AMD Radeon PRO W7500 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Comparison

The Verdict

The benchmark data presents a genuinely split decision, with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti taking 5 head-to-head wins against the AMD Radeon PRO W7500's 4. The deciding factor is workload type. The AMD card dominates modern, asynchronous compute workloads and API-level efficiency, while the older NVIDIA card retains a surprising edge in legacy DirectX paths and raw 3D rasterization. The average benchmark score favors the AMD card at 16415 versus 14277 for the GTX 1070 Ti, a meaningful 15% overall gap. However, the GTX 1070 Ti pulls ahead in PassMark's G3D test (14674 vs 13368, a 8.9% deficit for AMD) and in GPU compute (7165 vs 5910, a 17.5% deficit for AMD). The W7500 is the clear choice for anyone working with Vulkan, OpenCL, or 2D-heavy tasks, while the 1070 Ti remains competitive for legacy DirectX 9/10/12 scenarios and traditional 3D rendering. The data suggests the GTX 1070 Ti is not obsolete, but the W7500 represents the more future-proof investment given its architectural advantages.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 leads with an average benchmark score of 16415, compared to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti's 14277. This represents a 15% advantage for the AMD card across all recorded tests.

Q: How do the two compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 significantly outperforms the GTX 1070 Ti in Geekbench Vulkan, scoring 68634 versus 61006, a 12.5% advantage. This reflects the modern RDNA 3.0 architecture's superior handling of contemporary graphics APIs.

Q: Is the GTX 1070 Ti better in any major benchmark category?

A: Yes, the NVIDIA card wins in PassMark's GPU compute test (7165 vs 5910, a 17.5% advantage), and in the G3D test (14674 vs 13368, an 8.9% advantage). It also edges out the AMD card in DirectX 9, 10, and 12 tests.

Q: What about 2D performance?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 shows a dominant 34% lead in PassMark's G2D test, scoring 1174 versus the GTX 1070 Ti's 876. This suggests significantly better 2D workload handling, likely due to architectural improvements in display and memory management.

Q: Which GPU has better OpenCL performance?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 wins decisively in Geekbench OpenCL, scoring 58213 against the GTX 1070 Ti's 49219, an 18.3% advantage. This is a key metric for compute-heavy professional workloads.

Q: How do the DirectX 11 scores compare?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 leads in PassMark DirectX 11 with a score of 125 versus 107 for the GTX 1070 Ti, a 16.8% advantage. This is notable because DirectX 11 remains a widely used API in many applications.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is profound, spanning multiple generations of design philosophy. The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 is built on the Navi 33 chip using the RDNA 3.0 architecture, fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC. In contrast, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti uses the GP104 chip with the older Pascal architecture on a 16 nm process, also from TSMC. This process node difference is stark: 6 nm versus 16 nm. The transistor counts tell the story of density: the AMD chip packs 13,300 million transistors into a 204 mm² die, yielding a density of 65.2 million transistors per mm². The NVIDIA chip has 7,200 million transistors spread across a much larger 314 mm² die, resulting in only 22.9 million transistors per mm². This means the W7500 achieves nearly three times the transistor density.

The AMD card features 28 dedicated ray tracing cores, a technology completely absent from the GTX 1070 Ti, which has no RT cores at all. The W7500 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 1070 Ti is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the underlying architectures differ fundamentally: RDNA 3.0 is a modern, chiplet-inspired design optimized for compute-heavy workloads, while Pascal is a monolithic design from 2016 optimized for traditional rasterization. The AMD card's codename is "Hotpink Bonefish," and it belongs to the Radeon Pro Navi (Navi III Series) generation, while the GTX 1070 Ti is part of the GeForce 10-series, a generation that predates ray tracing and tensor core technologies entirely.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge significantly across nearly every specification category. Clock speeds show a complex picture: the GTX 1070 Ti has a higher base clock at 1607 MHz versus 1500 MHz for the W7500, and a higher boost clock at 1683 MHz versus 1700 MHz for the AMD card. The W7500 actually boosts higher despite the lower base, indicating a more efficient boost algorithm. Memory clocks are nearly identical at 2000 MHz, but effective memory speeds differ: the W7500 uses GDDR6 at 16 Gbps effective, while the GTX 1070 Ti uses GDDR5 at 8 Gbps effective. Both have 8 GB of memory, but bus widths differ: 128 bit for AMD versus 256 bit for NVIDIA. Despite the narrower bus, the W7500 achieves nearly identical bandwidth at 256.0 GB/s versus 256.3 GB/s for the GTX 1070 Ti, thanks to the faster GDDR6 memory.

Compute unit counts reveal a fundamental design difference. The GTX 1070 Ti has more shading units (2432 versus 1792), more texture mapping units (152 versus 112), and equal ROPs (64 each). However, the AMD card's RDNA 3.0 architecture extracts more performance per shader. The pixel rates are nearly identical at 108.8 GPixel/s for AMD versus 107.7 GPixel/s for NVIDIA, but texture rates differ: the W7500 achieves 190.4 GTexel/s versus 255.8 GTexel/s for the GTX 1070 Ti. The FP32 compute shows the AMD advantage: 12.19 TFLOPS versus 8.186 TFLOPS. FP16 is even more stark: the W7500 delivers 24.37 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) versus the GTX 1070 Ti's 127.9 GFLOPS (1:64 ratio), a 190-fold difference in half-precision capability.

Power and physical specifications show the generational efficiency leap. The W7500 has a TDP of 70 W with no power connectors and a suggested PSU of 250 W, while the GTX 1070 Ti has a TDP of 180 W, requires a single 8-pin connector, and suggests a 450 W PSU. The AMD card is single-slot, measuring 216 mm in length, 115 mm in height, and 20 mm in width. The NVIDIA card is dual-slot, measuring 267 mm in length, 112 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The W7500 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the GTX 1070 Ti uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs differ notably: the W7500 offers 4x DisplayPort 2.1, while the GTX 1070 Ti offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The W7500 is still in active production as of its August 2023 release, while the GTX 1070 Ti, released in November 2017, is end-of-life with the GeForce 20 as its successor.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data reveals a clear pattern: the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 wins where modern APIs and compute are involved, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti wins in legacy and traditional 3D workloads. The largest AMD victory comes in PassMark G2D, where the W7500 scores 1174 versus 876, a dominant 34% advantage. This is the single biggest delta in either direction. The next largest AMD win is in Geekbench OpenCL: 58213 versus 49219, an 18.3% lead. Geekbench Vulkan shows a 12.5% advantage for AMD (68634 versus 61006), and PassMark DirectX 11 shows a 16.8% lead (125 versus 107).

The NVIDIA card's biggest win is in PassMark DirectX 10, where it scores 90 versus 65, a 27.8% advantage. PassMark GPU compute shows a 17.5% NVIDIA lead (7165 versus 5910). PassMark G3D gives the GTX 1070 Ti an 8.9% edge (14674 versus 13368). Smaller NVIDIA wins come in PassMark DirectX 12 (51 versus 46, a 9.8% lead) and PassMark DirectX 9 (207 versus 200, a 3.4% lead). The W7500 wins 4 benchmarks, while the GTX 1070 Ti wins 5. However, the magnitude of AMD's wins tends to be larger, particularly the 34% G2D and 18.3% OpenCL victories.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test is only available for the GTX 1070 Ti, scoring 1471, but there is no comparable data for the W7500 in the database. The GTX 1070 Ti also has a Geekbench Metal score of 22180, which is not applicable to the AMD card. These missing data points mean the head-to-head comparison is limited to the nine shared tests, where the NVIDIA card's additional wins are offset by the AMD card's larger margins of victory.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon PRO W7500 is the clear winner in compute-heavy and modern API workloads. The 18.3% OpenCL advantage and 12.5% Vulkan lead make it the superior choice for developers, researchers, and professionals running compute shaders, machine learning inference, or any workload that leverages half-precision FP16, where the 190-fold advantage in FP16 throughput is decisive. The 34% G2D win indicates superior 2D rendering, window management, and display output handling, which matters for multi-monitor productivity setups. The DirectX 11 win (16.8%) is particularly relevant for compatibility with older applications that still rely on this API. The W7500's 70 W TDP and single-slot design make it ideal for compact, power-efficient workstations where space and thermal headroom are constrained.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti retains its strengths in traditional 3D rasterization and legacy API support. The 27.8% DirectX 10 lead and 3.4% DirectX 9 win indicate better backward compatibility with older games and applications. The 17.5% GPU compute win is notable, suggesting the Pascal architecture's compute units are more efficient in certain parallel workloads despite lower raw FP32 numbers. The 8.9% G3D win means that for pure 3D rendering in older engines, the GTX 1070 Ti still delivers higher frame rates. The DirectX 12 win (9.8%) is interesting, as it suggests the older architecture handles certain DX12 paths more effectively, possibly due to its wider 256-bit memory bus and higher texture rate. The GTX 1070 Ti's 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is marginally higher than the W7500's 256.0 GB/s, which may contribute to its 3D performance advantage.

For users prioritizing modern compute, professional workloads, energy efficiency, and future API compatibility, the data strongly favors the AMD Radeon PRO W7500. For those running legacy software, older DirectX titles, or traditional rasterization tasks where raw 3D throughput matters more than compute efficiency, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti still holds its ground. The GTX 1070 Ti's end-of-life status and 180 W power draw make it a less attractive long-term investment, but its 5 head-to-head wins prove it is not yet a relic. The W7500's active production status, combined with its architectural advantages in FP16, ray tracing, and modern APIs, positions it as the more strategic purchase for future-proofing, despite the GTX 1070 Ti's remaining strengths in specific legacy workloads.