AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Comparison

The data in this database places two very different generations of graphics hardware against each other: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM. The RTX 5090 is a current flagship built on the Blackwell architecture, while the RX 5600 OEM is an end-of-life product from the RDNA 1.0 era. The recorded benchmarks show a decisive performance gap, but the specifics of where and how that gap appears are worth investigating.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head results in the database are limited to two compute-oriented tests, and in both, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 dominates completely. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5090 scores 334,370 points against the RX 5600 OEM's 62,427 points. That is a delta of 435.6 percent, meaning the NVIDIA card delivers more than five times the raw compute throughput in this API. The gap is even larger in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 5090 scores 376,728 points versus the RX 5600 OEM's 53,743 points, a delta of 601 percent. This is not a close contest; the newer architecture simply overwhelms the older one in these synthetic workloads.

Looking at the broader benchmark suite, the RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79,842 across all recorded tests, while the RX 5600 OEM averages 58,085. This places the RTX 5090 in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, whereas the RX 5600 OEM sits in the 87th percentile. Interestingly, the percentile gap is much smaller than the raw score gap suggests, because the database includes many other cards. The RTX 5090's nearest rivals by average score are the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, a delta of 0.3 percent) and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959, a delta of -1.4 percent), meaning the RTX 5090 is essentially tied with those professional cards in overall average. The RX 5600 OEM, by contrast, sits just 0.3 percent behind the Intel Arc A570M and 0.5 percent behind the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, showing it is clustered with mid-range and previous-generation high-end parts.

The RTX 5090 also has a much wider set of recorded results, including 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 (18,355), Passmark G3D (39,650), and Passmark GPU Compute (26,756). The RX 5600 OEM has no equivalent entries in these tests, which limits direct comparisons to the two Geekbench workloads. What the data does show is that the RTX 5090's wins are not marginal; they are orders of magnitude in some cases. The 601 percent delta in Vulkan indicates that the Blackwell GPU's compute architecture, combined with its massive resource pool, leaves the RDNA 1.0 part far behind in any API that exposes raw shader and compute throughput.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79,842, while the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM averages 58,085. The RTX 5090 leads by roughly 21,757 points in the database's aggregate metric.

Q: How large is the performance difference in Vulkan compute?

A: In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 5090 scores 376,728 versus the RX 5600 OEM's 53,743, a delta of 601 percent. This is the largest recorded gap between the two cards in any shared test.

Q: Does the RX 5600 OEM win any head-to-head benchmark?

A: No. The database records two head-to-head tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 wins both. The win count is 2 for the RTX 5090 and 0 for the RX 5600 OEM.

Q: What is the percentile ranking difference between the two?

A: The RTX 5090 is in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 5600 OEM is in the 87th percentile. Despite the huge score gap, both cards sit above the median, but the RTX 5090 is closer to the top tier.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 compare to its nearest rivals in average score?

A: The RTX 5090's nearest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB with an average score of 79,605, which is only 0.3 percent lower. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X is 1.4 percent higher at 80,959, so the RTX 5090 sits in a tight cluster among high-end compute cards.

Q: Is the RX 5600 OEM's performance close to any modern cards?

A: The RX 5600 OEM's average score of 58,085 is 0.3 percent below the Intel Arc A570M (58,239) and 0.5 percent below the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (58,392). It is also 0.6 percent above the Intel Arc A580 (57,756), indicating it performs similarly to those mid-range options.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 wins every recorded head-to-head test, so any use case that relies on Geekbench OpenCL or Vulkan compute belongs to it. Its 435.6 percent lead in OpenCL and 601 percent lead in Vulkan suggest that any workload involving general-purpose GPU compute, such as rendering, physics simulation, or data processing, will see a massive advantage with the RTX 5090. The card also has a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355, which is a modern DirectX 12 gaming benchmark, and a Passmark G3D score of 39,650, indicating strong rasterization performance for gaming. The RTX 5090's Passmark GPU Compute score of 26,756 further reinforces its compute leadership.

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM has no recorded wins, but its strengths lie elsewhere: it is a much lower-power part with a 125 W TDP versus the RTX 5090's 575 W, and its suggested PSU is 300 W versus 950 W. For users who prioritize power efficiency or have a modest power supply, the RX 5600 OEM is the only viable option in this pairing, though its performance ceiling is far lower. The RX 5600 OEM also has a smaller physical footprint potential, as its dimensions are not listed, but its dual-slot design and single 8-pin connector suggest it fits in more compact systems. In the database's terms, the RX 5600 OEM wins on system integration flexibility, not on raw performance.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 5090 has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, while the RX 5600 OEM has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The RTX 5090 also includes 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores, whereas the RX 5600 OEM has no dedicated RT or tensor cores listed. Memory is another major split: the RTX 5090 has 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, while the RX 5600 OEM has 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Clock speeds differ as well. The RTX 5090's base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost of 2407 MHz, while the RX 5600 OEM runs at 1130 MHz base and 1560 MHz boost, with a game clock of 1375 MHz. The memory clocks are 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) for the RTX 5090 and 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) for the RX 5600 OEM. The process nodes are different: 5 nm for the RTX 5090 versus 7 nm for the RX 5600 OEM, both from TSMC. The power requirements are starkly different, with the RTX 5090 needing a 950 W PSU and the RX 5600 OEM only 300 W.

The bus interfaces also differ: PCIe 5.0 x16 for the RTX 5090 and PCIe 4.0 x16 for the RX 5600 OEM. Display outputs are not identical, with the RTX 5090 offering HDMI 2.1b and three DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, while the RX 5600 OEM has HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The RTX 5090 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the RX 5600 OEM supports DirectX 12 (12_1), a generation apart in feature level.

Architecture Differences

The architectural split is a foundational one. The RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, using the GB202 chip, while the RX 5600 OEM is based on RDNA 1.0 with the Navi 10 chip. The RTX 5090 is manufactured on a 5 nm process with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 122.9 million per mm². The RX 5600 OEM uses a 7 nm process with 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die, resulting in a density of 41.0 million per mm². This is a dramatic difference in both scale and density: the RTX 5090 has nearly nine times more transistors and a die area three times larger.

The RTX 5090's Blackwell architecture includes dedicated ray tracing cores and tensor cores, which are absent from the RX 5600 OEM's RDNA 1.0 design. The RTX 5090 also achieves a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio, with both at 104.8 TFLOPS, whereas the RX 5600 OEM's FP16 is 12.78 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio versus its FP32 of 6.390 TFLOPS. Pixel and texture rates follow the same pattern: the RTX 5090 hits 423.6 GPixel/s and 1,636.8 GTexel/s, while the RX 5600 OEM manages 99.84 GPixel/s and 199.7 GTexel/s. The architecture generations are separated by several product cycles: the RTX 5090's predecessor is the GeForce 40 series, and its successor is the GeForce 60 series, while the RX 5600 OEM's predecessor is Vega and its successor is Navi II.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the superior performer in every recorded benchmark. Its average score is 37 percent higher than the RX 5600 OEM's, and in the two head-to-head tests, it leads by margins of 435.6 percent and 601 percent. Anyone who needs maximum compute throughput, modern DirectX 12 Ultimate features, or high-bandwidth memory should choose the RTX 5090. The card's 92nd percentile ranking and its near-tie with the Tesla P100 and Radeon Pro Vega 64X in average score confirm it sits in the upper echelon of all GPUs.

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM, while far behind in performance, is not without a rationale. Its 125 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU make it suitable for systems where power delivery is limited, and its 87th percentile ranking shows it is not a weak card by historical standards; it competes closely with the Intel Arc A570M and RX 6950 XT in average score. For a user who already owns a 300 W power supply and wants a dual-slot card that does not require the 16-pin connector, the RX 5600 OEM remains functional, but the benchmark results indicate it is outclassed by the RTX 5090 in every measurable way. The verdict is simple: the RTX 5090 for performance, the RX 5600 OEM only for constrained power environments.