AMD Radeon RX 480 vs NVIDIA CMP 70HX Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 480 and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX make for an unusual comparison: a consumer gaming card from the Polaris era set against a mining-focused Ampere derivative. Both are end-of-life parts, both carry 8 GB of memory on a 256-bit bus, and both sit in the same general performance tier in the database, with the RX 480 at the 78th percentile and the CMP 70HX at the 75th. Yet the recorded head-to-head results favor the older AMD card in every shared test, which raises a question worth investigating: how does a 14 nm part from 2016 beat a much larger, denser 8 nm chip in compute benchmarks? The answer lies in what the CMP 70HX was built to do, and what it deliberately left out.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two tests exist for both cards in the database, and the Radeon RX 480 wins both decisively.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 480 scores 37,998 against 25,135 for the CMP 70HX, a gap of 51.2 percent. That is not a marginal win; it is a rout in a general-purpose compute workload, which is somewhat counterintuitive given the CMP 70HX's much higher raw specifications. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 480 scores 45,968 against 35,817, a 28.3 percent advantage. Vulkan is the closer contest, but the AMD card still leads comfortably.

The RX 480 also holds extra results the CMP 70HX lacks entirely: 966 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12) and 51,057 in Geekbench Metal. The absence of those entries for the NVIDIA card is itself informative, hinting at limited driver support for graphics workloads on a mining product.

Averaging across all recorded tests, the RX 480 posts an average benchmark score of 33,997 versus 30,476 for the CMP 70HX. Their nearest-rivals lists reinforce how close they sit overall. The RX 480's average is within 0.1 percent of the Radeon HD 7950 (33,951), 0.4 percent below the RX 7700S (33,849, where the AMD card is actually ahead), 0.4 percent ahead of the RX 560 XT (34,133), and 0.5 percent behind the RTX A2000 12 GB (34,154). The CMP 70HX is effectively tied with the Tesla M60 (30,490, delta 0 percent), a hair ahead of the RX 6700 (30,433, 0.1 percent), 1.3 percent ahead of the RX 6800 (30,095), and 1.8 percent ahead of the RTX 3070 Ti (29,945). Curiously, the mining card's average ranks above gaming parts like the RTX 3070 Ti, yet it still loses the shared tests to the RX 480. That asymmetry suggests the averages draw from different test mixes rather than true like-for-like parity.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two is enormous. The RX 480 is built on the Ellesmere chip, GCN 4.0 architecture, part of the Arctic Islands (RX 400) generation, on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process. It packs 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die, giving a density of 24.6M per mm². The CMP 70HX uses the GA104 chip, Ampere architecture, produced on Samsung's 8 nm node. Its 17,400 million transistors across 392 mm² yield 44.4M per mm², roughly 1.8 times the density.

The core configurations diverge in interesting ways. The CMP 70HX has far more shading units, 3,840 versus 2,304, and its FP32 throughput of 10.71 TFLOPS nearly doubles the RX 480's 5.834 TFLOPS. Both parts run FP16 at 1:1 with FP32. But the RX 480 has more texture units, 144 against 120, and delivers a higher texture rate, 182.3 GTexel/s versus 167.4 GTexel/s, despite its theoretical compute disadvantage. The CMP 70HX dominates in pixel throughput, 89.28 GPixel/s against 40.51 GPixel/s, thanks to 64 ROPs versus 32.

Memory is another sharp divide. Both use 8 GB on a 256-bit bus, but the RX 480 pairs GDDR5 at 8 Gbps effective for 256.0 GB/s, while the CMP 70HX uses GDDR6X at 19 Gbps effective for 608.3 GB/s, more than twice the bandwidth. The RX 480's clocks run from a 1120 MHz base to a 1266 MHz boost; the CMP 70HX runs 1365 MHz base and 1395 MHz boost, a notably narrow clock range.

Feature support heavily favors the NVIDIA silicon on paper, with one caveat. The CMP 70HX's GA104 includes 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores, and it lists DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 against the RX 480's DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The caveat: the CMP 70HX has no display outputs at all, so those API tiers are academic for a card that cannot drive a monitor. The RX 480 offers one HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Bus interface is telling. The RX 480 uses PCIe 3.0 x16; the CMP 70HX is limited to PCIe 1.0 x4, a crippled link consistent with a card designed for hash computation rather than graphics traffic.

Where Each One Wins

The data gives the RX 480 every shared benchmark win, two to zero, and the pattern is clear. It wins compute workloads (OpenCL by 51.2 percent) and graphics API workloads (Vulkan by 28.3 percent). Its stronger texture throughput, working display outputs, and full PCIe link make it the practical choice for anything involving rendering a frame or running an OpenCL workload.

The CMP 70HX's strengths are almost entirely on the specification sheet. Where does a card with no video outputs, double the memory bandwidth, and heavy compute silicon win? The database results suggest: nowhere that was measured. Its 608.3 GB/s of GDDR6X bandwidth, vast shading resources, and tensor and RT hardware went unexercised by the recorded tests, and its lower average score (30,476) plus lower percentile (75 versus 78) confirm the deficit. One might speculate its Ethereum-era purpose suited it, but the recorded benchmarks do not capture that domain.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in the shared benchmarks?

A: The Radeon RX 480, by a wide margin. It leads Geekbench OpenCL 37,998 to 25,135 (51.2 percent) and Geekbench Vulkan 45,968 to 35,817 (28.3 percent).

Q: How do their overall database averages compare?

A: The RX 480 averages 33,997 and sits at the 78th percentile of all GPUs; the CMP 70HX averages 30,476 at the 75th percentile.

Q: Do both cards have 8 GB of memory?

A: Yes, both ship 8 GB on a 256-bit bus, but the RX 480 uses GDDR5 at 256.0 GB/s while the CMP 70HX uses GDDR6X at 608.3 GB/s.

Q: Can the CMP 70HX connect to a monitor?

A: No. It has no display outputs, whereas the RX 480 provides one HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors.

Q: Which card has more compute hardware?

A: The CMP 70HX, with 3,840 shading units and 10.71 TFLOPS FP32 versus the RX 480's 2,304 units and 5.834 TFLOPS, plus 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores the RX 480 lacks.

Q: What power does each card need?

A: The RX 480 lists a 150 W TDP with one 6-pin connector and a 450 W suggested PSU. The CMP 70HX has no TDP recorded, uses a 12-pin connector, and lists a 200 W suggested PSU.

The Verdict

For anyone choosing between these two based on recorded data, the RX 480 is the only defensible pick. It wins every head-to-head test, holds the higher average score and percentile, drives displays, and offers a modern-enough API stack for its era. The CMP 70HX's superior silicon, higher bandwidth, and dedicated accelerator cores translate into nothing measurable in the database's benchmark suite. It exists in the data as a curiosity: specification-rich and result-poor.

Specification Differences

• Architecture: GCN 4.0 versus Ampere
• Chip / Generation: Ellesmere (Arctic Islands, RX 400) versus GA104 (Mining GPUs)
• Process / Foundry: 14 nm GlobalFoundries versus 8 nm Samsung
• Transistors / Die: 5,700 million on 232 mm² (24.6M/mm²) versus 17,400 million on 392 mm² (44.4M/mm²)
• Clocks: 1120/1266 MHz base/boost versus 1365/1395 MHz
• Memory: 8 GB GDDR5, 8 Gbps effective, 256.0 GB/s versus 8 GB GDDR6X, 19 Gbps effective, 608.3 GB/s
• Shading / TMUs / ROPs: 2304/144/32 versus 3840/120/64
• RT / Tensor Cores: none versus 30 RT and 120 tensor cores
• Pixel / Texture Rate: 40.51 GPixel/s and 182.3 GTexel/s versus 89.28 GPixel/s and 167.4 GTexel/s
• FP32 / FP16: 5.834 TFLOPS versus 10.71 TFLOPS (both 1:1 FP16)
• Power: 150 W TDP, 1x 6-pin, 450 W suggested PSU versus no TDP recorded, 1x 12-pin, 200 W suggested PSU
• Bus: PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 1.0 x4
• Outputs: HDMI 2.0b plus 3x DisplayPort 1.4a versus none
• APIs: DX 12 (12_0), Vulkan 1.3 versus DX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4; OpenGL 4.6 on both
• Dimensions: 240 x 95 x 35 mm versus 267 x 112 mm (width unlisted)
• Extras: RX 480 has a recorded release date (June 28, 2016) and 229 USD launch MSRP; both are end-of-life