AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 vs NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile occupy completely different corners of the GPU landscape, despite their aggregate benchmark scores landing only 4.7% apart (50001 vs 47743). The Vega 64 is a 2017 desktop flagship built on a 14 nm process with a 295 W board power, while the RTX A1000 Mobile is a 2022 laptop part on 8 nm with a 60 W envelope. Their shared percentile standing—86th and 85th respectively—masks stark differences in architecture, memory, and intended use. The data shows that the Vega 64 dominates in raw compute tests, while the RTX A1000 Mobile counters with modern feature support and efficiency, making the choice heavily dependent on workload rather than raw score.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 leads with an average benchmark score of 50001, compared to the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile's 47743, a difference of roughly 4.7%.

Q: How do the two compare in the shared Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The Vega 64 scores 62552 against the RTX A1000 Mobile's 48703, giving AMD a 28.4% lead in that specific compute workload.

Q: What is the largest performance gap in the head-to-head data?

A: The biggest win for the Vega 64 is in Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 67032 versus 46782 for the RTX A1000 Mobile, a 43.3% advantage.

Q: Do both GPUs support ray tracing?

A: No. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile includes 16 dedicated RT cores, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 has no RT core count listed in the data.

Q: Which GPU has more memory bandwidth?

A: The Vega 64 offers 483.8 GB/s over a 2048-bit HBM2 interface, while the RTX A1000 Mobile provides 176.0 GB/s over a 128-bit GDDR6 bus.

Q: What is the production status of both cards?

A: Both are marked as end-of-life in the data, with the Vega 64 released in August 2017 and the RTX A1000 Mobile in March 2022.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide is immediate and fundamental. The Vega 64 uses the GCN 5.0 architecture on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, packing 12,500 million transistors into a 495 mm² die for a density of 25.3M / mm². The RTX A1000 Mobile uses Ampere on an 8 nm Samsung node, with 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, achieving a much higher density of 43.5M / mm². This density gap explains how NVIDIA fits modern features into a fraction of the silicon area.

Compute resources differ by roughly a factor of two across the board. The Vega 64 carries 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, while the RTX A1000 Mobile has 2048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Vega 64 also has no dedicated RT or tensor cores; the RTX A1000 Mobile includes 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores. This is a generational feature split—the Vega 64 relies on brute-force GCN compute, while Ampere adds hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI workloads.

Memory architecture is another major divergence. The Vega 64 uses 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus, yielding 483.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX A1000 Mobile uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 176.0 GB/s. Clock speeds also differ significantly: the Vega 64 boosts to 1546 MHz, while the RTX A1000 Mobile boosts to only 1140 MHz. The Vega 64's higher clocks and wider memory bus drive its massive FP32 throughput of 12.66 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS for the RTX A1000 Mobile. Notably, the Vega 64 achieves 25.33 TFLOPS FP16 via a 2:1 ratio, while the RTX A1000 Mobile runs FP16 at the same rate as FP32 (4.669 TFLOPS, 1:1).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The direct comparison data covers two tests, and the AMD card wins both decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Vega 64 posts 62552 against 48703 for the RTX A1000 Mobile, a 28.4% margin. That gap is consistent with the raw compute difference—more than double the shading units and nearly triple the texture rate (395.8 GTexel/s vs 72.96 GTexel/s) give the Vega 64 a structural advantage in general-purpose compute.

The Vulkan test widens the gap further. The Vega 64 scores 67032, which is 43.3% higher than the RTX A1000 Mobile's 46782. The larger delta in Vulkan suggests that the Vega 64's higher fill rate and memory bandwidth translate particularly well to graphics-API workloads, where data movement and pixel throughput matter more than feature-level optimizations. The RTX A1000 Mobile's lower clocks and narrower memory bus are simply outmatched in these synthetic scenarios.

However, the aggregate picture is more nuanced. The Vega 64's average benchmark score of 50001 puts it 0.1% behind the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (49957), while the RTX A1000 Mobile's 47743 sits 2.2% ahead of the Radeon RX 6550M (46702). In percentile terms, the Vega 64 ranks in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, and the RTX A1000 Mobile ranks in the 85th—a near tie that contradicts the lopsided head-to-head results. The explanation lies in the benchmark sets: the Vega 64 has four recorded scores (including 3DMark Steel Nomad at 1669 and Geekbench Metal at 68750), while the RTX A1000 Mobile only has OpenCL and Vulkan results, which tend to favor desktop parts with higher power budgets.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The Vega 64 uses a Vega 10 chip on GCN 5.0, while the RTX A1000 Mobile uses a GA107 chip on Ampere. Process nodes split at 14 nm versus 8 nm, with transistor counts of 12,500 million versus 8,700 million and die sizes of 495 mm² versus 200 mm². Memory configurations contrast sharply: 8 GB HBM2 at 2048-bit versus 4 GB GDDR6 at 128-bit, with bandwidth of 483.8 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s.

Clock speeds show the Vega 64 running substantially higher—1247 MHz base and 1546 MHz boost versus 630 MHz base and 1140 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ, with the Vega 64 at 945 MHz (1890 Mbps effective) and the RTX A1000 Mobile at 1375 MHz (11 Gbps effective). The Vega 64 has double the shading units (4096 vs 2048), quadruple the TMUs (256 vs 64), and double the ROPs (64 vs 32). Pixel rate is 98.94 GPixel/s versus 36.48 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 395.8 GTexel/s versus 72.96 GTexel/s.

Power delivery is where the RTX A1000 Mobile wins outright. The Vega 64 draws 295 W TDP with dual 8-pin connectors and a suggested 600 W PSU, while the RTX A1000 Mobile consumes only 60 W with no external power connectors, fitting an IGP form factor. The Vega 64 is a dual-slot 280 mm card; the RTX A1000 Mobile has no listed dimensions. API support also differs: the Vega 64 lists DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3, while the RTX A1000 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The Vega 64 offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the RTX A1000 Mobile's display outputs are "portable device dependent."

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split based on use case. For raw compute and graphics throughput, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 is the superior part—it leads by 28.4% in OpenCL and 43.3% in Vulkan, with more than double the FP32 performance and nearly triple the memory bandwidth. Its 86th percentile ranking and average score of 50001 place it in the same tier as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (49957, 0.1% delta), which is remarkable for a 2017 product.

The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile, despite its lower scores, is not without merit. Its 85th percentile ranking (47743 average) is only one point behind the Vega 64, and it does so with a 60 W power draw versus 295 W. The RTX A1000 Mobile also brings RT cores and tensor cores that the Vega 64 lacks entirely, plus support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. For workloads that leverage those features—ray-traced rendering or AI inference—the NVIDIA card's modern architecture could close the gap in real-world tasks that synthetic benchmarks do not capture.

The verdict depends on the priority. If the goal is maximum compute performance in traditional rasterization or general-purpose GPGPU tasks, the Vega 64 is the clear choice from the data. If the goal is efficiency, portability, or access to ray tracing and tensor operations, the RTX A1000 Mobile is the only option that offers those capabilities.

Where Each One Wins

AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 wins in:

• Raw compute benchmarks: 28.4% ahead in Geekbench OpenCL and 43.3% ahead in Geekbench Vulkan.
• Memory bandwidth: 483.8 GB/s versus 176.0 GB/s, critical for high-resolution textures or large datasets.
• Pixel and texture throughput: 98.94 GPixel/s and 395.8 GTexel/s versus 36.48 GPixel/s and 72.96 GTexel/s.
• FP32 performance: 12.66 TFLOPS versus 4.669 TFLOPS, a 2.7x advantage.
• Aggregate benchmark score: 50001 versus 47743, placing it in a higher percentile (86 vs 85) and statistically tied with the RTX 5070 Ti (0.1% delta).

NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile wins in:

• Power efficiency: 60 W TDP versus 295 W, with no power connectors required.
• Feature set: 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores enable ray tracing and AI workloads that the Vega 64 cannot accelerate.
• Modern API support: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 versus DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3.
• Transistor density: 43.5M / mm² versus 25.3M / mm², reflecting a more advanced 8 nm process.
• Form factor: IGP design versus dual-slot 280 mm card, making it suitable for laptops or compact systems.

The benchmark data shows a clear performance hierarchy, but the feature divide means that neither card is universally better. The Vega 64 is the compute powerhouse, while the RTX A1000 Mobile is the feature-rich, low-power alternative.