AMD Radeon Pro W6800X vs NVIDIA PG506-232 Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher OpenCL benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA PG506-232 scores 225124 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X scores 124498. That puts the NVIDIA part ahead by 80.8% in this specific test.

Q: How do the two cards compare in overall GPU percentile rankings?

A: The NVIDIA PG506-232 sits in the 99th percentile of all GPUs, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X ranks in the 97th percentile. The PG506-232 also has a higher average benchmark score of 225124 versus 160671 for the W6800X.

Q: What are the nearest rivals to the NVIDIA PG506-232 in benchmark performance?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7900D is 2.4% behind with an average score of 219827, the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 80 GB is 8.7% behind at 207124, the NVIDIA L20 is 10.4% ahead at 251147, and the NVIDIA RTX 6000D is 14.9% behind at 195964.

Q: What are the nearest rivals to the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X in benchmark performance?

A: The NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB is 1.1% ahead with an average score of 162504, the AMD Radeon PRO W7800 is 2.6% ahead at 164894, the NVIDIA RTX A5500 is 2.8% ahead at 165217, and the NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation is 3.3% ahead at 166094.

Q: Which card offers more memory capacity and what type is it?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X has 32 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the NVIDIA PG506-232 has 24 GB of HBM2. However, the NVIDIA part's 3072-bit bus delivers 933.1 GB/s bandwidth versus 512.0 GB/s for the AMD card.

Q: What is the release timeline for these two GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA PG506-232 was released on April 11, 2021, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X followed on August 2, 2021. Both are now end-of-life products.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide here is stark. The NVIDIA PG506-232 uses the GA100 chip built on the Ampere architecture, produced on TSMC's 7 nm process. It packs 54,200 million transistors into an 826 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 65.6 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X uses the Navi 21 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture, also on TSMC's 7 nm node, but with only 26,800 million transistors on a 520 mm² die, giving a density of 51.5 million per square millimeter.

The compute feature sets diverge sharply. NVIDIA's Ampere design includes 224 tensor cores, which are entirely absent from the AMD part. Conversely, AMD's RDNA 2.0 brings 60 ray tracing cores to the table, while NVIDIA lists no RT cores for the PG506-232. The shading unit counts are close—3584 for NVIDIA versus 3840 for AMD—but the memory subsystems could not be more different.

NVIDIA pairs its GA100 with HBM2 memory across a 3072-bit bus, achieving 933.1 GB/s. AMD opts for GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, capping out at 512.0 GB/s. That bandwidth difference is fundamental to their respective design philosophies: the NVIDIA card is aimed at compute workloads that crave memory throughput, while AMD's part leans on higher clock speeds to compensate. The FP16 rates tell the same story—NVIDIA delivers 10.32 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio to FP32, while AMD offers 32.06 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, indicating a more graphics-oriented throughput focus.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only one benchmark test appears in the head-to-head comparison: Geekbench OpenCL. In this test, the NVIDIA PG506-232 scores 225124, and the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X scores 124498. The delta is 80.8%, a decisive win for NVIDIA. The magnitude of this gap is striking—the AMD card would need a roughly 81% improvement in score to match NVIDIA's result. This is not a close contest by any measure.

Context from the nearest rivals reinforces how impressive the NVIDIA score is. The PG506-232 beats the AMD Radeon PRO W7900D by 2.4%, the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 80 GB by 8.7%, and the NVIDIA RTX 6000D by 14.9%. Only the NVIDIA L20 tops it, and that card is 10.4% higher. Meanwhile, the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X sits just below a cluster of competitors—the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB, AMD Radeon PRO W7800, NVIDIA RTX A5500, and NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation are all within 1.1% to 3.3% ahead of it. This places the W6800X in a crowded mid-pack, whereas the PG506-232 is near the top of the entire GPU hierarchy.

The win count is lopsided: NVIDIA takes 1 win, AMD takes 0. But the single benchmark leaves a question: does this gap persist across other workloads, or does the AMD card's higher clock speed and ray tracing hardware close the distance in graphics-specific tasks? The data available does not answer that, but the OpenCL result is the one quantitative comparison we have, and it is heavily one-sided.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge on nearly every measurable specification. The NVIDIA PG506-232 has a base clock of 930 MHz and a boost clock of 1440 MHz. The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X runs much faster at 1800 MHz base and 2087 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ: NVIDIA's HBM2 runs at 1215 MHz (2.4 Gbps effective), while AMD's GDDR6 runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective).

Memory capacity and bandwidth favor different cards. AMD offers 32 GB versus NVIDIA's 24 GB. But NVIDIA's 933.1 GB/s bandwidth dwarfs AMD's 512.0 GB/s. The bus widths are 3072-bit for NVIDIA and 256-bit for AMD—a 12x difference in bus width that explains the bandwidth inversion.

Compute throughput numbers are mixed. NVIDIA has 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 138.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 322.6 GTexel/s. AMD has 3840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 200.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 500.9 GTexel/s. AMD leads in raw FP32 at 16.03 TFLOPS versus 10.32 TFLOPS for NVIDIA. The FP16 comparison is even more lopsided: AMD's 32.06 TFLOPS (2:1) versus NVIDIA's 10.32 TFLOPS (1:1).

Power and physical specs also differ. NVIDIA is rated at 165 W TDP with a dual-slot design and an 8-pin EPS connector, requiring a 450 W PSU. AMD draws 200 W, uses a quad-slot design with an Apple MPX connector, and needs a 550 W PSU. Both cards are 267 mm long, but NVIDIA is 112 mm tall while AMD is 120 mm tall. The bus interfaces are different: NVIDIA uses PCIe 4.0 x16, AMD uses Apple MPX. The NVIDIA card has no display outputs; AMD offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 4x Thunderbolt. AMD also lists DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 support, while NVIDIA's API support fields are null in the data. The AMD card's launch MSRP is 2,799 USD; NVIDIA has no listed launch MSRP.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Pro W6800X wins on memory capacity with 32 GB versus 24 GB, and on raw compute throughput—its 16.03 TFLOPS FP32 is 55% higher than NVIDIA's 10.32 TFLOPS. It also has higher pixel and texture rates, faster clocks, and includes ray tracing cores. For any workload that scales with shading units, clock speed, or rasterization throughput, the AMD card appears better suited on paper.

The NVIDIA PG506-232 wins decisively on memory bandwidth at 933.1 GB/s, which is 82% higher than AMD's 512.0 GB/s. It also has tensor cores, a much larger transistor count, and a higher die density. The OpenCL benchmark suggests that in compute-heavy tasks, NVIDIA's architecture extracts far more performance per clock than AMD's. The 99th percentile ranking versus AMD's 97th percentile reinforces this conclusion.

The practical split is clear: workloads that depend on memory bandwidth—large matrix operations, scientific computing, data processing—likely favor NVIDIA. Workloads that depend on raw shader throughput, ray tracing, or larger memory pools for datasets that exceed 24 GB would point toward AMD. The AMD card's display outputs and Thunderbolt support make it viable for visualization setups, while NVIDIA's lack of outputs positions it as a pure compute accelerator.

The Verdict

The benchmark data is unambiguous in the one test available: the NVIDIA PG506-232 is 80.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X in Geekbench OpenCL. The NVIDIA card also ranks higher overall (99th versus 97th percentile) and sits among faster rivals, while AMD's nearest competitors are all slightly ahead of it. For users prioritizing compute performance in OpenCL-based applications, the PG506-232 is the clear choice from this dataset.

However, the AMD card has its own compelling arguments. It offers 8 GB more memory, nearly 55% higher FP32 throughput, ray tracing hardware, and full display output capabilities. The 2,799 USD launch MSRP gives it a defined market position, whereas NVIDIA's price is not listed. For graphics rendering, video editing, or any task that can utilize its higher clock speeds and shading units, the W6800X may deliver better real-world results—but the OpenCL benchmark does not support that conclusion.

The specification differences suggest two different intended use cases. NVIDIA's HBM2 memory and tensor cores point toward AI and HPC workloads where memory bandwidth is the bottleneck. AMD's larger memory pool, faster clocks, and display outputs point toward professional graphics work on Mac platforms. The data supports this split: NVIDIA wins the compute benchmark by a wide margin, while AMD wins on paper specifications relevant to graphics throughput.

The final call depends on workload. If the task is OpenCL compute, take the NVIDIA PG506-232 without hesitation. If the task requires more than 24 GB of memory, ray tracing, or display connectivity, the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X is the only one of these two that can meet those requirements. The benchmark gap is real, but it measures only one dimension of a multi-faceted comparison.