflows. The card's average benchmark score of 135,774 places it in the 96th percentile of all GPUs, a higher standing than the NVIDIA card's 92nd percentile ranking.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D dominates in raw compute and modern graphics APIs. Its Vulkan score of 376,915 is nearly three times the AMD card's Vulkan result. OpenCL follows suit at 310,674, more than double the AMD figure. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326, while not directly comparable to any AMD test, indicates strong DirectX 12 performance. The card's Passmark G3D score of 44,065 and GPU Compute score of 28,396 further demonstrate its breadth across compute workloads.

For users prioritizing Geekbench Metal or working within Apple's ecosystem, the W6800X Duo holds relevance. For anyone running OpenCL, Vulkan, DirectX 12, or general-purpose compute, the RTX 5090 D is the clear choice based on the recorded data. The NVIDIA card's nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78,940 (1.6 percent ahead of the 5090 D) and the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB at 79,396 (2.1 percent ahead), which suggests the 5090 D's average sits in a competitive mid-range cluster despite its high-end individual scores.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D scores 310,674, which is 60 percent higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo's 124,335.

Q: How do the two cards compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The RTX 5090 D scores 376,915 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the W6800X Duo scores 125,622. The NVIDIA card leads by 66.7 percent.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The AMD W6800X Duo averages 135,774 across its three recorded Geekbench tests, while the NVIDIA RTX 5090 D averages 77,712 across its ten recorded tests spanning 3DMark, Geekbench, and Passmark.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo ranks at the 96th percentile, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks at the 92nd percentile.

Q: Does the AMD card win any head-to-head benchmark comparisons?

A: No. In the two shared tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan), the NVIDIA card wins both. The AMD card records zero wins in the head-to-head data.

Q: What is the strongest single benchmark result for each card?

A: For the AMD W6800X Duo, the Geekbench Metal score of 157,365 is its peak. For the NVIDIA RTX 5090 D, the Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915 is its highest recorded result.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on nearly every major specification. The AMD W6800X Duo uses 32 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA RTX 5090 D also has 32 GB, but it uses GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, achieving 1.79 TB/s. That is over three times the memory bandwidth, a critical advantage for high-resolution textures and large datasets.

Clock speeds favor NVIDIA as well. The RTX 5090 D runs at a base of 2017 MHz and boosts to 2407 MHz, while the AMD card operates at 1800 MHz base and 1967 MHz boost. Memory clocks follow the same pattern: 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) for NVIDIA versus 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) for AMD.

The compute pipeline differences are enormous. The RTX 5090 D packs 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, against the W6800X Duo's 3,840 shaders, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. Ray tracing hardware also differs: NVIDIA has 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, while AMD has 60 RT cores and no tensor cores listed. Pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 188.8 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate reaches 1,636.8 GTexel/s on the NVIDIA card, compared to 472.1 GTexel/s on the AMD card. FP32 compute is 104.8 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 15.11 TFLOPS for AMD, a roughly sevenfold gap. FP16 shows 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1) for NVIDIA versus 30.21 TFLOPS (2:1) for AMD.

Power and physical dimensions differ substantially. The RTX 5090 D draws 575 W with a suggested 950 W PSU, occupies a dual-slot profile, measures 304 mm in length, and uses a single 16-pin connector. The W6800X Duo draws 400 W with a suggested 800 W PSU, occupies a quad-slot profile, measures 267 mm, and uses an Apple MPX bus interface with no separate power connectors listed. Display outputs also differ: NVIDIA offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b, while AMD provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 4x Thunderbolt.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different architectural generations. The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo is built on RDNA 2.0 with the Navi 21 chip, fabricated on TSMC's 7 nm process. It belongs to the Radeon Pro Mac (Navi II Series) generation and was released in August 2021. The die measures 520 mm² and contains 26,800 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 51.5 million per square millimeter.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D uses the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB202 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. It is part of the GeForce 50-series generation, released in January 2025. The die is substantially larger at 750 mm² and holds 92,200 million transistors, achieving a density of 122.9 million per square millimeter. That is more than double the transistor density of the AMD chip, reflecting both the newer process node and the architectural complexity of Blackwell.

The production status tells the lifecycle story: the AMD card is end-of-life, while the NVIDIA card is active. The AMD card's launch MSRP was 4,999 USD, and it uses the Apple MPX bus interface, indicating a specialized professional Mac market. The NVIDIA card uses PCIe 5.0 x16, a standard interface with broader system compatibility. Its predecessor is listed as GeForce 40 and successor as GeForce 60, showing clear product lineage. The AMD card lists no predecessor or successor.

Feature sets also diverge. The NVIDIA card includes tensor cores (680 of them), which are absent from the AMD card's specification list. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is identical. The AMD card's dual-GPU design (implied by the "Duo" name and its quad-slot footprint) targets multi-GPU professional rendering, while the NVIDIA card's single, massive die approach concentrates all resources into one physical unit. The memory technology gap (GDDR6 versus GDDR7) and bus width difference (256-bit versus 512-bit) reflect the generational leap between 2021 and 2025 hardware.