Intel Arc A580 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 wins every recorded head-to-head benchmark, and the margins are enormous. The Intel Arc A580 does not take a single direct comparison. The RTX 5090 leads by 723.5% in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, by 264.8% in Geekbench OpenCL, and by 374.6% in Geekbench Vulkan. Those are not close contests; they are different performance tiers entirely.

The RTX 5090 is the clear choice for any workload that stresses raw GPU compute or modern DirectX 12 rendering. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 18,355 versus 2,229 for the Arc A580 shows a GPU built for high-end gaming and professional 3D workloads. The Geekbench Vulkan result of 376,728 versus 79,381 confirms that the advantage extends to cross-vendor graphics APIs, not just proprietary paths.

The Arc A580, by contrast, has no benchmark win in this dataset. Its role is more modest: it is a 1080p or entry-level 1440p card that sits in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. That is a respectable position for a mainstream product, but it is not competing in the same arena as a card in the 92nd percentile. The RTX 5090's average benchmark score is 79,842, while the Arc A580 averages 57,756. The RTX 5090's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 79,605 (0.3% behind) and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X at 80,959 (1.4% ahead). The Arc A580's nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM at 58,085 (0.6% ahead) and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE at 57,367 (0.7% behind). Those rival clusters show how far apart these two cards are in the overall rankings.

The use-case split is therefore simple: the RTX 5090 is for uncompromising performance at the top of the stack, while the Arc A580 is for users who need a functional modern GPU without extreme compute demands. The data does not support any scenario where the Arc A580 wins a head-to-head test.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different architectural generations and design philosophies. The RTX 5090 uses the GB202 chip on NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The Arc A580 uses the DG2-512 chip on Intel's Xe-HPG architecture, built on a 6 nm process, also at TSMC. The process node difference is small in absolute terms, but the chip scale is not.

The RTX 5090 packs 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 122.9 million per mm². The Arc A580 has 21,700 million transistors on a 406 mm² die, with a density of 53.4 million per mm². The RTX 5090 has more than four times the transistor count and nearly double the die area. That scale difference explains much of the performance gap.

Memory configurations diverge sharply. The RTX 5090 has 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The Arc A580 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s. The RTX 5090 has 3.5 times the memory bandwidth and four times the capacity. For texture-heavy workloads and large datasets, that is a decisive advantage.

Compute resources follow the same pattern. The RTX 5090 has 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, 176 ROPs, 170 ray tracing cores, and 680 tensor cores. The Arc A580 has 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and 24 ray tracing cores. The RTX 5090 has roughly seven times the shading units and ray tracing cores. The Arc A580 has no tensor core field recorded, while the RTX 5090's tensor cores enable AI-accelerated features that the Intel card cannot match on paper.

Clock speeds tell a different story. The RTX 5090 runs at a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz. The Arc A580 runs at 1700 MHz base and 2000 MHz boost. The RTX 5090 is faster in absolute terms, but the gap is modest compared to the compute resource disparity. The real difference is throughput per clock, driven by the massive shading unit count.

Power and interface requirements also differ. The RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575 W, uses a single 16-pin connector, and recommends a 950 W PSU. The Arc A580 has a TDP of 175 W, uses two 8-pin connectors, and recommends a 450 W PSU. The RTX 5090 is a dual-slot card measuring 304 mm in length, 137 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The Arc A580's dimensions are not recorded in the database. The RTX 5090 uses PCIe 5.0 x16, while the Arc A580 uses PCIe 4.0 x16.

Both cards support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Display outputs are similar: the RTX 5090 has 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b, while the Arc A580 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test shows the largest gap. The RTX 5090 scores 18,355 against 2,229 for the Arc A580, a delta of 723.5%. This test stresses modern DirectX 12 rendering with heavy geometry and compute. The RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput and 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth are the likely drivers. The Arc A580's 12.29 TFLOPS and 512.0 GB/s cannot compete.

Geekbench OpenCL shows a 264.8% advantage. The RTX 5090 scores 334,370, while the Arc A580 scores 91,657. OpenCL is a general-purpose compute benchmark, so the result reflects raw shading and memory throughput. The RTX 5090's 21,760 shading units and 680 TMUs dominate the Arc A580's 3,072 shading units and 192 TMUs.

Geekbench Vulkan shows a 374.6% lead. The RTX 5090 scores 376,728, while the Arc A580 scores 79,381. Vulkan is a low-level graphics API, and the RTX 5090's advantage here is even larger than in OpenCL. That suggests the NVIDIA card scales better with the parallelism available in Vulkan workloads.

The RTX 5090 also holds higher scores in the Passmark suite, though the Arc A580 does not have matching entries for all tests. The RTX 5090 records Passmark G3D of 39,650, Passmark GPU Compute of 26,756, Passmark DirectX 11 of 341, DirectX 9 of 395, and G2D of 1,413. The Arc A580 has no Passmark scores in the database, so a direct comparison on those tests is not possible.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the RTX 5090 wins every recorded head-to-head benchmark by a massive margin. It is the correct choice for users who need maximum performance in DirectX 12, Vulkan, or OpenCL workloads. Its 92nd percentile ranking and average score of 79,842 place it among the top GPUs in the database, with nearest rivals like the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% behind) and the Radeon Pro Vega 64X (1.4% ahead). The RTX 5090 also has a launch MSRP of 1,999 USD.

The Arc A580 is a different product for a different purpose. Its 87th percentile ranking and average score of 57,756 put it in the mainstream tier, close to the Radeon RX 5600 OEM (0.6% ahead) and the Radeon RX 9070 GRE (0.7% behind). It is a capable card for users who do not need the RTX 5090's extreme compute resources. Its 175 W TDP and 450 W recommended PSU make it far easier to integrate into a typical system.

The decision comes down to requirements. Users who need 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32, and 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth should choose the RTX 5090. Users who need a functional modern GPU with DirectX 12 Ultimate support and modest power requirements should consider the Arc A580. The data does not suggest the Arc A580 can match the RTX 5090 in any benchmark, so the choice is about workload severity, not performance equivalence.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79,842, while the Intel Arc A580 averages 57,756.

Q: How large is the RTX 5090's lead in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12?

A: The RTX 5090 scores 18,355 versus 2,229 for the Arc A580, a delta of 723.5%.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 5090 has 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. The Arc A580 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count?

A: The RTX 5090 has 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, while the Arc A580 has 21,700 million transistors on a 406 mm² die.

Q: What are the power requirements?

A: The RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575 W and recommends a 950 W PSU. The Arc A580 has a TDP of 175 W and recommends a 450 W PSU.

Q: Which card supports newer display outputs?

A: The RTX 5090 has 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b. The Arc A580 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0.

Specification Differences

| Field | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | Intel Arc A580 |

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

| Architecture | Blackwell 2.0 | Xe-HPG |

| Generation | GeForce 50 | Alchemist (Arc 5) |

| Process Node | 5 nm | 6 nm |

| Transistors | 92,200 million | 21,700 million |

| Die Size | 750 mm² | 406 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 122.9M / mm² | 53.4M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 2017 MHz | 1700 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2407 MHz | 2000 MHz |

| Memory Size | 32 GB | 8 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR7 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus Width | 512 bit | 256 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 1.79 TB/s | 512.0 GB/s |

| Memory Clock | 1750 MHz, 28 Gbps effective | 2000 MHz, 16 Gbps effective |

| Shading Units | 21,760 | 3,072 |

| TMUs | 680 | 192 |

| ROPs | 176 | 96 |

| Ray Tracing Cores | 170 | 24 |

| Tensor Cores | 680 | None recorded |

| Pixel Rate | 423.6 GPixel/s | 192.0 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 1,636.8 GTexel/s | 384.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 104.8 TFLOPS | 12.29 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1) | 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 575 W | 175 W |

| Power Connectors | 1x 16-pin | 2x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 950 W | 450 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 5.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1b, 3x DisplayPort 2.1b | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 2.0 |

| Release Date | 2025-01-29 | 2023-10-09 |

| Predecessor | GeForce 40 | Xe Graphics |

| Successor | GeForce 60 | Battlemage |

| Launch MSRP | 1,999 USD | None recorded |