AMD Radeon VII vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and AMD Radeon VII represent two vastly different eras of GPU design, and the benchmark data reflects that chasm. The RTX 5090 is a current-generation Blackwell part, while the Radeon VII is an end-of-life GCN product from 2019. Across the three shared head-to-head benchmark tests, the RTX 5090 wins all three, with deltas ranging from 263.7% to 696.7%. This is not a close contest; it is a generational gap made visible through raw numbers.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most lopsided result comes in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test. The RTX 5090 scores 18,355, while the Radeon VII manages only 2,304. That is a 696.7% advantage for the NVIDIA card. In practical terms, the RTX 5090 delivers nearly eight times the performance in this modern DirectX 12 workload, which stresses geometry, ray tracing, and asynchronous compute. The Radeon VII, with its GCN 5.1 architecture lacking dedicated ray tracing hardware, simply cannot compete in a test designed for contemporary GPUs.

The Geekbench Vulkan test shows a similar pattern, though slightly less extreme. The RTX 5090 posts 376,728 points against the Radeon VII’s 91,788, a 310.4% lead. Vulkan is a low-level API that rewards raw compute throughput and efficient driver overhead. The RTX 5090’s Blackwell architecture, with 21,760 shading units and 680 tensor cores, overwhelms the Radeon VII’s 3,840 shading units. The data suggests the NVIDIA card is roughly four times faster in this scenario, which aligns with the massive difference in FP32 compute (104.8 TFLOPS vs 13.44 TFLOPS).

The Geekbench OpenCL result is the closest of the three, but still decisively NVIDIA. The RTX 5090 scores 334,370, while the Radeon VII scores 91,947, a 263.7% delta. OpenCL is often used for compute workloads like rendering and scientific simulation. Here, the Radeon VII’s HBM2 memory with 1.02 TB/s bandwidth helps it stay closer, but the RTX 5090’s 1.79 TB/s bandwidth and 32 GB of GDDR7 still pull ahead by a factor of 3.6. It is importantly the Radeon VII has a higher FP16 rate (26.88 TFLOPS) relative to its FP32 (13.44 TFLOPS), but the RTX 5090 matches FP16 to FP32 at 104.8 TFLOPS, eliminating that advantage.

Across all three tests, the RTX 5090’s smallest win is 263.7%, and its largest is 696.7%. The Radeon VII wins zero head-to-head benchmarks. This is a complete sweep, with no workload category where the older AMD card manages to edge ahead. The average benchmark score reinforces this: the RTX 5090 averages 79,842 points across all its tests, while the Radeon VII averages 66,004. Even in the RTX 5090’s worst-case benchmark (Passmark DirectX 12 at 185), it still outperforms the Radeon VII’s best-case result (Geekbench Vulkan at 91,788) when normalized to the same scale.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 averages 79,842 points, while the AMD Radeon VII averages 66,004 points. This gives the RTX 5090 a 17.3% higher average across all recorded benchmarks.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between the two in a shared test?

A: In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RTX 5090 leads by 696.7%. The NVIDIA card scores 18,355 versus the Radeon VII’s 2,304.

Q: Does the Radeon VII win any head-to-head benchmark?

A: No. The RTX 5090 wins all three shared tests: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, Geekbench OpenCL, and Geekbench Vulkan. The Radeon VII’s win count is zero.

Q: How do the GPUs compare in memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5090 has 1.79 TB/s bandwidth from 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus. The Radeon VII has 1.02 TB/s from 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus. The NVIDIA card is 75.5% faster in raw bandwidth.

Q: What are the transistor counts for each chip?

A: The RTX 5090 uses the GB202 chip with 92,200 million transistors on a 5 nm process. The Radeon VII uses Vega 20 with 13,230 million transistors on a 7 nm process. The RTX 5090 has nearly seven times more transistors.

Q: Which GPU has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 5090 sits at the 92nd percentile, while the Radeon VII sits at the 90th percentile. Despite the massive performance gap, both cards rank in the top 10% of all GPUs in the database.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the superior product in every measurable benchmark. It wins all three shared tests with deltas between 263.7% and 696.7%. For anyone prioritizing raw performance in modern DirectX 12, Vulkan, or OpenCL workloads, the RTX 5090 is the only rational choice. Its 92nd percentile ranking versus the Radeon VII’s 90th percentile further confirms its position at the top of the performance hierarchy.

The AMD Radeon VII, despite its end-of-life status, still holds a respectable 90th percentile ranking. It launched in 2019 with a 16 GB HBM2 config that was advanced for its time. However, the benchmark results show it is outclassed by nearly three to seven times in the same tests. For a buyer choosing between these two today, the Radeon VII would only be sensible if the workload is strictly legacy compute that does not use modern APIs, but the data does not provide any such scenario where it wins.

The RTX 5090’s launch MSRP is 1,999 USD, and the Radeon VII’s was 699 USD at launch. That price difference is substantial, but the performance difference is even larger. The RTX 5090 delivers a 263.7% to 696.7% performance increase over the Radeon VII, which is a generational leap, not an incremental one. For users who need maximum frame rates or compute throughput, the RTX 5090 is the clear winner based on all available benchmark evidence.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every physical and architectural specification. The RTX 5090 uses a 5 nm process from TSMC, while the Radeon VII uses a 7 nm process from the same foundry. The RTX 5090 has 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, while the Radeon VII has 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die. This translates to a transistor density of 122.9M per mm² for the RTX 5090 versus 40.0M per mm² for the Radeon VII.

Memory configurations are also worlds apart. The RTX 5090 has 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. The Radeon VII has 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, yielding 1.02 TB/s bandwidth. Clock speeds differ significantly: the RTX 5090 boosts to 2407 MHz, while the Radeon VII boosts to 1750 MHz. The RTX 5090 also has a much higher base clock at 2017 MHz versus 1400 MHz.

Compute capabilities follow the same pattern. The RTX 5090 has 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. The Radeon VII has 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The RTX 5090 also features 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores, while the Radeon VII has neither. Pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s for the RTX 5090 versus 112.0 GPixel/s for the Radeon VII. Texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s versus 420.0 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 104.8 TFLOPS versus 13.44 TFLOPS.

Power and connectivity also differ. The RTX 5090 has a 575 W TDP with a 950 W suggested PSU and a single 16-pin connector. The Radeon VII has a 295 W TDP with a 600 W suggested PSU and two 8-pin connectors. The RTX 5090 uses PCIe 5.0 x16, while the Radeon VII uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are newer on the RTX 5090: 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b, versus 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a on the Radeon VII.

Architecture Differences

The RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, while the Radeon VII uses GCN 5.1. Blackwell 2.0 is a dedicated gaming and compute architecture from NVIDIA, featuring dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for AI workloads. The Radeon VII, being a GCN part, has no dedicated ray tracing or tensor hardware. This is a fundamental architectural split that explains the massive benchmark differences.

The RTX 5090’s FP16 performance is 104.8 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio to FP32. The Radeon VII’s FP16 is 26.88 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio. This means the RTX 5090 can process FP16 workloads at full rate, while the Radeon VII only achieves half rate. For machine learning or compute tasks that use FP16, the RTX 5090 has an even larger advantage than the raw FP32 numbers suggest.

The memory architecture also reflects different design philosophies. The Radeon VII uses HBM2 with a 4096-bit bus, which was a high-bandwidth, low-power solution for its time. The RTX 5090 uses GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, which achieves higher total bandwidth (1.79 TB/s vs 1.02 TB/s) while using a narrower interface. The RTX 5090 also doubles the memory capacity from 16 GB to 32 GB, which is critical for modern high-resolution textures and large compute datasets.

The transistor density difference is worth noting: 122.9M per mm² for the RTX 5090 versus 40.0M per mm² for the Radeon VII. This 3x density improvement reflects the 5 nm versus 7 nm process advantage, allowing the RTX 5090 to pack nearly seven times more transistors into a die that is only 2.3 times larger. The RTX 5090 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon VII supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. This means the RTX 5090 can run the latest graphics features that the Radeon VII cannot.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5090 wins in every benchmark category where both cards were tested. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it is 696.7% faster, making it the clear choice for modern gaming at high resolutions and with ray tracing enabled. In Geekbench Vulkan, it is 310.4% faster, which covers most cross-platform game engines and compute APIs. In Geekbench OpenCL, it is 263.7% faster, which matters for GPU-accelerated rendering, video encoding, and scientific computing.

The Radeon VII has no benchmark wins, but its strengths lie in its historical context and specific characteristics. Its 16 GB of HBM2 memory with 1.02 TB/s bandwidth was exceptional in 2019 and still handles bandwidth-sensitive workloads adequately. Its 2:1 FP16 ratio (26.88 TFLOPS) makes it relatively better at FP16 tasks than at FP32, though the RTX 5090’s 1:1 ratio at 104.8 TFLOPS far exceeds it. The Radeon VII’s lower 295 W TDP and 600 W suggested PSU mean it is more power-efficient in absolute terms, but the RTX 5090 delivers far more performance per watt when normalizing for the 575 W TDP.

For practical use cases, the RTX 5090 is the pick for anyone running modern games, ray-traced workloads, AI inference, or compute-heavy simulations. The Radeon VII might still serve in legacy DirectX 11 or OpenGL environments where its GCN architecture is well optimized, but the data does not contain any such benchmarks. The RTX 5090’s 92nd percentile and the Radeon VII’s 90th percentile both indicate high-tier placement, but the performance gap within that tier is enormous. The verdict is simple: the RTX 5090 wins everywhere, and the Radeon VII is a historical artifact that cannot match it in any measured test.