AMD Steam Machine GPU vs NVIDIA H100 CNX Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark database contains no direct head-to-head measurements for the AMD Steam Machine GPU and the NVIDIA H100 CNX. Both entries show an average benchmark score of zero and an empty benchmark list, meaning no recorded performance tests have been submitted for either product. The win counts for both sides are also zero. This absence of data is itself informative: the two products occupy entirely different segments, and the database has not yet accumulated comparative results.

What the recorded data does show are the theoretical peak rates derived from clock speeds and unit counts. The NVIDIA H100 CNX delivers 53.84 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, while the AMD Steam Machine GPU delivers 17.56 TFLOPS. That places the NVIDIA part at roughly three times the raw single-precision compute of the AMD part. The FP16 comparison is even more lopsided. The H100 CNX reaches 215.4 TFLOPS with its 4:1 ratio, while the Steam Machine GPU manages 17.56 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio. The NVIDIA accelerator holds a 12.3x advantage in half-precision work, which matters for AI inference and training workloads.

Memory bandwidth tells a similar story. The H100 CNX uses HBM2e across a 5120-bit bus, producing 2.04 TB/s of bandwidth. The Steam Machine GPU uses GDDR6 across a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA part has roughly 7.1x the memory bandwidth. The AMD part counters in pixel throughput, where its 64 ROPs at 2450 MHz boost produce 156.8 GPixel/s versus 44.28 GPixel/s for the H100 CNX. That is a 3.5x advantage for AMD in pixel fill, a metric relevant to rasterized game rendering.

Texture rate also favors NVIDIA. The H100 CNX outputs 841.3 GTexel/s from its 456 TMUs, while the Steam Machine GPU outputs 274.4 GTexel/s from 112 TMUs. NVIDIA leads by roughly 3.1x. The AMD chip draws only 110 W against the NVIDIA part's 350 W, and the resulting efficiency picture is mixed. On a per-watt basis, the Steam Machine GPU delivers about 0.16 TFLOPS per watt in FP32, while the H100 CNX delivers about 0.15 TFLOPS per watt. The AMD part edges ahead in FP32 efficiency, but the H100 CNX is far ahead in absolute throughput.

The transistor budgets differ substantially. The H100 CNX packs 80,000 million transistors on an 814 mm² die, while the Steam Machine GPU uses 13,300 million transistors on a 204 mm² die. The NVIDIA part uses a 5 nm TSMC process, and the AMD part uses a 6 nm TSMC process. Transistor density favors NVIDIA at 98.3M per mm² versus 65.2M per mm² for AMD.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Steam Machine GPU wins in scenarios that favor rasterization throughput and low power draw. Its 64 ROPs and 156.8 GPixel/s pixel rate give it a clear edge in fill-rate-bound workloads, which are common in traditional game rendering at high resolutions. The 110 W TDP means the card fits into compact console-style enclosures without external power connectors. The display outputs, one HDMI 2.1a and one DisplayPort 2.1, confirm its role as a rendering device connected to screens. The H100 CNX has no display outputs at all, which reinforces that it is not designed for visual output.

The AMD part also wins on memory clock simplicity. Its memory runs at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective, and the 8 GB GDDR6 allocation is appropriate for its target use case. The chip's 17.56 TFLOPS FP32 and 17.56 TFLOPS FP16 at 1:1 ratio mean no precision penalty when switching between formats, which can benefit certain compute tasks that require FP16 but do not need the massive throughput of tensor-core-accelerated paths.

The NVIDIA H100 CNX wins in every compute-heavy category. Its 53.84 TFLOPS FP32, 215.4 TFLOPS FP16, and 2.04 TB/s bandwidth position it for large-scale server workloads. The 80 GB HBM2e capacity is 10 times the AMD part's memory size. The 456 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for matrix operations, a feature the AMD part lacks entirely. The PCIe 5.0 x16 interface and 8-pin EPS power connector align with server motherboard designs. The 350 W TDP, while high, is typical for an accelerator of this class.

The Steam Machine GPU also wins on physical footprint. Its dimensions are 156 mm by 152 mm by 162 mm, while the H100 CNX measures 267 mm by 111 mm. The AMD card is shorter and closer to a cube, while the NVIDIA card is a long dual-slot board. The AMD part requires no power connectors, whereas the H100 CNX needs an 8-pin EPS connector and a suggested 750 W power supply.

Architecture Differences

The two chips come from different architectural families. The AMD Steam Machine GPU uses RDNA 3.0 on the Navi 33 chip, with the codename Hotpink Bonefish. It belongs to the Console GPU (Valve) generation. The NVIDIA H100 CNX uses the Hopper architecture on the GH100 chip and belongs to the Server Hopper (Hxx) generation. These are fundamentally different design philosophies: one optimized for consumer gaming and media, the other for data center compute.

The process nodes differ. AMD uses TSMC's 6 nm process, while NVIDIA uses TSMC's 5 nm process. The die sizes are 204 mm² and 814 mm² respectively, a 4x difference. Transistor counts are 13,300 million versus 80,000 million, a 6x difference. The transistor density numbers, 65.2M per mm² for AMD and 98.3M per mm² for NVIDIA, show that the NVIDIA chip packs transistors more tightly.

Core configurations diverge sharply. The AMD part has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 28 ray tracing cores. It has no tensor cores. The NVIDIA part has 14,592 shading units, 456 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and 456 tensor cores. It has no dedicated ray tracing cores listed. The NVIDIA part has 8.1x the shading units and 4.1x the TMUs, but the AMD part has 2.7x the ROPs. The ray tracing hardware on the AMD side has no counterpart in the NVIDIA data, and the tensor cores on the NVIDIA side have no counterpart on the AMD side.

Clock behavior reflects the different design goals. The AMD chip runs at 1720 MHz base, 2250 MHz game, and 2450 MHz boost. The NVIDIA chip runs at 690 MHz base and 1845 MHz boost. The AMD chip sustains higher clocks across the board, which helps its pixel and texture rates despite fewer units. The NVIDIA chip relies on massive parallelism rather than high clocks.

Memory subsystems are entirely different. AMD uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus at 288.0 GB/s. NVIDIA uses 80 GB of HBM2e on a 5120-bit bus at 2.04 TB/s. The bus width difference is 40x, and the capacity difference is 10x. The AMD memory clock is 2250 MHz, while the NVIDIA memory runs at 1593 MHz. These are not competing approaches; they serve different workload sizes.

API support differs as well. The AMD part lists DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The NVIDIA part lists no API support, consistent with a server accelerator that does not target graphics APIs. The AMD part has display outputs, the NVIDIA part has none. The AMD part uses no power connectors, the NVIDIA part uses an 8-pin EPS.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA H100 CNX delivers 53.84 TFLOPS FP32, while the AMD Steam Machine GPU delivers 17.56 TFLOPS FP32. The NVIDIA part is roughly 3x faster in this metric.

Q: How much memory does each GPU have?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus. The NVIDIA H100 CNX has 80 GB of HBM2e on a 5120-bit bus.

Q: Does the AMD Steam Machine GPU have tensor cores?

A: No tensor cores are listed for the AMD Steam Machine GPU. The NVIDIA H100 CNX has 456 tensor cores.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU has a 110 W TDP and no power connectors. The NVIDIA H100 CNX has a 350 W TDP and uses an 8-pin EPS connector, with a suggested 750 W power supply.

Q: Which GPU supports ray tracing?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU lists 28 ray tracing cores. The NVIDIA H100 CNX lists no ray tracing cores.

Q: What process nodes do the two chips use?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU uses TSMC's 6 nm process. The NVIDIA H100 CNX uses TSMC's 5 nm process.

Q: Which card has display outputs?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU has one HDMI 2.1a and one DisplayPort 2.1 output. The NVIDIA H100 CNX has no display outputs.

The Verdict

The recorded data draws a clear line between two products with no overlapping use cases. The AMD Steam Machine GPU is a compact, low-power rendering device built for console-style gaming. Its 110 W TDP, connector-free power design, and display outputs confirm that intent. Its 156.8 GPixel/s pixel rate and 274.4 GTexel/s texture rate give it real rasterization capability, and the 28 ray tracing cores add hardware support for ray-traced effects. The 17.56 TFLOPS FP32 and FP16 performance at 1:1 ratio covers the compute needs of a gaming-oriented product without requiring tensor-core acceleration.

The NVIDIA H100 CNX is a server accelerator built for throughput. Its 53.84 TFLOPS FP32 and 215.4 TFLOPS FP16 with 456 tensor cores target AI training, inference, and scientific computing. The 80 GB HBM2e pool and 2.04 TB/s bandwidth support large models and datasets that would never fit in 8 GB. The absence of display outputs and graphics API support makes its role unambiguous. The 350 W TDP and 8-pin EPS connector require server-class power delivery, and the 267 mm length fits standard server chassis.

For a user assembling a gaming machine or console-style system, the AMD Steam Machine GPU is the only viable choice from this pair. It draws 110 W, needs no power connectors, fits in a 156 mm by 152 mm by 162 mm space, and outputs to standard displays. The NVIDIA H100 CNX cannot perform this role at all due to its lack of display outputs and graphics API support.

For a data center workload involving large-scale compute, the NVIDIA H100 CNX is the clear selection. Its 10x memory capacity, 7.1x bandwidth, 12.3x FP16 throughput, and tensor core support make it suitable for tasks the AMD part cannot handle. The AMD Steam Machine GPU's 8 GB memory and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth would bottleneck any serious AI or HPC workload.

Both products are marked as Active in production status. The AMD part has a release date of 2026-06-28, and the NVIDIA part has a release date of 2023-03-20. Neither has a predecessor or successor listed for the AMD part, while the NVIDIA part lists Server Ada as its predecessor and Server Blackwell as its successor. The database shows both at the 50th percentile against all GPUs, with no benchmarks recorded, so relative standing beyond that percentile is not measurable.

The data points to a simple conclusion: the AMD Steam Machine GPU wins for interactive graphics and low-power embedded gaming, and the NVIDIA H100 CNX wins for compute density and memory capacity. The 3x FP32 gap, 12.3x FP16 gap, and 7.1x bandwidth gap are decisive for compute roles. The 3.5x pixel rate advantage and the presence of display outputs are decisive for rendering roles. No single metric in the database suggests either part could substitute for the other.