AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 vs NVIDIA RTX A5000 Comparison

The Verdict

The recorded data presents a decisive outcome: the NVIDIA RTX A5000 wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark, 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, with a score of 3783 against 1501 for the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, a 60.3% advantage. The RTX A5000 is the clear choice for any workload prioritizing modern DX12 performance, ray tracing capability, and large memory capacity.

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, however, posts a higher average benchmark score of 37507 compared to the RTX A5000's 33622 in the database. The Vega 56 also holds a higher percentile rank among all GPUs at 81 versus 78 for the RTX A5000. This suggests the Vega 56 performs strongly across a broader set of legacy and mixed workloads in the database, despite losing the specific Steel Nomad test. The RTX A5000 is the pick for professional, compute-heavy, and ray-traced tasks; the Vega 56 is the pick for users who prioritize overall average benchmark performance and a wider variety of older API tests.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the head-to-head benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5000 wins the only recorded head-to-head test, 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, with a score of 3783 compared to the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56's 1501, representing a 60.3% lead for the RTX A5000.

Q: Which GPU has a better overall average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 has a higher average benchmark score of 37507, while the NVIDIA RTX A5000 averages 33622. The Vega 56 also holds a higher percentile rank at 81 versus 78 for the RTX A5000.

Q: How do the memory configurations differ?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5000 features 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus with 768.0 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 features 8 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus with 409.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Does the RTX A5000 support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the NVIDIA RTX A5000 includes 64 dedicated RT cores and 256 tensor cores, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 has no RT cores or tensor cores listed in the database.

Q: What are the power connector requirements?

A: The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 requires 2x 8-pin power connectors, while the NVIDIA RTX A5000 requires only 1x 8-pin. Both share a suggested PSU rating of 550 W.

Q: Which GPU is newer?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5000 was released on 2021-04-11, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 was released on 2017-08-13. The RTX A5000 is the newer product by several years.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 is built on the Vega 10 chip using the GCN 5.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The NVIDIA RTX A5000 uses the GA102 chip with the Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. The transistor counts differ substantially: the Vega 56 has 12,500 million transistors on a 495 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 25.3M per mm². The RTX A5000 has 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die, yielding a density of 45.1M per mm². The RTX A5000 therefore packs more than double the transistors into a larger die with significantly higher density.

The Vega 56 belongs to the Vega (RX Vega) generation, while the RTX A5000 belongs to the Workstation Ampere (Ax000) generation. The Vega 56's predecessor is Polaris and its successor is Navi; the RTX A5000's predecessor is Quadro Turing and its successor is Workstation Ada. The Vega 56 supports PCIe 3.0 x16, while the RTX A5000 supports PCIe 4.0 x16.

In terms of compute features, the RTX A5000 includes 64 RT cores and 256 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and tensor operations. The Vega 56 has no RT cores or tensor cores in the database. The RTX A5000 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Vega 56 supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the RTX A5000 supports Vulkan 1.4 versus Vulkan 1.3 for the Vega 56. These architectural differences explain why the RTX A5000 dominates the DX12 Steel Nomad test.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every major specification field in the database.

Process and Die: The Vega 56 uses a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries with a 495 mm² die size. The RTX A5000 uses an 8 nm process from Samsung with a 628 mm² die size.

Transistors: The Vega 56 has 12,500 million transistors; the RTX A5000 has 28,300 million.

Clocks: The Vega 56 has a base clock of 1156 MHz and a boost clock of 1471 MHz. The RTX A5000 has a base clock of 1170 MHz and a boost clock of 1695 MHz. Memory clocks differ: the Vega 56 runs at 800 MHz with 1600 Mbps effective, while the RTX A5000 runs at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective.

Memory: The Vega 56 has 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 409.6 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX A5000 has 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus with 768.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Compute Units: The Vega 56 has 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The RTX A5000 has 8192 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 96 ROPs.

Rates: The Vega 56 achieves 94.14 GPixel/s pixel rate and 329.5 GTexel/s texture rate. The RTX A5000 achieves 162.7 GPixel/s and 433.9 GTexel/s.

FP32 and FP16: The Vega 56 delivers 10.54 TFLOPS FP32 and 21.09 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The RTX A5000 delivers 27.77 TFLOPS FP32 and 27.77 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio).

Power and Physical: The Vega 56 has a TDP of 210 W with 2x 8-pin connectors. The RTX A5000 has a TDP of 230 W with 1x 8-pin. Both are dual-slot and both suggest a 550 W PSU. The Vega 56 is 280 mm long, 111 mm high, and 40 mm wide. The RTX A5000 is 267 mm long and 112 mm high with no width listed.

Display Outputs: The Vega 56 offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The RTX A5000 offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a.

Production Status: Both are end-of-life. The Vega 56 launched with a launch MSRP of 399 USD; the RTX A5000 has no launch MSRP in the database.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records a single head-to-head benchmark between these two GPUs: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The NVIDIA RTX A5000 scores 3783, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 1501. The delta is 60.3% in favor of the RTX A5000. This is a massive margin, reflecting the architectural gulf between the two products.

The RTX A5000's win in Steel Nomad is consistent with its specification sheet. It has more than double the shading units (8192 versus 3584), a 1:1 FP16 ratio versus the Vega 56's 2:1, and 64 dedicated RT cores. Its FP32 throughput of 27.77 TFLOPS is roughly 2.6 times the Vega 56's 10.54 TFLOPS. Its pixel rate of 162.7 GPixel/s is 72.8% higher than the Vega 56's 94.14 GPixel/s. The RTX A5000 also has 3 times the memory capacity and 87.4% more memory bandwidth.

Beyond the head-to-head, the average benchmark scores tell a different story. The Vega 56 averages 37507 across all recorded benchmarks, placing it at the 81st percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P4 at 37628 (0.3% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 at 37648 (0.4% ahead), the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 at 37157 (0.9% behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile at 38135 (1.6% ahead). The Vega 56 sits in a tight cluster around 37,000 to 38,000, meaning its average score is within 1.6% of several modern and professional cards.

The RTX A5000 averages 33622, placing it at the 78th percentile. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB at 33694 (0.2% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 7700S at 33849 (0.7% ahead), the AMD Radeon HD 7950 at 33951 (1% ahead), and the AMD Radeon RX 480 at 33997 (1.1% ahead). The RTX A5000's average score is lower than the Vega 56's, despite its dominance in the single DX12 test. This is likely because the RTX A5000's benchmark suite includes a wide range of PassMark tests (DirectX 9, 10, 11, 12, G2D, G3D, and GPU compute) where its scores vary widely, from a low of 87 in PassMark DirectX 12 to 22541 in PassMark G3D and 12455 in GPU compute.

The RTX A5000 also records strong Geekbench scores: 157905 in OpenCL and 137828 in Vulkan. The Vega 56 records 73512 in Geekbench Metal. These scores are not directly comparable across different APIs, but they indicate the RTX A5000 performs strongly in compute-oriented OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. The Vega 56's single recorded Geekbench score is in Metal, an API the RTX A5000 does not list. The overall picture is clear: the RTX A5000 wins the modern DX12 head-to-head by a wide margin, while the Vega 56 holds a higher average score across the full benchmark database, driven by its performance in older and mixed workloads.