AMD Radeon VII vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D and AMD Radeon VII represent two distinct eras of GPU engineering, separated by six years of architectural evolution. The data shows a decisive generational gap, with the RTX 5090 D dominating every shared benchmark by substantial margins. The Radeon VII, a 2019-era 7nm part, holds its own in its percentile ranking but cannot match the raw throughput of NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 architecture. This analysis breaks down the head-to-head results, identifies which workloads favor each card, and explains the architectural chasm between them.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The RTX 5090 D wins all three shared tests, and the margins are nothing short of overwhelming. In 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), the NVIDIA card scores 14,326 against the Radeon VII's 2,304, a delta of 521.8%. This is not a mere generational improvement; it is a five-fold increase in raw rasterization throughput. The Radeon VII’s score places it in the 90th percentile of all GPUs, but the RTX 5090 D’s 92nd percentile ranking undersells the gap—the NVIDIA part is operating in a completely different performance tier.

The compute-oriented tests tell a similar story. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5090 D posts 310,674 points versus 91,947 for the Radeon VII, a 237.9% advantage. This reflects the NVIDIA card’s massive FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS compared to the AMD card’s 13.44 TFLOPS. The Geekbench Vulkan result is even more lopsided: 376,915 for the RTX 5090 D versus 91,788 for the Radeon VII, a 310.6% delta. Vulkan’s low-overhead nature appears to favor the newer architecture disproportionately, likely due to its superior driver optimization and hardware scheduler.

It is notably the Radeon VII has no RT or tensor cores, so ray-traced workloads and AI-accelerated tasks were not part of the shared test suite. The RTX 5090 D, with 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, would presumably extend its lead further in those areas, but the data available only covers the three benchmarks above. The average benchmark score across all tests reinforces the trend: the RTX 5090 D averages 77,712 points, while the Radeon VII averages 66,004. This narrower gap is misleading—it includes tests unique to each card (e.g., PassMark DirectX 9 for NVIDIA, Geekbench Metal for AMD) that are not directly comparable.

The Verdict

From the data alone, the RTX 5090 D is the clear choice for anyone prioritizing maximum performance in DX12, OpenCL, or Vulkan workloads. Its 521.8% lead in Steel Nomad and 310.6% lead in Vulkan are not incremental improvements; they are generational leaps that make the Radeon VII effectively obsolete for high-end gaming or compute. The NVIDIA card also offers 32 GB of GDDR7 memory with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, versus the Radeon VII’s 16 GB of HBM2 at 1.02 TB/s. For large datasets or high-resolution textures, that capacity and bandwidth advantage is decisive.

However, the Radeon VII is not without merit in its own context. It sits in the 90th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals (NVIDIA Tesla T4, Tesla P40, AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100) are within a ±3.4% performance band. This suggests it remains a competent card for legacy DX11 or OpenGL titles, where its PassMark DirectX 11 score of 371 (versus the RTX 5090 D’s 371—a tie) shows it can still hold its own in older APIs. But the RTX 5090 D’s PassMark scores are not directly comparable here because the Radeon VII lacks those specific test results in the pack.

The RTX 5090 D’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (deltaPct 1.1%), RX 6850M XT (deltaPct -1.6%), and NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (deltaPct -2.1% and -2.4%). This indicates the NVIDIA card sits in a performance cluster with high-end laptop GPUs and data-center accelerators, not with the Radeon VII’s peer group of workstation cards. For a user choosing between these two specific cards, the verdict is unambiguous: the RTX 5090 D wins on every shared metric, and the Radeon VII should only be considered for legacy software compatibility or if power consumption is an absolute priority (295 W vs. 575 W TDP).

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5090 D wins in every category where the two overlap. In DX12 gaming (Steel Nomad), its 521.8% lead means modern titles at high resolutions will run at multiples of the Radeon VII’s frame rate. In compute (OpenCL), the 237.9% advantage translates to faster rendering, simulation, and data processing. In Vulkan (310.6% lead), the NVIDIA card is ideal for cross-platform games and VR applications that increasingly rely on this API. The RTX 5090 D also supports PCIe 5.0 x16 and DisplayPort 2.1b, whereas the Radeon VII is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16 and DisplayPort 1.4a—a substantial difference for bandwidth-hungry workloads and high-refresh-rate displays.

The Radeon VII’s wins are narrower but real. Its PassMark DirectX 11 score of 371 matches the RTX 5090 D’s 371, indicating parity in older DX11 titles. Its Geekbench Metal score of 77,975 (a test the NVIDIA card does not have in its suite) suggests it remains viable for macOS or Metal-based applications. The Radeon VII also has a lower 295 W TDP and uses 2x 8-pin power connectors, making it easier to integrate into existing systems with a 600 W PSU, versus the RTX 5090 D’s 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU. For users with older power supplies or smaller cases (the Radeon VII is 280mm long vs. the RTX 5090 D’s 304mm), the AMD card is the more practical drop-in upgrade.

In terms of raw specifications, the RTX 5090 D has 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, dwarfing the Radeon VII’s 3,840 shaders, 240 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The NVIDIA card’s pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are roughly 3.8x and 3.9x the AMD card’s respective 112.0 GPixel/s and 420.0 GTexel/s. This means even in fill-rate-bound scenarios, the RTX 5090 D dominates.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5090 D in 3DMark Steel Nomad?

A: The RTX 5090 D scores 14,326 versus the Radeon VII’s 2,304, a 521.8% improvement.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5090 D has 1.79 TB/s from its 512-bit GDDR7 bus, while the Radeon VII has 1.02 TB/s from its 4096-bit HBM2 bus.

Q: Does the Radeon VII support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The Radeon VII has no RT cores, whereas the RTX 5090 D has 170 RT cores.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The RTX 5090 D has a 575 W TDP and requires a 950 W PSU with a 1x 16-pin connector. The Radeon VII has a 295 W TDP, needs a 600 W PSU, and uses 2x 8-pin connectors.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5090 D averages 77,712 points across its tests, while the Radeon VII averages 66,004 points.

Q: Are these cards in the same performance percentile?

A: No. The RTX 5090 D is in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon VII is in the 90th percentile.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is vast. The RTX 5090 D uses the GB202 chip on a 5 nm TSMC process, packing 92,200 million transistors into a 750 mm² die. The Radeon VII uses the Vega 20 chip on a 7 nm TSMC process, with 13,230 million transistors on a 331 mm² die. Transistor density tells the story: 122.9M / mm² for the NVIDIA card versus 40.0M / mm² for the AMD card—a 3x density advantage that enables the RTX 5090 D’s massive compute resources.

Memory architecture differs fundamentally. The RTX 5090 D uses 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, while the Radeon VII uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus. The GDDR7 solution delivers 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, 75% higher than HBM2’s 1.02 TB/s, despite the narrower bus. Clock speeds also differ: the RTX 5090 D boosts to 2407 MHz versus the Radeon VII’s 1750 MHz, and the NVIDIA memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) versus 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective).

Feature-wise, the RTX 5090 D adds 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, which the Radeon VII lacks entirely. The NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon VII is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RTX 5090 D also offers PCIe 5.0 x16 and DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, versus the Radeon VII’s PCIe 3.0 x16 and DisplayPort 1.4a. The NVIDIA card’s FP16 performance is 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1) with FP32, while the Radeon VII’s FP16 is 26.88 TFLOPS (2:1)—meaning the NVIDIA card processes FP16 at full rate, a significant advantage for AI and compute workloads. The RTX 5090 D is a current-generation product (released 2025-01-29), while the Radeon VII is end-of-life (released 2019-02-06), and its successor is Navi.