AMD Radeon RX 570 vs NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 570 and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 occupy completely different tiers of the GPU market, as reflected in their average benchmark scores of 28,766 and 28,421 respectively. Both cards sit at the 74th percentile among all GPUs, yet the Quadro RTX 8000 achieves this standing with nearly 3.2 times the shading units and over 12 times the memory capacity, while the RX 570 does so with a fraction of the silicon budget. The data reveals a fascinating statistical near-tie in aggregate performance, but the underlying architecture and feature sets could not be more divergent.

FAQ

Q: How do the two cards compare in average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 570 posts an average benchmark score of 28,766, while the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 scores 28,421. The RX 570 leads by 1.2% according to the deltaPct in its nearestRivals list.

Q: Which card has more memory, and what is the capacity difference?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 has 48 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is 12 times the 4 GB of GDDR5 found on the AMD Radeon RX 570.

Q: What are the DirectX support levels for each card?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 570 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), while the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), indicating a more modern feature set on the NVIDIA side.

Q: Which card has dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores?

A: Only the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 includes these features, with 72 ray tracing cores and 576 tensor cores. The AMD Radeon RX 570 has no such dedicated hardware.

Q: How do the FP16 compute capabilities differ?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 delivers 32.62 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, while the AMD Radeon RX 570 provides 5.095 TFLOPS FP16 at a 1:1 ratio.

Q: What is the transistor count difference between the two chips?

A: The NVIDIA TU102 chip contains 18,600 million transistors, compared to 5,700 million on the AMD Polaris 20, a difference of roughly 3.3 times.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is substantial. The AMD Radeon RX 570 uses the Polaris 20 chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This older design packs 5,700 million transistors onto a 232 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 24.6 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, by contrast, employs the TU102 chip based on Turing architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 12 nm process. It crams 18,600 million transistors into a massive 754 mm² die, achieving a nearly identical density of 24.7 million per square millimeter.

The compute resources diverge sharply. The RX 570 fields 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output pipelines. The Quadro RTX 8000 more than doubles the shading units to 4,608, more than doubles TMUs to 288, and triples ROPs to 96. Critically, the NVIDIA card adds 72 ray tracing cores and 576 tensor cores, hardware that the AMD card lacks entirely. This makes the Quadro RTX 8000 a fundamentally different product in terms of workload capability, supporting hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-accelerated tensor operations.

Clock speeds also tell a story of different design goals. The RX 570 operates at a 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, while the Quadro RTX 8000 runs at 1395 MHz base and 1770 MHz boost. The memory subsystems differ completely: 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus providing 224.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus delivering 672.0 GB/s. The API support shows the NVIDIA card's newer pedigree, with DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4 versus the AMD's DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 570 wins in aggregate performance, though marginally. Its average benchmark score of 28,766 edges out the Quadro RTX 8000's 28,421 by approximately 1.2%. This is remarkable given the massive specification disparity, suggesting the RX 570's simpler architecture extracts more efficiency per compute unit in the tested workloads. The RX 570 also has a lower power footprint at 150 W TDP versus 260 W, and its smaller 241 mm length makes it easier to fit in compact systems.

The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 wins decisively in every direct head-to-head benchmark. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 101,883 against the RX 570's 32,084, a 68.5% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, it posts 122,637 versus 42,752, leading by 65.1%. The Quadro's 48 GB memory capacity, 672.0 GB/s bandwidth, and dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores make it the clear choice for professional workloads like large dataset processing, machine learning inference, and ray-traced rendering. Its 72 RT cores and 576 tensor cores unlock capabilities the RX 570 cannot touch.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX 570 | NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 |

|---|---|---|

| Chip | Polaris 20 | TU102 |

| Process Node | 14 nm | 12 nm |

| Transistors | 5,700 million | 18,600 million |

| Die Size | 232 mm² | 754 mm² |

| Base Clock | 1168 MHz | 1395 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1244 MHz | 1770 MHz |

| Memory Size | 4 GB | 48 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus | 256 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 224.0 GB/s | 672.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 2,048 | 4,608 |

| TMUs | 128 | 288 |

| ROPs | 32 | 96 |

| RT Cores | None | 72 |

| Tensor Cores | None | 576 |

| FP32 | 5.095 TFLOPS | 16.31 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 5.095 TFLOPS (1:1) | 32.62 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 150 W | 260 W |

| Power Connectors | 1x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | 600 W |

| DirectX | 12 (12_0) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.4 |

| Length | 241 mm | 267 mm |

| Launch MSRP | 169 USD | 9,999 USD |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two available head-to-head benchmarks show a complete sweep for the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Quadro RTX 8000 scores 101,883 against the RX 570's 32,084, representing a 68.5% delta in NVIDIA's favor. This massive gap reflects the Quadro's 3.2 times more shading units and its 672.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is triple the RX 570's 224.0 GB/s. The OpenCL result likely benefits from the Quadro's larger memory pool, allowing larger datasets to remain resident on the GPU.

Geekbench Vulkan tells a similar story. The Quadro RTX 8000 achieves 122,637 points, while the RX 570 manages 42,752, a 65.1% difference. The Vulkan advantage suggests the Turing architecture's newer feature set, including hardware ray tracing support and more modern scheduling, translates into better API utilization. The RX 570's GCN 4.0 architecture, while capable in its day, cannot match the raw throughput of the TU102 chip.

The aggregate average benchmark scores, however, present a different picture. The RX 570's 28,766 average is actually 1.2% higher than the Quadro RTX 8000's 28,421. This counterintuitive result stems from the RX 570's inclusion of a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 880 and a Geekbench Metal score of 39,349, tests where the Quadro RTX 8000 has no comparable entries. The PassMark suite for the Quadro shows mixed results: DirectX 9 at 211, DirectX 10 at 137, DirectX 11 at 188, DirectX 12 at 79, G2D at 866, G3D at 19,799, and GPU Compute at 9,992. These older DirectX tests likely underutilize the Quadro's modern architecture, pulling its average down.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear choice based on workload. The AMD Radeon RX 570, with its 74th percentile standing and higher average benchmark score of 28,766, remains relevant for general-purpose 1080p gaming and lightweight compute tasks where its 150 W power draw and compact 241 mm length are advantages. Its nearest rivals include the RX 6800M at -0.4% and the RX 470 at -0.8%, placing it in solid mid-range company.

The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, despite its lower average score, is the only option for professional ray tracing and tensor workloads. Its 72 RT cores, 576 tensor cores, and 48 GB of GDDR6 memory provide capabilities no benchmark in this dataset can fully capture. The 2:1 FP16 ratio delivering 32.62 TFLOPS makes it suitable for AI inference and training tasks that the RX 570's 1:1 FP16 at 5.095 TFLOPS cannot handle efficiently. The 672.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 12 times the capacity enable processing of massive 3D scenes and large neural networks.

For a buyer choosing strictly between these two, the decision hinges on whether the workload demands the Quadro's specialized hardware. If the task involves ray-traced rendering, machine learning, or working with datasets exceeding 4 GB, the Quadro RTX 8000 is the only viable choice. If the workload is standard rasterization or general compute that fits within 4 GB of memory, the RX 570 delivers comparable aggregate performance at a fraction of the power envelope. The benchmark data shows a statistical tie in average scores, but the Quadro's dominance in every direct comparison reveals its true compute ceiling. The RX 570 wins the efficiency battle; the Quadro wins the capability war.