AMD Radeon VII vs Intel Arc Pro A60 Comparison

AMD Radeon VII and Intel Arc Pro A60 represent two very different generations of GPU design, with the former being an end-of-life enthusiast-class card from 2019 and the latter an active professional workstation offering from 2023. The data shows a clear performance hierarchy in shared workloads, but the architecture and feature set tell a more nuanced story about which card suits which task. Benchmark results indicate AMD Radeon VII holds a commanding lead in raw compute throughput, while Intel Arc Pro A60 counters with modern API support, ray tracing hardware, and drastically lower power requirements.

Where Each One Wins

AMD Radeon VII wins decisively in every shared benchmark against the Intel Arc Pro A60. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD card scores 91947 against Intel's 63485, a 44.8% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap widens further: 91788 versus 57166, a 60.6% lead for AMD. These results place Radeon VII at the 90th percentile of all GPUs, while Arc Pro A60 sits at the 88th percentile. The AMD card's average benchmark score of 66004 also exceeds Intel's 60326 by roughly 9.4%.

However, the Intel card has its own domain of superiority that isn't captured in these two compute-focused tests. Arc Pro A60 carries 16 ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from Radeon VII. This means in any ray-traced workload—professional visualization, DXR-based rendering, or modern game engines—the Intel card has dedicated hardware that the AMD card simply lacks. Additionally, Arc Pro A60 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, whereas Radeon VII is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. For software relying on mesh shaders, variable rate shading, or other DirectX 12 Ultimate features, Intel's card is the only one of the two that qualifies.

Intel also wins on efficiency and physical design. Arc Pro A60 has a 130 W TDP versus Radeon VII's 295 W, and it's a single-slot card with no external power connectors, requiring only a 300 W suggested PSU. Radeon VII is dual-slot, needs two 8-pin connectors, and asks for a 600 W PSU. For dense workstation builds or multi-GPU configurations, Intel's compact, low-power design is a clear practical advantage.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide is stark. AMD Radeon VII uses the Vega 20 chip built on GCN 5.1 architecture, manufactured on a 7 nm TSMC process. It packs 13,230 million transistors into a 331 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 40.0M per mm². The GPU features 3840 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. Clock speeds range from 1400 MHz base to 1750 MHz boost.

Intel Arc Pro A60 is built on the DG2-256 chip with Xe-HPG architecture, fabricated on a 6 nm TSMC process. It contains 11,500 million transistors across a smaller 269 mm² die, achieving a higher transistor density of 42.8M per mm². The shading unit count drops to 2048, with 128 TMUs and 64 ROPs. Base clock is much lower at 900 MHz, but boost clock reaches 2050 MHz—300 MHz higher than Radeon VII's boost.

Memory configurations diverge completely. Radeon VII uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, delivering 1.02 TB/s of bandwidth. Arc Pro A60 uses 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, yielding 384.0 GB/s. That's a 2.66x bandwidth advantage for AMD. But Intel's card supports PCIe 4.0 x16 while Radeon VII is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16, which matters for data transfers in bandwidth-sensitive workloads.

The compute capabilities also differ significantly. Radeon VII outputs 13.44 TFLOPS FP32 and 26.88 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1), while Arc Pro A60 manages 8.397 TFLOPS FP32 and 16.79 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1). Pixel fill rates favor Intel slightly: 131.2 GPixel/s versus 112.0 GPixel/s. Texture fill rates favor AMD: 420.0 GTexel/s versus 262.4 GTexel/s.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two shared benchmarks reveal a consistent and substantial performance gap. In Geekbench OpenCL, Radeon VII scores 91947 versus Arc Pro A60's 63485, a delta of 44.8%. This test stresses raw compute throughput across heterogeneous workloads, and AMD's higher shader count (3840 vs 2048), higher FP32 throughput (13.44 vs 8.397 TFLOPS), and vastly superior memory bandwidth (1.02 TB/s vs 384.0 GB/s) all contribute to the result.

Geekbench Vulkan shows an even larger disparity. Radeon VII scores 91788 while Intel manages 57166, a 60.6% delta. Vulkan's low-overhead nature tends to favor architectures with strong driver maturity and raw compute resources. The data suggests that Radeon VII's GCN 5.1 architecture, despite being older, is exceptionally well-optimized for this API, or that Intel's Xe-HPG drivers still have overhead to shed in Vulkan contexts.

Looking at average benchmark scores, Radeon VII's 66004 places it between the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66733, 1.1% lower) and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 (65095, 1.4% higher). Arc Pro A60's 60326 lands it almost exactly level with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (60347, 0% delta) and just behind the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (61896, 2.5% higher). This contextual data shows that while Radeon VII is decisively faster than Arc Pro A60, both cards occupy similar competitive tiers relative to their own generation's peers.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better raw compute performance?

A: AMD Radeon VII, by a wide margin. It leads by 44.8% in Geekbench OpenCL and 60.6% in Geekbench Vulkan. Its FP32 throughput of 13.44 TFLOPS far exceeds Intel's 8.397 TFLOPS.

Q: Does the Intel Arc Pro A60 support ray tracing?

A: Yes. It has 16 dedicated ray tracing cores. AMD Radeon VII has no ray tracing hardware at all.

Q: Which GPU is more power-efficient?

A: Intel Arc Pro A60, with a 130 W TDP compared to Radeon VII's 295 W. Intel's card is single-slot and needs no external power connectors, while AMD's card requires two 8-pin connectors and a 600 W suggested PSU.

Q: What are the memory differences?

A: Radeon VII has 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus with 1.02 TB/s bandwidth. Arc Pro A60 has 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. AMD's memory bandwidth is 2.66x higher.

Q: Which card supports newer APIs?

A: Intel Arc Pro A60 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. AMD Radeon VII is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3.

Q: How do these cards compare to their nearest rivals?

A: Radeon VII's average score of 66004 is 1.1% below the NVIDIA Tesla T4 and 1.4% above the NVIDIA Tesla P40. Arc Pro A60's 60326 is exactly level with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (0% delta) and 2.5% below the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear split: choose AMD Radeon VII for maximum raw compute throughput in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. Its 60.6% lead in Vulkan and 44.8% lead in OpenCL leave no ambiguity for general-purpose GPU compute, scientific simulation, or machine learning tasks that leverage these APIs. The 1.02 TB/s memory bandwidth is extraordinary and will dominate any bandwidth-bound workload. The 90th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms its high-end status.

Choose Intel Arc Pro A60 for modern feature support and efficiency. The presence of ray tracing cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and PCIe 4.0 makes it the forward-looking choice for applications that exploit these technologies. Its 130 W TDP and single-slot form factor enable compact workstation builds where power and space are constrained. The 88th percentile ranking shows it's still a capable GPU, just not in the same compute class as Radeon VII.

The performance gap is substantial, but it's not the whole story. Radeon VII is end-of-life, released in February 2019, while Arc Pro A60 is active and current, released in June 2023. If software compatibility with the latest graphics features is critical, Intel's card is the only option. If raw number-crunching speed is the sole criterion, AMD's older architecture still dominates. The 2.66x memory bandwidth advantage and 60% higher shader count are simply too much for Intel's more efficient but less powerful design to overcome in compute benchmarks.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon VII | Intel Arc Pro A60 |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | GCN 5.1 | Xe-HPG |

| Process Node | 7 nm | 6 nm |

| Transistors | 13,230 million | 11,500 million |

| Die Size | 331 mm² | 269 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 40.0M / mm² | 42.8M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1400 MHz | 900 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1750 MHz | 2050 MHz |

| Memory Size | 16 GB | 12 GB |

| Memory Type | HBM2 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus Width | 4096 bit | 192 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 1.02 TB/s | 384.0 GB/s |

| Memory Clock | 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective) | 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) |

| Shading Units | 3840 | 2048 |

| TMUs | 240 | 128 |

| ROPs | 64 | 64 |

| RT Cores | None | 16 |

| Pixel Rate | 112.0 GPixel/s | 131.2 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 420.0 GTexel/s | 262.4 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 13.44 TFLOPS | 8.397 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 26.88 TFLOPS (2:1) | 16.79 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 295 W | 130 W |

| Slot Width | Dual-slot | Single-slot |

| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 600 W | 300 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | 4x DisplayPort 2.0 |

| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.4 |

| Production Status | End-of-life | Active |

| Release Date | 2019-02-06 | 2023-06-05 |