AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition vs NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile and AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition are both end-of-life professional graphics cards, but they represent vastly different eras and design philosophies. The A4500 Mobile is a modern, power-efficient Ampere-based workstation GPU designed for laptops, while the Vega Frontier Edition is an early compute-focused desktop card built on the older GCN architecture. Benchmark data shows a clear performance hierarchy, with the NVIDIA part leading in every shared test, but the AMD card retains its own strengths in specific compute workloads and interface options.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile wins decisively in the two benchmarks where both cards were tested. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 105307 against the Vega Frontier Edition’s 76111, a 38.4% advantage. This is a massive lead that places the A4500 Mobile in the 93rd percentile of all GPUs, while the Vega Frontier Edition sits at the 91st percentile. The NVIDIA card also wins the Vulkan test, scoring 76960 versus 71937, a 7% margin. Its average benchmark score of 91134 is substantially higher than the AMD card’s 73370, confirming that across the board, the A4500 Mobile is the faster GPU.

However, the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition has its own domain where it wins: raw FP16 throughput. Its FP16 performance is rated at 26.21 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), which is nearly double its FP32 rate of 13.11 TFLOPS. In contrast, the RTX A4500 Mobile’s FP16 is locked at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, both at 17.66 TFLOPS. For workloads that leverage half-precision math — such as certain machine learning inference or imaging tasks — the Vega Frontier Edition can outperform the NVIDIA card despite its lower overall benchmark scores. The AMD card also offers a higher texture rate of 409.6 GTexel/s versus 276.0 GTexel/s on the A4500 Mobile, which could benefit texture-heavy workloads that do not rely on ray tracing or tensor cores.

The RTX A4500 Mobile also wins on efficiency and flexibility. Its 140 W TDP is less than half of the Vega Frontier Edition’s 300 W, and it requires no external power connectors, whereas the AMD card needs two 8-pin connectors and a 700 W power supply. The NVIDIA card supports PCIe 4.0 x16, doubling the bandwidth of the Vega’s PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, and its display outputs are portable-device dependent, making it suitable for mobile workstations. The AMD card, by contrast, is a dual-slot desktop card with a 267 mm length and fixed display outputs (1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a).

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures and process nodes. The RTX A4500 Mobile uses the GA104 chip on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It packs 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 44.4 million per mm². In contrast, the Vega Frontier Edition uses the Vega 10 chip on AMD’s GCN 5.0 architecture, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. This older node is less dense, with 12,500 million transistors spread over a larger 495 mm² die, resulting in just 25.3 million transistors per mm².

The memory subsystems are also radically different. The NVIDIA card uses 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, achieving 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD card also has 16 GB, but uses HBM2 on a massive 2048-bit bus, delivering 483.8 GB/s. While the A4500 Mobile has slightly higher bandwidth, the Vega Frontier Edition’s HBM2 is more power-hungry and complex to integrate. The NVIDIA card’s memory runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), while the AMD card’s memory runs at 945 MHz (1890 Mbps effective).

Core configurations differ significantly. The RTX A4500 Mobile has 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. It also includes 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores, which are absent from the Vega Frontier Edition. The AMD card has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. This means the NVIDIA card has more shading units and ROPs, while the AMD card has more TMUs. In terms of raw compute, the A4500 Mobile’s FP32 output of 17.66 TFLOPS exceeds the Vega’s 13.11 TFLOPS. Pixel rates follow suit, with NVIDIA at 144.0 GPixel/s versus AMD’s 102.4 GPixel/s.

Feature support also diverges. The NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the AMD card only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the A4500 Mobile supports Vulkan 1.4 versus the Vega’s Vulkan 1.3. The NVIDIA card’s architecture is newer, leveraging Ampere’s efficiency and feature set, whereas the Vega Frontier Edition is an older GCN design that lacks hardware ray tracing and tensor cores.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most significant benchmark gap between the two cards is in Geekbench OpenCL, where the RTX A4500 Mobile scores 105307 versus the Vega Frontier Edition’s 76111. That is a 38.4% difference in favor of NVIDIA. This result highlights the architectural advantage of Ampere over GCN for general-purpose compute workloads. The A4500 Mobile’s higher shading unit count, newer process node, and faster FP32 throughput all contribute to this substantial lead.

In the Geekbench Vulkan test, the delta is smaller but still favors NVIDIA. The A4500 Mobile scores 76960, while the Vega Frontier Edition scores 71937, a 7% advantage for the NVIDIA card. This narrower margin suggests that the AMD card’s higher texture rate and FP16 capabilities help it remain competitive in certain graphics-adjacent tasks, but it still falls short. The average benchmark score of the A4500 Mobile is 91134, which is 24.2% higher than the Vega Frontier Edition’s 73370.

Looking at nearest rivals, the RTX A4500 Mobile’s average score is 0.6% below the desktop RTX A4500 (91671) and 1.4% below the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (92466). It is 4.2% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 (87445) and 4.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 (87108). The Vega Frontier Edition’s average score is 1.4% above the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 (72379), 1.8% above the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal (72098), 2.2% above the AMD Radeon RX 6650M (71768), and 3.6% above the AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE (70829). These comparisons place the A4500 Mobile in a higher performance tier, while the Vega Frontier Edition sits closer to mid-range desktop cards.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher overall benchmark performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile, with an average benchmark score of 91134, is significantly faster than the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition’s 73370, a difference of 24.2%.

Q: Does the AMD card win in any benchmark test?

A: No, the AMD card wins zero of the two head-to-head tests. The NVIDIA card wins both Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between the two cards?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX A4500 Mobile leads by 38.4%, scoring 105307 versus 76111.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile has a 140 W TDP and requires no power connectors, while the Vega Frontier Edition has a 300 W TDP and needs two 8-pin connectors plus a 700 W power supply.

Q: Does the AMD card have any unique compute advantage?

A: Yes, its FP16 performance is 26.21 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), which is higher than the NVIDIA card’s 17.66 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), making it potentially better for half-precision workloads.

Q: What are the memory interface differences?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile uses 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Vega Frontier Edition uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 483.8 GB/s bandwidth.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every major specification category. The RTX A4500 Mobile uses the GA104 chip on Ampere architecture, while the Vega Frontier Edition uses Vega 10 on GCN 5.0. The process nodes are 8 nm (Samsung) versus 14 nm (GlobalFoundries). Transistor counts are 17,400 million versus 12,500 million, with die sizes of 392 mm² versus 495 mm². The NVIDIA card has a higher transistor density of 44.4 million per mm² versus 25.3 million per mm².

Clock speeds differ: the A4500 Mobile has a base clock of 930 MHz and boost of 1500 MHz, while the Vega Frontier Edition has a higher base of 1382 MHz and boost of 1600 MHz. Memory clocks are 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) for NVIDIA versus 945 MHz (1890 Mbps effective) for AMD. The memory bus widths are 256-bit versus 2048-bit, with bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s versus 483.8 GB/s.

Core counts vary: the NVIDIA card has 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, plus 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores. The AMD card has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with no RT or tensor cores. Pixel rate is 144.0 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 102.4 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate is 276.0 GTexel/s versus 409.6 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 17.66 TFLOPS versus 13.11 TFLOPS, but FP16 performance is 17.66 TFLOPS (1:1) versus 26.21 TFLOPS (2:1).

Power requirements are dramatically different: 140 W with no power connectors versus 300 W with two 8-pin connectors and a 700 W suggested PSU. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are portable-device dependent versus 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The AMD card is a dual-slot design measuring 267 mm in length and 111 mm in height, while the NVIDIA card’s dimensions are not specified. API support differs: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (12_1), and Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.3. Release dates are 2022-03-21 for NVIDIA and 2017-06-26 for AMD. The launch MSRP of the AMD card was 999 USD, while the NVIDIA card has no listed MSRP.