AMD Radeon RX 9070 vs AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 and AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL sit at opposite ends of the Radeon lineup, separated by architecture, process node, and nearly a decade of design philosophy. The RX 9070 is an active product built on the Radeon RX 2025-03-05 release date, while the RX Vega M GL came to market on 2018-01-31 and is now end-of-life. The database shows a clear performance hierarchy, but the story is more nuanced than a simple score gap: these two GPUs target different form factors, power envelopes, and use cases. Below is a breakdown of what the recorded data reveals about each card.

FAQ

Q: How do the two cards compare in raw compute performance?

A: The RX 9070 delivers 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the RX Vega M GL offers 2.588 TFLOPS. That is a 14-fold difference in raw shading throughput, which directly translates into the massive benchmark gaps seen across all tests.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 9070 has 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth from its 16 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. The RX Vega M GL has 179.2 GB/s from 4 GB HBM2 on a 1024-bit bus. Despite the wider memory interface on the older card, the RX 9070 still provides 3.6 times the bandwidth.

Q: Are these cards comparable in power consumption?

A: No. The RX 9070 has a 220 W TDP and requires dual 8-pin power connectors with a 550 W suggested PSU. The RX Vega M GL is an integrated graphics part with a 65 W TDP and no external power connectors, designed for portable devices.

Q: What API level does each card support?

A: The RX 9070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX Vega M GL supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The newer card has a higher DirectX feature level and a newer Vulkan version.

Q: How do the benchmark scores compare in the two shared tests?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 scores 131,539 versus 19,549 for the RX Vega M GL, a 572.9% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 9070 scores 58,705 versus 22,757, a 158% advantage.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor density?

A: The RX 9070 packs 53,900 million transistors into a 357 mm² die, yielding 151.0 million transistors per square millimeter on TSMC's 4 nm node. The RX Vega M GL has 5,000 million transistors on a 208 mm² die, yielding 24.0 million per square millimeter on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 9070 wins every benchmark recorded in the database. It takes both head-to-head tests and shows dominance across all measured categories. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 posts 131,539 points against 19,549 for the RX Vega M GL. That 572.9% delta is the single largest gap between any two comparable points in the dataset. The RX Vega M GL does not win a single test, but its strengths lie elsewhere: it operates as an integrated GPU with a 65 W TDP, making it suitable for thin-and-light laptops where the RX 9070's dual-slot cooler and 220 W TDP would be physically impossible to accommodate.

The RX 9070 also wins on software compatibility and future-proofing. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes hardware ray tracing via its 56 RT cores, while the RX Vega M GL has no RT cores and only reaches DirectX 12 (12_0). The RX 9070's 16 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is four times larger than the 4 GB HBM2 on the older part, which matters for modern game textures and high-resolution rendering. The RX Vega M GL was designed for a different era: its HBM2 memory and 1024-bit bus were unusual for an integrated part, but its 179.2 GB/s bandwidth is now a bottleneck for anything beyond 1080p gaming at modest settings.

For users who need a discrete graphics card with active cooling, expansion slots, and a dedicated PSU, the RX 9070 is the only viable option. For users who need an all-in-one solution on a mobile platform with no power connectors, the RX Vega M GL remains a functional, if dated, choice. The benchmark data does not suggest any scenario where the RX Vega M GL outperforms the RX 9070 in compute or graphics workloads.

Architecture Differences

The RX 9070 uses the Navi 48 chip built on RDNA 4.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process. The RX Vega M GL uses the Polaris 22 chip based on GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm node. This is a generational leap in both microarchitecture and process technology. RDNA 4.0 is designed for high clock speeds and efficient instruction scheduling, while GCN 4.0 was optimized for parallel throughput on older hardware.

The transistor counts tell the story: the RX 9070 has 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, while the RX Vega M GL has 5,000 million on a 208 mm² die. The RX 9070 achieves a transistor density of 151.0 million per square millimeter, nearly six times higher than the RX Vega M GL's 24.0 million. This density advantage enables the RX 9070 to pack 3,584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, compared to 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs on the older card.

The RX 9070 also introduces dedicated ray tracing hardware with 56 RT cores, a feature completely absent from the RX Vega M GL. The newer card also supports Vulkan 1.4 and DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the older card maxes out at Vulkan 1.3 and DirectX 12 (12_0). Clock speeds are drastically different: the RX 9070 boosts to 2520 MHz with a base of 1330 MHz and a game clock of 2070 MHz, while the RX Vega M GL runs at a 931 MHz base and 1011 MHz boost. The memory clocks also diverge, with the RX 9070 at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective) versus 700 MHz (1400 Mbps effective) on the RX Vega M GL.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The RX 9070 has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the RX Vega M GL has 4 GB of HBM2. The memory bus widths are 256-bit and 1024-bit, respectively, but the newer card's higher clock speed gives it the bandwidth advantage. The RX 9070 has a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s, versus 32.35 GPixel/s and 80.88 GTexel/s for the RX Vega M GL.

The RX 9070 supports PCIe 5.0 x16 and has display outputs including 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a. The RX Vega M GL uses an integrated graphics bus interface (IGP) and its display outputs are listed as portable device dependent. The RX 9070 is dual-slot with 2x 8-pin power connectors and a 220 W TDP, while the RX Vega M GL is an IGP with no power connectors and a 65 W TDP. The RX 9070 has a launch MSRP of 549 USD, which was its stated price at introduction; the RX Vega M GL has no recorded launch MSRP.

The production status also differs: the RX 9070 is active, while the RX Vega M GL is end-of-life. The RX 9070's release date is 2025-03-05, and its predecessor is listed as Navi III. The RX Vega M GL has no predecessor or successor in the database. The RX 9070 has a percentile rank of 69 among all GPUs, while the RX Vega M GL ranks at 66, despite the massive performance gap. This reflects the broader distribution of scores across the database, where integrated parts and older discrete cards occupy similar percentile bands.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains two direct comparisons between these cards. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 scores 131,539 against 19,549 for the RX Vega M GL. This yields a delta of 572.9%, meaning the RX 9070 is nearly seven times faster in OpenCL compute workloads. This test stresses raw shader throughput and memory bandwidth, both of which favor the newer card by a wide margin. The RX 9070's 36.13 TFLOPS FP32 and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth overwhelm the RX Vega M GL's 2.588 TFLOPS and 179.2 GB/s.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 9070 scores 58,705 versus 22,757, a delta of 158%. Vulkan tests often scale differently than OpenCL, but the RX 9070 still more than doubles the older card's result. The smaller relative margin compared to OpenCL suggests that the RX Vega M GL's GCN architecture handles Vulkan's command buffering reasonably well, but the absolute scores remain far apart. The RX 9070's Vulkan 1.4 support and newer driver stack likely contribute to its higher efficiency, though the raw hardware difference is the primary factor.

Beyond the head-to-head tests, the RX 9070 shows additional benchmark data that the RX Vega M GL lacks. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RX 9070 scores 6,290. In PassMark tests, it scores 25,381 in G3D, 14,737 in GPU compute, 1,280 in G2D, 343 in DirectX 9, 281 in DirectX 11, 141 in DirectX 10, and 74 in DirectX 12. The RX Vega M GL has no recorded scores for these tests, so no direct comparison is possible. However, the RX 9070's average benchmark score of 23,877 puts it in the same performance class as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (23,736, 0.6% delta), AMD Radeon RX 6800S (24,063, -0.8% delta), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile (23,628, 1.1% delta), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (24,170, -1.2% delta). The RX Vega M GL's average score of 21,153 places it near the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21,237, -0.4% delta), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 (21,035, 0.6% delta), NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (21,379, -1.1% delta), and AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20,713, 2.1% delta).

The data indicates that the RX 9070 outperforms the RX Vega M GL in every recorded metric, with the largest advantage in OpenCL compute and the smallest in Vulkan. The RX 9070's wins are absolute, with 2 wins and 0 losses in the head-to-head benchmarks. For any workload that benefits from modern shading units, ray tracing, or high memory bandwidth, the RX 9070 is the clear choice based on the database measurements.