AMD Radeon PRO W7600 vs NVIDIA PG506-232 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA PG506-232 and AMD Radeon PRO W7600 occupy entirely different corners of the workstation market, and the benchmark data reflects that separation clearly. The PG506-232 is a compute-first accelerator with no display outputs, designed for server racks and headless number-crunching. The W7600 is a conventional workstation card with four DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, built to drive displays while also handling GPU-accelerated workloads.

In the only shared benchmark test, Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA PG506-232 dominates with a score of 225,124 against the W7600's 81,528. That is a 176.1% advantage, a gap so large that the two cards are not really competing in the same performance tier. The PG506-232 sits in the 99th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the W7600 lands in the 93rd percentile. Both are high performers, but the PG506-232 is in the top 1% of every GPU ever recorded, whereas the W7600 is merely in the top 7%.

The AMD card does have one clear win in its feature set: it is the only one of the two with any display outputs at all. The PG506-232 has none, so any workload that requires driving a monitor, whether for CAD, video editing, or 3D visualization, must go through the W7600. The W7600 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, while the PG506-232 lists no API support in the database. For graphics-oriented applications, the W7600 is the only viable option of the two.

The PG506-232 counters with memory capacity and bandwidth that dwarf the AMD card. It packs 24 GB of HBM2 across a 3072-bit bus, delivering 933.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The W7600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s. For large datasets, high-resolution simulations, or AI inference workloads that need to hold entire models in memory, the PG506-232's 16 GB extra capacity and 3.2x bandwidth advantage are decisive.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different foundries, different design philosophies, and different eras of GPU architecture. The NVIDIA PG506-232 uses the GA100 chip built on TSMC's 7 nm process, featuring 54,200 million transistors on an 826 mm² die. That is a massive chip, one of the largest in the database, with a transistor density of 65.6 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 uses the Navi 33 chip, built on TSMC's 6 nm process, with 13,300 million transistors on a 204 mm² die. Its transistor density is nearly identical at 65.2 million per square millimeter, but the total transistor count is about a quarter of NVIDIA's.

The architecture names tell the story. The PG506-232 is Ampere, NVIDIA's server-oriented architecture from the Server Ampere (Axx) generation. It relies on 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, 96 ROPs, and 224 tensor cores. The tensor cores are the key differentiator for AI and deep learning workloads, and the PG506-232 has a full complement of them. The W7600 is RDNA 3.0, AMD's latest gaming-derived architecture, using the Navi III Series generation with codename Hotpink Bonefish. It has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 32 ray accelerators. Notably, the W7600 has no tensor cores, while the PG506-232 has no dedicated ray tracing cores. Each card is optimized for a different compute paradigm.

Clock speeds are reversed from what the chip sizes suggest. The PG506-232 runs at a modest 930 MHz base and 1440 MHz boost, reflecting its server-oriented design where power efficiency and sustained throughput matter more than peak clocks. The W7600 runs at 1720 MHz base and 2440 MHz boost, a much higher frequency that helps it extract performance from a smaller chip. The memory clocks also differ: the PG506-232's HBM2 runs at 1215 MHz with 2.4 Gbps effective data rate, while the W7600's GDDR6 runs at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective. The GDDR6 is much faster per pin, but the HBM2's 3072-bit bus gives the NVIDIA card a massive aggregate bandwidth advantage.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single head-to-head benchmark in the database is Geekbench OpenCL, and it is not close. The NVIDIA PG506-232 scores 225,124, while the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 scores 81,528. The delta is 176.1% in favor of NVIDIA. That means the PG506-232 delivers roughly 2.76 times the OpenCL performance of the W7600 in this test. For compute workloads that scale with raw throughput, this is a generational chasm.

To put the PG506-232's score in context, its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon PRO W7900D at 219,827 (2.4% behind), the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 80 GB at 207,124 (8.7% behind), and the NVIDIA RTX 6000D at 195,964 (14.9% behind). The only listed rival ahead of it is the NVIDIA L20 at 251,147, which beats it by 10.4%. The PG506-232 is thus positioned in the upper echelon of workstation and server GPUs, trading blows with the W7900D and A100, and trailing only the L20 among its nearest recorded competitors.

The W7600's 81,528 OpenCL score places it in a much lower tier. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 at 87,445 (0.4% ahead), the NVIDIA CMP 40HX at 85,637 (1.7% ahead), the NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile at 91,134 (4.4% ahead), and the NVIDIA RTX A4500 at 91,671 (5.0% ahead). The W7600 is the lowest-scoring card among its nearest rivals, though the gaps are small, all within 5%. This suggests the W7600 is competitive with mid-range workstation GPUs of the previous generation, but it is not in the same league as the PG506-232.

The W7600 does have a second benchmark result, Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 92,688. The PG506-232 has no Vulkan result in the database, and given its lack of display outputs and server orientation, Vulkan performance is not a relevant metric for it. The W7600's Vulkan score is higher than its OpenCL score, which is typical for AMD RDNA architecture in graphics-oriented tests.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ on nearly every specification in the database. The most striking contrasts are in memory and power. The PG506-232 has 24 GB of HBM2 with a 3072-bit bus and 933.1 GB/s bandwidth. The W7600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA card has 3x the memory capacity and 3.2x the bandwidth.

The compute pipelines are also very different. The PG506-232 has 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and 224 tensor cores. The W7600 has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 32 ray accelerators. The PG506-232 has more of everything except ray accelerators, which it lacks entirely. In raw FP32 throughput, the W7600 actually wins: it delivers 19.99 TFLOPS against the PG506-232's 10.32 TFLOPS. The W7600 also delivers 39.98 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 rate), while the PG506-232 delivers 10.32 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 rate). The AMD card has roughly double the FP32 and nearly four times the FP16 throughput on paper, yet it scores far lower in OpenCL, which may reflect driver maturity, memory bandwidth constraints, or the specific workload characteristics of the benchmark.

Power and physical specifications also diverge. The PG506-232 has a 165 W TDP and requires a 450 W suggested PSU with an 8-pin EPS connector. It is dual-slot, 267 mm long, and 112 mm tall. The W7600 has a 130 W TDP, a 300 W suggested PSU, and a single 6-pin connector. It is single-slot, 241 mm long, and 115 mm tall. The W7600 is smaller, cooler, and more power-efficient, while the PG506-232 is larger and hungrier but far more capable in compute.

The bus interfaces differ too: the PG506-232 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the W7600 uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The NVIDIA card gets full bandwidth to the host, while the AMD card is limited to half the lanes. This may not matter much for the W7600 given its lower memory bandwidth, but it is a structural difference. The PG506-232 has no display outputs; the W7600 has 4x DisplayPort 2.1. The PG506-232 is marked end-of-life with a release date in April 2021, while the W7600 is active with an August 2023 release. The PG506-232's predecessor is Tesla Turing and its successor is Server Ada. The W7600's predecessor is Radeon Pro Vega and it has no listed successor.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in OpenCL benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA PG506-232 scores 225,124 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 176.1% higher than the AMD Radeon PRO W7600's 81,528.

Q: Does either card support ray tracing?

A: Only the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 has ray accelerators, with 32 of them. The NVIDIA PG506-232 has no dedicated ray tracing cores in the database.

Q: Which card has more memory and bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA PG506-232 has 24 GB of HBM2 with 933.1 GB/s bandwidth across a 3072-bit bus. The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 with 288.0 GB/s across a 128-bit bus.

Q: Can either card drive displays?

A: Only the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 can. It has 4x DisplayPort 2.1 outputs. The NVIDIA PG506-232 has no display outputs at all.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the AMD card?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 has a launch MSRP of 599 USD. The NVIDIA PG506-232 has no launch MSRP listed in the database.

Q: How do the two cards compare in FP32 compute?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7600 delivers 19.99 TFLOPS FP32, while the NVIDIA PG506-232 delivers 10.32 TFLOPS. The W7600 also leads in FP16 with 39.98 TFLOPS versus 10.32 TFLOPS.