AMD Radeon RX 480 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile Comparison

The Verdict

The benchmark data presents a decisive outcome: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 480 across every recorded head-to-head test. The RTX 4080 Mobile records an average benchmark score of 38,135, while the RX 480 averages 33,997, a difference that places the NVIDIA part in the 81st percentile of all GPUs versus the 78th percentile for AMD. For any workload represented by these tests, the RTX 4080 Mobile is the clear choice.

The RTX 4080 Mobile wins both shared benchmark tests, with a 320% advantage in Geekbench OpenCL and a 217.2% advantage in Geekbench Vulkan. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 (0.4% lower average score), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (0.6% lower), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (1.3% higher). The RX 480, by contrast, sits near the AMD Radeon HD 7950 (0.1% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 560 XT (0.4% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 7700S (0.4% higher). These rival clusters reinforce that the two cards compete in entirely different performance tiers.

Buyers who need maximum compute performance in a mobile form factor should select the RTX 4080 Mobile. The data shows no scenario among the recorded benchmarks where the RX 480 wins. The RX 480 remains relevant only as a legacy desktop part, with its dual-slot design, 150 W TDP, and end-of-life production status indicating it belongs to a previous generation of hardware. The verdict is straightforward: the RTX 4080 Mobile dominates, and the RX 480 cannot match it in any measured workload.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different eras of design. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile uses the AD104 chip, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and fabricated by TSMC on a 5 nm process. It packs 35,800 million transistors into a 294 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.8 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon RX 480 uses the Ellesmere chip, based on the older GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process. It contains 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, with a density of 24.6 million per square millimeter. The process advantage alone explains a large portion of the performance gap.

Feature support diverges sharply. The RTX 4080 Mobile includes 58 ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores, while the RX 480 has neither, with both fields recorded as null. The NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the AMD card supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RTX 4080 Mobile is an integrated graphics package (IGP) with no power connectors and portable-device-dependent display outputs, reflecting its mobile design. The RX 480 is a dual-slot desktop card measuring 240 mm in length, 95 mm in height, and 35 mm in width, requiring a single 6-pin power connector and a 450 W suggested power supply.

The production status tells a similar story: the RTX 4080 Mobile is listed as Active, released in early 2023, while the RX 480 is End-of-life, released in mid-2016. The NVIDIA part succeeds the GeForce 30 Mobile line, while the AMD card succeeds the Pirate Islands generation. These are not comparable designs; they are separated by multiple architectural generations and a complete shift in manufacturing technology.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains two directly comparable tests between these GPUs, and both go to the RTX 4080 Mobile by a wide margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA card scores 159,575 against the AMD card's 37,998, a delta of 320%. This is not a marginal win; it is a four-fold increase in raw compute throughput. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 4080 Mobile scores 145,807 against 45,968 for the RX 480, a delta of 217.2%. Both tests measure different API paths, yet the pattern is identical: the RTX 4080 Mobile roughly triples the AMD card's output in one test and more than doubles it in the other.

Beyond the head-to-head table, the individual benchmark suites show additional context. The RTX 4080 Mobile records 24,926 in Passmark G3D, 11,191 in Passmark GPU Compute, and 929 in Passmark G2D. Its DirectX legacy scores are 286 in DirectX 9, 244 in DirectX 11, 157 in DirectX 10, and 96 in DirectX 12. The RX 480 has fewer recorded tests, but its Geekbench Metal score of 51,057 and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 966 provide some indication of its capabilities. However, these tests are not shared, so direct comparison is limited to the two Geekbench results.

The average benchmark scores capture the overall picture. The RTX 4080 Mobile averages 38,135 across all its recorded tests, placing it at the 81st percentile. The RX 480 averages 33,997, placing it at the 78th percentile. The percentile gap is modest, but the head-to-head deltas reveal the true scale of the performance difference. When both cards run the same workload, the RTX 4080 Mobile is faster by a factor of three or more.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 4080 Mobile operates with a base clock of 1290 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, while the RX 480 runs at 1120 MHz base and 1266 MHz boost. Memory configurations contrast sharply: the NVIDIA card offers 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 432.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the AMD card offers 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. The memory clock rates are 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) for the RTX 4080 Mobile versus 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) for the RX 480.

Compute resources are heavily skewed toward the NVIDIA part. The RTX 4080 Mobile has 7,424 shading units, 232 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units. The RX 480 has 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The RTX 4080 Mobile's pixel rate is 133.2 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 386.3 GTexel/s, compared to 40.51 GPixel/s and 182.3 GTexel/s for the RX 480. Floating-point performance stands at 24.72 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 5.834 TFLOPS for AMD, with both cards offering 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratios.

Power and physical characteristics also differ. The RTX 4080 Mobile has a 110 W TDP and is an IGP with no slot width requirement or power connectors. The RX 480 has a 150 W TDP, is dual-slot, and requires a 6-pin power connector. Bus interfaces are PCIe 4.0 x16 for NVIDIA versus PCIe 3.0 x16 for AMD. The RX 480 has a listed launch MSRP of 229 USD. The RTX 4080 Mobile has no launch MSRP recorded. Every field where the two differ points in the same direction: the RTX 4080 Mobile is newer, denser, faster, and more power-efficient.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile averages 38,135 across its recorded benchmarks, while the AMD Radeon RX 480 averages 33,997.

Q: How large is the performance gap in OpenCL?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile scores 159,575 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 37,998 for the RX 480, a 320% advantage for NVIDIA.

Q: Does the RX 480 support ray tracing?

A: No. The RX 480 has no ray tracing cores recorded, while the RTX 4080 Mobile includes 58 RT cores.

Q: What are the memory capacities of each card?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile has 12 GB of GDDR6, while the RX 480 has 8 GB of GDDR5.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient according to the data?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile has a 110 W TDP and delivers 24.72 TFLOPS, while the RX 480 has a 150 W TDP and delivers 5.834 TFLOPS.

Q: What production status does each card hold?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile is listed as Active, while the RX 480 is listed as End-of-life.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4080 Mobile wins in every benchmark category where both cards have recorded results. Its advantages are most pronounced in Geekbench OpenCL, where it leads by 320%, and in Geekbench Vulkan, where it leads by 217.2%. The NVIDIA card also holds the edge in architectural features, with ray tracing cores, tensor cores, newer API support including DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, and a 5 nm process that enables higher density and lower power consumption. Its 12 GB GDDR6 memory with 432.0 GB/s bandwidth provides double the bandwidth of the RX 480's 256.0 GB/s, which matters for texture-heavy and large-dataset workloads.

The RX 480 does not win any recorded benchmark against the RTX 4080 Mobile. Its strengths are limited to the context of its own generation: it is a dual-slot desktop card with a 256-bit memory bus, which historically allowed higher memory throughput per dollar, and it holds a launch MSRP of 229 USD. Within its nearest rival cluster, it sits within 0.5% of the NVIDIA RTX A2000 12 GB and the AMD Radeon RX 560 XT, indicating it remains competitive with other cards of its era. But against the RTX 4080 Mobile, there is no workload in the database where the RX 480 comes out ahead.

For users choosing between these two based on recorded data, the RTX 4080 Mobile is the only sensible pick for any compute-heavy task, whether that is OpenCL-based workflows, Vulkan rendering, or general GPU compute. The RX 480 belongs to a legacy segment where its lower power draw of 150 W and end-of-life status make it a historical data point rather than a current recommendation. The database shows a 4.1-point percentile gap and a 4,138-point average score gap, but the head-to-head results tell the real story: the RTX 4080 Mobile is in a different class entirely.