AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition vs NVIDIA CMP 30HX Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition wins decisively in every benchmark category where both cards have data. It takes both head-to-head tests: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX, by contrast, has zero wins in the shared test suite. This is not a close contest — the Vega Frontier Edition leads by double-digit percentage points in both compute APIs.

The Vega Frontier Edition’s advantage is most pronounced in OpenCL, where it scores 16.7% higher than the CMP 30HX. The gap narrows slightly in Vulkan, but the AMD card still holds a 15.1% lead. For workloads that rely on general-purpose compute — the kind of tasks these cards were designed for — the data points firmly toward AMD.

The CMP 30HX is a mining-focused card with no display outputs, so its benchmark results reflect compute-only performance. Its OpenCL score of 65,199 and Vulkan score of 62,484 are respectable but clearly a tier below the Vega Frontier Edition’s 76,111 and 71,937, respectively. The CMP 30HX does, however, achieve a percentile rank of 89 versus the Vega Frontier Edition’s 91 — a small but notable gap in overall standing among all GPUs.

In terms of raw benchmark averages, the Vega Frontier Edition posts an average score of 73,370, which is 14.9% higher than the CMP 30HX’s 63,842. That average encapsulates the consistent edge AMD holds across both tested APIs. The CMP 30HX’s nearest rivals — the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP at 63,830 (0% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 7600M at 63,775 (0.1% delta) — show it sits at parity with lower-tier AMD parts, while the Vega Frontier Edition’s nearest rivals (the Radeon Pro Vega 64 at 72,379 and TITAN X Pascal at 72,098) put it in much faster company.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition wins both shared benchmarks. It scores 76,111 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 65,199 for the NVIDIA CMP 30HX, and 71,937 in Geekbench Vulkan versus 62,484. That translates to a 16.7% lead in OpenCL and a 15.1% lead in Vulkan.

Q: Does the NVIDIA CMP 30HX beat the AMD card in any benchmark?

A: No. In the two head-to-head tests available (Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan), the CMP 30HX loses both. It has zero wins out of two shared benchmarks.

Q: Why might someone choose the CMP 30HX despite lower scores?

A: The CMP 30HX has a much lower TDP of 125 W versus 300 W for the Vega Frontier Edition. It also requires only a 300 W suggested PSU and a single 8-pin power connector, compared to 700 W and dual 8-pin connectors for the AMD card.

Q: How do these cards compare in overall GPU percentile ranking?

A: The Vega Frontier Edition ranks in the 91st percentile among all GPUs, while the CMP 30HX ranks in the 89th percentile. Despite the large benchmark score gap, the percentile difference is modest.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition has 483.8 GB/s of bandwidth from 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX has 336.0 GB/s from 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus.

Q: Can the CMP 30HX output video?

A: No. The CMP 30HX has no display outputs, making it unsuitable for any use case requiring a monitor connection. The Vega Frontier Edition has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most significant win for the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition comes in Geekbench OpenCL, where it scores 76,111 against the CMP 30HX’s 65,199. That is a 16.7% advantage — the largest margin in any shared test. In practical terms, this means OpenCL compute workloads — which include many scientific, rendering, and machine-learning tasks — will complete substantially faster on the AMD card.

The Vulkan benchmark tells a similar story, though with a slightly tighter margin. The Vega Frontier Edition posts 71,937, while the CMP 30HX manages 62,484. The 15.1% delta confirms that AMD’s advantage is not API-specific; it holds across both major compute interfaces. This consistency suggests a fundamental performance gap rather than a driver quirk or benchmark anomaly.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the Vega Frontier Edition’s average score of 73,370 places it 1.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 (72,379) and 1.8% ahead of the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal (72,098). Those are close margins, indicating the Vega Frontier Edition sits at the top of its immediate competitive tier. The CMP 30HX, with an average of 63,842, is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP (63,830, 0% delta) and slightly behind the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64,212, -0.6% delta). The CMP 30HX’s closest competition is a full 14.9% behind the Vega Frontier Edition’s average.

The wins are not just numerical — they are structural. The Vega Frontier Edition’s higher FP32 throughput (13.11 TFLOPS versus 5.027 TFLOPS) and nearly double the texture fill rate (409.6 GTexel/s versus 157.1 GTexel/s) explain why it dominates compute benchmarks. The CMP 30HX’s higher boost clock (1785 MHz versus 1600 MHz) does not compensate for having roughly one-third the shading units (1408 versus 4096) and fewer texture units (88 versus 256).

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply across nearly every specification. The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition uses 16 GB of HBM2 memory on a 2048-bit bus, delivering 483.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX uses 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s. That is a 147.8 GB/s bandwidth advantage for AMD, alongside 10 GB more memory capacity.

Clock speeds tell a different story. The CMP 30HX has a higher base clock of 1530 MHz and a higher boost clock of 1785 MHz, compared to the Vega Frontier Edition’s 1382 MHz base and 1600 MHz boost. The memory clock also favors NVIDIA: 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus 945 MHz (1890 Mbps effective) for AMD. However, the AMD card’s raw compute resources overwhelm the clock advantage.

Compute unit counts heavily favor AMD. The Vega Frontier Edition has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The CMP 30HX has 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. This translates to a pixel rate of 102.4 GPixel/s for AMD versus 85.68 GPixel/s for NVIDIA, and a texture rate of 409.6 GTexel/s versus 157.1 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput gap is even larger: 13.11 TFLOPS versus 5.027 TFLOPS.

Power requirements differ substantially. The Vega Frontier Edition has a 300 W TDP, needs 2x 8-pin power connectors, and requires a 700 W suggested PSU. The CMP 30HX has a 125 W TDP, needs a single 8-pin connector, and runs on a 300 W suggested PSU. Physical dimensions also differ: the Vega Frontier Edition is 267 mm long (10.5 inches), while the CMP 30HX is 229 mm (9 inches) with a 35 mm (1.4 inch) width.

Bus interface differences are notable. The Vega Frontier Edition uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the CMP 30HX uses PCIe 1.0 x4 — a far narrower and slower connection. The CMP 30HX also lacks display outputs entirely, while the Vega Frontier Edition offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The process nodes differ too: AMD uses 14 nm at GlobalFoundries, while NVIDIA uses 12 nm at TSMC.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition is built on the Vega 10 chip using GCN 5.0 architecture, part of the Radeon Pro Vega generation. It contains 12,500 million transistors on a 495 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 25.3M per mm². The NVIDIA CMP 30HX uses the TU116 chip with Turing architecture, part of the Mining GPUs generation. It has 6,600 million transistors on a 284 mm² die, for a density of 23.2M per mm².

Foundry choices differ: AMD uses GlobalFoundries at 14 nm, while NVIDIA uses TSMC at 12 nm. The AMD chip is physically much larger — 495 mm² versus 284 mm² — and packs nearly double the transistors. Despite the smaller die, the NVIDIA chip achieves a lower transistor density, indicating a less efficient packing of resources.

Neither card includes ray tracing cores or tensor cores, so both rely on traditional shader-based compute. The Vega Frontier Edition supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The CMP 30HX supports the same DirectX and OpenGL versions but newer Vulkan 1.4. The Vega Frontier Edition’s FP16 performance is 26.21 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the CMP 30HX offers 10.05 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio).

The Vega Frontier Edition is a product of the Radeon Pro Vega generation, with a predecessor of Radeon Pro Polaris and a successor of Radeon Pro Navi. The CMP 30HX has no predecessor or successor listed, reflecting its status as a specialized mining product. The AMD card was released on 2017-06-26, while the NVIDIA card came later on 2021-02-24. Both are now end-of-life products.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition is the faster card in every measured compute benchmark. It wins Geekbench OpenCL by 16.7% and Geekbench Vulkan by 15.1%, and it holds a 14.9% higher average benchmark score. Anyone prioritizing raw compute performance should choose the Vega Frontier Edition without hesitation.

The NVIDIA CMP 30HX has a clear role, but it is not about performance. Its 125 W TDP and 300 W PSU requirement make it far easier to power and cool. It is also physically shorter at 229 mm versus 267 mm, and it uses only a single 8-pin connector. For constrained environments where power and space matter more than speed, the CMP 30HX offers a viable path — but it sacrifices 10 GB of memory, 147.8 GB/s of bandwidth, and roughly 2.6x the FP32 throughput to get there.

The Vega Frontier Edition’s 91st percentile ranking versus the CMP 30HX’s 89th percentile underscores that the AMD card competes in a higher performance tier. Its nearest rivals — the Radeon Pro Vega 64 and TITAN X Pascal — are within 2% of its average score, while the CMP 30HX’s rivals (RX 9060 XT LP, RX 7600M) are all within 0.2% in either direction. That means the CMP 30HX is firmly mid-pack, while the Vega Frontier Edition edges toward the top of its class.

For compute workloads, the choice is clear: the Vega Frontier Edition, with its 16 GB HBM2, 4096 shading units, and 13.11 TFLOPS, is the superior card. For mining or low-power compute tasks where display output is irrelevant and efficiency is paramount, the CMP 30HX makes sense — but only if the 15% performance deficit is acceptable. The benchmark data does not support any other conclusion.