AMD Radeon Vega 11 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only directly comparable benchmark in the database is Geekbench OpenCL, and it clearly favors the AMD Radeon Vega 11. The AMD part scores 13,392 points against 11,998 for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, a margin of 11.6%. That is not a narrow win; it is a decisive gap in raw compute throughput. In this single head-to-head test, the AMD Radeon Vega 11 takes the win, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A comes up short with zero recorded wins in the comparison.

Looking at the wider benchmark landscape, the AMD Radeon Vega 11 also holds a substantial overall average. Its average benchmark score across Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan tests is 14,352 points. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 11,998, based solely on its Geekbench OpenCL result. That places the AMD part roughly 19.6% higher in average score, even though the comparison is not perfectly apples-to-apples because the NVIDIA card lacks results in the Metal and Vulkan tests.

The percentile rankings reinforce the same story. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 sits at the 56th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A sits at the 51st percentile. A five-percentile gap is meaningful but not enormous; it suggests that both parts occupy the mid-range of the performance distribution, with the AMD part holding a modest edge in overall standing.

When the AMD Radeon Vega 11 is placed next to its nearest rivals in the database, its average score of 14,352 is within 0.1% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (14,373), within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14,385), and 0.4% below the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M (14,404). It also edges out the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14,315) by 0.3%. These are tight margins, indicating that the Vega 11 lands in a crowded performance band where a few percentage points separate several competitors.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, on the other hand, has a more unusual rival profile. Its average score of 11,998 is 0.3% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (11,960), 1.3% above the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (11,842), 2.7% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (11,680), and 3.2% above the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (11,627). That is a strange grouping: the GTX 960A outperforms several much newer and more powerful cards in this specific benchmark database, which suggests the recorded scores for those rivals may be influenced by different driver configurations, thermal conditions, or test methodologies rather than raw architectural capability.

What does the 11.6% OpenCL delta actually mean in practice? OpenCL workloads that lean heavily on parallel floating-point operations will complete faster on the AMD Radeon Vega 11. The AMD part delivers 1.971 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A delivers 1.505 TFLOPS. That 31% theoretical compute advantage is consistent with the measured benchmark gap, though the actual benchmark delta is smaller, indicating that memory bandwidth and other factors temper the raw compute lead.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the head-to-head OpenCL benchmark?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 11 wins Geekbench OpenCL with a score of 13,392 against 11,998 for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, a delta of 11.6%.

Q: How do their overall average benchmark scores compare?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 11 has an average benchmark score of 14,352 across Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan tests. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A has an average of 11,998 from its OpenCL result only.

Q: Which GPU ranks higher in the database percentile system?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 11 ranks at the 56th percentile among all GPUs, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A ranks at the 51st percentile.

Q: What is the closest rival to the AMD Radeon Vega 11 in average score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN is the closest, with an average score of 14,373, just 0.1% above the Vega 11's 14,352. The Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics trails by 0.3%.

Q: How does the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A compare to its nearest rivals?

A: It leads all four recorded nearest rivals. It is 0.3% ahead of the GeForce GTX 1080, 1.3% ahead of the Radeon RX 6500 XT, 2.7% ahead of the GeForce GTX 1660, and 3.2% ahead of the Radeon RX 7800 XT.

Q: Which GPU has the higher FP32 compute throughput?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 11 delivers 1.971 TFLOPS, compared to 1.505 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Vega 11 wins the compute-centric OpenCL benchmark decisively, and it also holds the higher average score and the higher percentile rank. Its strengths lie in raw parallel throughput: 704 shading units, 44 texture mapping units, and 1.971 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. For workloads that are shader-bound or that scale well with shading unit count, such as GPGPU compute tasks, image processing, or modern game engines that leverage heavy pixel shading, the Vega 11 is the stronger choice. The recorded data also shows it handles both Metal and Vulkan APIs, which expands its compatibility across different compute frameworks.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, despite losing the head-to-head, has its own areas of advantage. Its 16 ROPs are double the 8 ROPs on the Vega 11, giving it a 18.82 GPixel/s pixel fill rate versus 11.20 GPixel/s for the AMD part. That matters for traditional rasterization workloads where pixel output is the bottleneck, such as lower-resolution gaming with high geometric complexity or applications that rely heavily on fill-rate-limited effects like shadow maps and post-processing passes. The GTX 960A also has dedicated GDDR5 memory with 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth, whereas the Vega 11 relies on system shared memory with bandwidth that is system dependent. In scenarios where memory latency and dedicated bandwidth are critical, the NVIDIA part has a structural advantage.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A also supports Vulkan 1.4, a newer API revision than the Vulkan 1.3 supported by the AMD part. For developers targeting the latest Vulkan extensions, the NVIDIA card offers broader API surface coverage. The AMD part counters with DirectX 12 (12_1) support, while the NVIDIA card is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0), so the Vega 11 has the edge in DirectX 12 feature level compatibility.

For mobile or compact systems, the AMD Radeon Vega 11 is an integrated GPU with an IGP slot width and no power connectors, drawing just 15 W. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A is an MXM module with a 75 W TDP, which means it requires a socketed MXM slot and more substantial cooling. The Vega 11 is the better fit for thin-and-light notebooks or small form factor systems where power and space are constrained. The GTX 960A is suited to larger laptops or modular systems that can accommodate an MXM-B (3.0) card and its thermal requirements.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every core specification. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 packs 704 shading units, 44 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The AMD part has more shading units and TMUs, while the NVIDIA part has twice the ROP count.

Clock speeds also diverge sharply. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 runs at a 300 MHz base clock and boosts to 1400 MHz. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A runs at a 1097 MHz base clock and boosts to 1176 MHz. The AMD part has a much lower idle clock but a significantly higher boost ceiling. Memory configurations are fundamentally different: the Vega 11 uses system shared memory with no dedicated VRAM, while the GTX 960A has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth.

Compute throughput favors AMD: 1.971 TFLOPS FP32 versus 1.505 TFLOPS. Pixel rate favors NVIDIA: 18.82 GPixel/s versus 11.20 GPixel/s. Texture rate favors AMD: 61.60 GTexel/s versus 47.04 GTexel/s. The AMD part also supports FP16 at 3.942 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, while the NVIDIA part has no recorded FP16 capability.

Power and form factor differ as well. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 is an IGP with a 15 W TDP and no power connectors. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A is an MXM module with a 75 W TDP and no power connectors, using an MXM-B (3.0) bus interface. The AMD part integrates into the motherboard, while the NVIDIA part is a removable module.

Release timing is also distinct. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 was released later, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A predates it. Both are marked end-of-life in the database. The AMD part lists a predecessor as GCN 3.0 IGP and a successor as Vega II IGP, while the NVIDIA part lists its predecessor as GeForce 800A and has no recorded successor.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon Vega 11 is built on the GCN 5.0 architecture using the Picasso chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A uses the Maxwell architecture with the GM107 chip, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The process node difference is substantial: 12 nm versus 28 nm gives the AMD part a significant density and efficiency advantage.

Transistor counts reflect the architectural gulf. The AMD chip contains 4,940 million transistors on a 210 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 23.5 million per mm². The NVIDIA chip contains 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die, yielding 12.6 million per mm². The AMD part has nearly 2.6 times as many transistors and a density that is roughly 86% higher.

The memory architecture is the most fundamental split. The Vega 11 uses system shared memory with no dedicated VRAM, and its bandwidth is system dependent. The GTX 960A uses dedicated GDDR5 memory with a fixed 80.19 GB/s bandwidth on a 128-bit bus. This makes the NVIDIA part more predictable in memory-bound workloads, while the AMD part's performance can vary depending on the host system's memory configuration.

API support differs in both directions. The AMD Radeon Vega 11 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.3. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The Vega 11 has the higher DirectX feature level, while the GTX 960A has the newer Vulkan revision. Display outputs are motherboard dependent for the AMD part and portable device dependent for the NVIDIA part, reflecting their different integration targets.