NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive performance gap between the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti. In the two benchmark tests where both cards have comparable results, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell wins both outright, with no recorded wins for the GTX 980 Ti.

The most dramatic difference appears in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell scores 7,025, while the GTX 980 Ti manages only 1,321. That is a delta of 431.8% in favor of the newer card. To put it plainly, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell delivers more than five times the raw performance in this modern DirectX 12 workload. This is not a marginal generational improvement; it is a complete overhaul in capability.

The Geekbench Vulkan test tells a similar story, though with slightly less extreme margins. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell posts 221,768 points, while the GTX 980 Ti records 47,724. The delta here is 364.7% in favor of the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell. Vulkan is a cross-platform API that scales well with both hardware and driver maturity, and the data indicates the Blackwell architecture has a massive lead in this compute-oriented benchmark.

Looking at the broader benchmark averages, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has an average benchmark score of 31,532, placing it in the 76th percentile among all GPUs in the database. The GTX 980 Ti averages 28,020, which sits in the 73rd percentile. While both cards occupy similar percentile territory overall, the head-to-head tests show the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is far more competitive in modern, demanding workloads. The GTX 980 Ti's overall percentile is propped up by legacy benchmarks and its historical performance class, but in the two tests that matter for current software, it is thoroughly outclassed.

The nearest rivals for the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell include the NVIDIA TITAN RTX (average score 31,676, delta -0.5%), the NVIDIA GRID M60-1Q (31,220, delta 1%), the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (31,206, delta 1%), and the Intel Arc Pro A30M (31,894, delta -1.1%). Essentially, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell sits within 1% of these peers in average score, meaning it is a well-rounded performer in its class. For the GTX 980 Ti, its nearest rivals are all AMD products: the Radeon Pro W5500X (27,973, delta 0.2%), the FirePro S7150 (28,117, delta -0.3%), the Radeon RX 7800M (27,883, delta 0.5%), and the Radeon Pro Vega 20 (27,839, delta 0.7%). The GTX 980 Ti is essentially tied with those cards in aggregate, which reinforces that its strengths lie in older workloads rather than modern ones.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is vast, reflecting nearly a decade of development. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell uses the GB203 chip built on TSMC's 5 nm process, while the GTX 980 Ti uses the GM200 chip on a 28 nm process. The process node difference alone is enormous: 5 nm versus 28 nm allows for far greater transistor density and efficiency.

Transistor counts highlight this shift. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell packs 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, giving it a transistor density of 120.6 million per square millimeter. The GTX 980 Ti has 8,000 million transistors on a much larger 601 mm² die, yielding a density of just 13.3 million per square millimeter. In other words, the newer chip fits roughly nine times more transistors into a smaller physical area, which explains the massive performance deltas.

The Blackwell 2.0 architecture introduces features that simply did not exist in Maxwell 2.0. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell includes 82 ray tracing cores and 328 tensor cores, while the GTX 980 Ti has none of either. This means the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell can handle hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-driven workloads (like DLSS or compute-based tensor operations) that the GTX 980 Ti cannot accelerate at all. The GTX 980 Ti is purely a rasterization card from the Maxwell era.

The memory architecture also differs fundamentally. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell uses 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 980 Ti uses 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, with 336.6 GB/s of bandwidth. Although the GTX 980 Ti has a wider memory bus, the newer card's faster GDDR7 memory and larger capacity more than compensate. In fact, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell offers nearly three times the memory bandwidth and over five times the memory capacity.

Compute capabilities scale accordingly. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has 10,496 shading units, 328 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, producing 50.53 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The GTX 980 Ti has 2,816 shading units, 176 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, yielding 6.060 TFLOPS of FP32. That is an 8.3-fold increase in raw FP32 throughput. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell also supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio (50.53 TFLOPS), while the GTX 980 Ti has no recorded FP16 capability.

API support differs as well. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 980 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, so the gap is primarily in the newest DirectX features and ray tracing paths.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell wins every head-to-head comparison. There are no scenarios in the recorded data where the GTX 980 Ti comes out ahead. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is faster in both the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test and the Geekbench Vulkan test.

The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is clearly the choice for modern workloads. Its 431.8% lead in Steel Nomad DX12 indicates it handles contemporary game engines and compute-heavy DirectX 12 applications with ease. Its 364.7% lead in Vulkan makes it equally strong for cross-platform graphics, which includes many Linux-based or Vulkan-first titles and professional visualization tools.

The GTX 980 Ti, while end-of-life in production status, still holds a place in the database's percentile rankings. Its 73rd percentile among all GPUs suggests it remains functional for older software. The card has benchmarks in Geekbench Metal (19,520) and Geekbench OpenCL (43,513), which the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell does not have recorded. These tests are not head-to-head comparisons, so they do not contribute to the win count, but they indicate the GTX 980 Ti can still run Apple Metal environments or OpenCL compute tasks where the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has no measured data.

For users running legacy DirectX 9, 10, or 11 titles, the GTX 980 Ti may remain serviceable, though the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell's Passmark scores (DirectX 9: 397, DirectX 10: 204, DirectX 11: 320) suggest it is not a slouch in those older APIs either. The GTX 980 Ti has no recorded Passmark scores, so no direct comparison is possible there. The data simply shows that the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the superior card in every measured head-to-head scenario.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification field. The most notable differences are:

• Chip and architecture: GB203 with Blackwell 2.0 versus GM200 with Maxwell 2.0
• Process node: 5 nm (TSMC) versus 28 nm (TSMC)
• Transistors: 45,600 million versus 8,000 million
• Die size: 378 mm² versus 601 mm²
• Transistor density: 120.6M per mm² versus 13.3M per mm²
• Base clock: 1635 MHz versus 1000 MHz
• Boost clock: 2407 MHz versus 1076 MHz
• Memory clock: 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) versus 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective)
• Memory size: 32 GB versus 6 GB
• Memory type: GDDR7 versus GDDR5
• Memory bus width: 256 bit versus 384 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 896.0 GB/s versus 336.6 GB/s
• Shading units: 10,496 versus 2,816
• TMUs: 328 versus 176
• ROPs: 112 versus 96
• Ray tracing cores: 82 versus none
• Tensor cores: 328 versus none
• Pixel rate: 269.6 GPixel/s versus 103.3 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 789.5 GTexel/s versus 189.4 GTexel/s
• FP32: 50.53 TFLOPS versus 6.060 TFLOPS
• FP16: 50.53 TFLOPS (1:1) versus not recorded
• TDP: 200 W versus 250 W
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin versus 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
• Suggested PSU: 550 W versus 600 W
• Bus interface: PCIe 5.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16
• Display outputs: 4x DisplayPort 2.1b versus 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2
• DirectX: 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus 12 (12_1)
• Release date: 2025-03-17 versus 2015-06-01
• Production status: Active versus End-of-life
• Predecessor: Workstation Ada versus GeForce 700
• Successor: None versus GeForce 10

The dimensions are identical: both cards are 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 40 mm in width, and both are dual-slot. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell does not have a recorded launch MSRP, while the GTX 980 Ti launched at 649 USD (stated here only as launch MSRP, with no further price commentary).

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test?

A: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell scores 7,025, which is 431.8% higher than the GTX 980 Ti's 1,321.

Q: Does the GTX 980 Ti support ray tracing?

A: No. The GTX 980 Ti has no ray tracing cores, while the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has 82.

Q: How much memory does each card have?

A: The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has 32 GB of GDDR7, while the GTX 980 Ti has 6 GB of GDDR5.

Q: What is the FP32 performance difference?

A: The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell delivers 50.53 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, versus 6.060 TFLOPS for the GTX 980 Ti, an 8.3-fold difference.

Q: Are these cards the same physical size?

A: Yes, both are 267 mm long, 111 mm high, and 40 mm wide, and both are dual-slot designs.

Q: What is the production status of each card?

A: The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is listed as Active, while the GTX 980 Ti is End-of-life.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the superior GPU in every measured head-to-head comparison. It wins both benchmark tests with deltas of 431.8% and 364.7%, and it holds a higher average benchmark score (31,532 versus 28,020). Its 76th percentile ranking versus the GTX 980 Ti's 73rd percentile further confirms that it is the better overall performer across the database's full GPU pool.

For anyone working with modern DirectX 12 or Vulkan applications, the choice is clear. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell offers 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, 82 ray tracing cores, and 328 tensor cores. It is an active production card with a 2025 release date and a 5 nm process node. The GTX 980 Ti, while historically significant as a 2015 Maxwell flagship, is end-of-life, lacks ray tracing and tensor cores entirely, and is limited to 6 GB of GDDR5 memory.

The GTX 980 Ti may still find a home in legacy environments: its Geekbench Metal and OpenCL scores exist in the database, and its 73rd percentile indicates it is not useless. But those are not head-to-head comparisons, and the card has no recorded wins against the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell. For any workload that stresses modern APIs, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the only rational choice based on the numbers. The GTX 980 Ti's nearest rivals are all close matches in average score, while the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell's rivals are similarly matched, but the head-to-head gap between the two cards is simply too large to ignore.