AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 holds a slight edge with an average score of 40063, compared to the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile’s 39568. That is a 1.3% advantage for the AMD card in the aggregated data.

Q: How do the two cards perform in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile wins the OpenCL test decisively, scoring 41263 versus the AMD’s 40148. That is a 2.7% margin in favor of the NVIDIA, making it the stronger card for raw compute workloads using this API.

Q: Which GPU wins in the Geekbench Vulkan test?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 takes the Vulkan test with 39683 points, beating the RTX A500 Mobile’s 37873. The delta is 4.8%, which is the largest single-test margin between the two cards.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The AMD card comes with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA card has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, providing 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD has double the capacity and more than double the bandwidth.

Q: What is the power draw difference between the two?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 has a 130 W TDP and requires a single 6-pin power connector, with a suggested 300 W power supply. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile has a 30 W TDP and uses no power connectors, being an integrated GPU (IGP) solution.

Q: What is the transistor density difference?

A: The NVIDIA chip packs 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, yielding a density of 43.5M per mm². The AMD chip has 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, resulting in 24.6M per mm². NVIDIA’s 8 nm process from Samsung is significantly denser.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear split between two very different design philosophies. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 is a workstation card built for maximum memory throughput and capacity. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus delivers 224.0 GB/s, a figure that dwarfs the NVIDIA’s 96.00 GB/s. For workloads that are memory-bound — large datasets, high-resolution textures, multi-display setups — the AMD card is the obvious choice. Its 4.8% Vulkan win over the NVIDIA further cements its position as the better option for graphics-API-specific tasks.

The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile, on the other hand, is a mobile-first solution with a 30 W TDP, making it suitable for laptops and compact systems where power efficiency is paramount. It wins the OpenCL test by 2.7%, and its higher FP32 throughput (6.296 TFLOPS vs 5.728 TFLOPS) suggests a raw compute advantage in certain workloads. However, its 4 GB memory capacity and 64-bit bus are severe limitations for professional 3D rendering or large-scale data processing.

Pick the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 if your priority is memory bandwidth, VRAM capacity, or Vulkan performance. Pick the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile if you need a low-power, high-efficiency solution for compute-heavy tasks where OpenCL performance and a smaller footprint matter more than memory size.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two cards split their benchmark results evenly, each taking one victory. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile posts 41263 points against the AMD’s 40148. That 2.7% lead is notable, especially considering the NVIDIA’s much lower power envelope. The NVIDIA’s FP32 rating of 6.296 TFLOPS versus the AMD’s 5.728 TFLOPS helps explain this result — raw compute throughput is higher on the Ampere chip.

The AMD fights back in the Geekbench Vulkan test. It scores 39683, which is 4.8% higher than the NVIDIA’s 37873. This is the largest delta between the two in any metric. The AMD’s higher texture rate (179.0 GTexel/s vs 98.37 GTexel/s) and greater memory bandwidth likely contribute to this win, as Vulkan workloads often stress memory and texture fetch efficiency.

Looking at the broader context, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100’s average score of 40063 puts it 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile’s 39568. However, both cards sit at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, meaning they occupy a similar tier in overall performance. The nearest rival data reinforces this: the RTX A500 Mobile is 1.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 575X, while the WX 7100 is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 580 and 0.8% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070.

Specification Differences

The most striking difference is power consumption. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 draws 130 W and requires a 6-pin power connector with a 300 W suggested power supply. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile is an IGP with a 30 W TDP and no external power connectors. That is a 100 W gap, making the NVIDIA dramatically more efficient for mobile or space-constrained builds.

Memory configurations are polar opposites. The AMD offers 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 96.00 GB/s. The AMD has 2x the capacity and 2.33x the bandwidth. Memory clocks also differ: the AMD runs at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective), while the NVIDIA runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The NVIDIA’s faster memory type does not compensate for the narrow bus.

Core counts differ as well. The AMD has 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The NVIDIA has 2048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The AMD has more shaders and more than double the TMUs, but the NVIDIA has a higher pixel rate (49.18 GPixel/s vs 39.78 GPixel/s) due to its higher boost clock.

The bus interface differs: the AMD uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the NVIDIA uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The AMD is a single-slot card measuring 241 mm in length, while the NVIDIA has no dimensions listed, being an integrated mobile part. The AMD outputs 4x DisplayPort 1.4a, whereas the NVIDIA’s outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent."

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 is built on GCN 4.0 architecture, using the Ellesmere chip fabricated on a 14 nm process by GlobalFoundries. The NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile uses Ampere architecture with the GA107S chip, built on an 8 nm process by Samsung. The process node difference is significant: 14 nm versus 8 nm, which explains the NVIDIA’s superior transistor density (43.5M / mm² vs 24.6M / mm²).

Transistor counts differ substantially. The AMD chip has 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die. The NVIDIA chip has 8,700 million transistors on a smaller 200 mm² die. Despite having more transistors, the NVIDIA achieves a lower TDP, proof of the efficiency of the 8 nm node and Ampere’s design.

The NVIDIA card includes dedicated hardware that the AMD lacks entirely. It has 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads. The AMD card has no such units. This is a fundamental architectural difference that makes the NVIDIA card capable of features like DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) support, whereas the AMD only supports DirectX 12 (12_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the NVIDIA has Vulkan 1.4 support versus the AMD’s Vulkan 1.3.

FP32 and FP16 performance are both rated at 1:1 ratios on each card, but the NVIDIA has a higher raw FP32 throughput (6.296 TFLOPS vs 5.728 TFLOPS). The AMD counters with a much higher texture rate (179.0 GTexel/s vs 98.37 GTexel/s), thanks to its 144 TMUs. The release dates are also far apart — the AMD launched in November 2016, while the NVIDIA came in March 2022 — reflecting the generational gap between GCN 4.0 and Ampere.