AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT vs NVIDIA Quadro P4000 Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT has an average benchmark score of 11842, while the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 scores 9665. The AMD card sits at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, while the Quadro is at the 47th percentile.

Q: How do the two cards compare in DirectX 12 workloads?

A: In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 scores 1115 versus 235 for the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, a delta of -78.9% in favor of NVIDIA. However, in PassMark DirectX 12, the Quadro only leads 40 to 38, a 5% edge.

Q: Which card wins in OpenCL and Vulkan compute tests?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT dominates both. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 48289 versus 36212 for the Quadro, a 33.4% lead. In Geekbench Vulkan, the AMD card scores 54724 against 41786, a 31% advantage.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus with 143.9 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 243.3 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 achieves 94.72 GPixel/s, slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT's 90.08 GPixel/s. The AMD card has a higher texture rate at 180.2 GTexel/s versus 165.8 GTexel/s for the Quadro.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of each card?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT had a launch MSRP of 199 USD. The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 had a launch MSRP of 815 USD.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT takes four benchmark wins, all in modern API or general-purpose tests. Its strongest showing is in Geekbench OpenCL, where it beats the Quadro by 33.4%, and in Geekbench Vulkan, where it leads by 31%. The AMD card also wins in PassMark DirectX 11 (90 versus 86, a 4.7% edge) and PassMark G2D (815 versus 786, a 3.7% lead). These results point to a GPU that handles compute-heavy and legacy DirectX 11 workloads with relative efficiency.

The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 counters with six wins, concentrated in legacy DirectX and professional rendering paths. Its most dramatic victory is in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, where it scores 1115 versus 235 for the AMD card, a staggering 78.9% advantage. The Quadro also wins PassMark DirectX 9 by 40.3% (181 versus 108), PassMark DirectX 10 by 9.1% (66 versus 60), and PassMark DirectX 12 by 5% (40 versus 38). In PassMark G3D, the Quadro leads 11466 to 9608, a 16.2% margin, and it edges out the AMD card in PassMark GPU compute with 4913 versus 4456, a 9.3% difference.

The split is clear: the AMD card excels in modern compute APIs and 2D tasks, while the NVIDIA card dominates in synthetic 3D rendering and legacy DirectX performance. For users prioritizing OpenCL or Vulkan workloads, the RX 6500 XT is the better choice. For those relying on DirectX 9, 10, or 12 scenarios, the Quadro P4000 holds a decisive edge.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using the Navi 24 chip, manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC. This is a second-generation Navi design with 5,400 million transistors packed into a 107 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 50.5 million per mm². The card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. It includes 16 ray tracing cores, a feature the Quadro lacks entirely, and offers FP16 performance of 11.53 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio relative to FP32.

The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 uses the Pascal architecture with the GP104 chip, fabricated on a 16 nm process at TSMC. This older design houses 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, with a transistor density of 22.9 million per mm². It supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, but has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. Its FP16 performance is just 82.88 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio, a stark contrast to the AMD card's FP16 capabilities.

The process node difference is significant: 6 nm versus 16 nm means the AMD chip is far more compact and efficient in terms of transistor density, despite having fewer total transistors. The architectural gap also shows in API support, where the RX 6500 XT's DirectX 12 Ultimate and ray tracing hardware give it a modern feature set that the Pascal-based Quadro cannot match. However, the Quadro compensates with a larger memory bus and more shading units, which contribute to its 3D rendering strengths.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every core specification. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT has 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units, with base and boost clocks of 2310 MHz and 2815 MHz respectively, plus a game clock of 2610 MHz. The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 offers 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, but runs at much lower clocks: 1202 MHz base and 1480 MHz boost.

Memory configurations are entirely different. The RX 6500 XT uses 4 GB of GDDR6 at 2248 MHz (18 Gbps effective) on a 64-bit bus, providing 143.9 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro P4000 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 at 1901 MHz (7.6 Gbps effective) on a 256-bit bus, delivering 243.3 GB/s. The Quadro has twice the memory capacity and 69% more bandwidth, which matters for large datasets and high-resolution textures.

Other notable differences: the RX 6500 XT is a dual-slot card with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, while the Quadro is a single-slot card with a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Both use a single 6-pin power connector and recommend a 300 W PSU, but their TDPs are close: 107 W for the AMD and 105 W for the NVIDIA. The Quadro offers four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, whereas the RX 6500 XT has one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4a. The Quadro is physically larger at 241 mm in length and 111 mm in height, while the AMD card's dimensions are not recorded.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The largest win for the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 comes in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, where it scores 1115 against the AMD card's 235, a delta of -78.9%. This is an enormous gap and indicates that the Quadro's higher shading unit count and wider memory bus give it a massive advantage in this specific DX12 workload. The Quadro also wins PassMark DirectX 9 by 40.3% (181 versus 108), which suggests its legacy driver optimization or raw geometry throughput handles older APIs far better.

The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT's biggest victories are in Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan. It scores 48289 in OpenCL, beating the Quadro's 36212 by 33.4%, and 54724 in Vulkan versus 41786, a 31% lead. These results show that the RDNA 2.0 architecture is significantly more efficient in compute-heavy tasks, likely due to its higher clock speeds and modern instruction set. The AMD card also takes PassMark DirectX 11 by 4.7% (90 versus 86) and PassMark G2D by 3.7% (815 versus 786).

In PassMark G3D, the Quadro wins 11466 to 9608, a 16.2% margin that reflects its overall 3D rendering capability. The Quadro also wins PassMark GPU compute with 4913 versus 4456, a 9.3% edge, and PassMark DirectX 10 (66 versus 60, a 9.1% lead) and DirectX 12 (40 versus 38, a 5% difference). Across all 10 head-to-head tests, the Quadro wins 6 while the AMD card wins 4, but the average benchmark score still favors the AMD card due to its massive leads in OpenCL and Vulkan. The data shows that the RX 6500 XT is a compute-focused card, while the Quadro P4000 excels in traditional 3D rendering and legacy API scenarios.