NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell wins 9 of 11 benchmarks, averaging 178.1% faster.
Both cards were measured first-party on our bench, same suite, same test rig.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in Stable Diffusion XL, where NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell leads by 346% (2.94 vs 13.1 images/min); the closest fight is Qwen3 4B (117% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell runs 9 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 4, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 4B tok/s | 102.04 | 221.92 | -54% |
| Llama 3.1 8B tok/s | 65.36 | 146.19 | -55% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 14B tok/s | 35.52 | 80.09 | -56% |
| Qwen3 32B tok/s | 0 | 37.61 | n/a |
| Llama 3.3 70B tok/s | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 2.94 | 13.1 | -78% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 0 | 6.45 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 0 | 1.414 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 Kontext dev images/min | 0 | 0.879 | n/a |
| Qwen-Image-Edit images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| LTX-Video (distilled) frames/s | 0 | 3.58 | n/a |
Whole-job comparison
How long each card takes to finish a complete pipeline, not just one model. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is faster on 0 of 1; NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell on 1.
| Workflow | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full codebase review | 28.2 min | 12.5 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 2.25x faster |
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 12GB | 32GB |
| Architecture | Ampere (GA106) | Blackwell |
| Memory bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 896 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,777 MHz | 2,407 MHz |
| TDP | 170 W | 200 W |
| Launch MSRP | $329 | $2,600 |
| Release | 2021-02-25 | 2025-08-01 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell?
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 9 of 11 benchmarks in our suite with an average 178.1% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 has 12GB VRAM and a 170W TDP, while NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has 32GB VRAM and a 200W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell fits 6 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. A model that exceeds VRAM doesn't run slower, it doesn't run at all, so the card that fits the model wins that workload outright.
- Where is the biggest performance difference between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell?
- Stable Diffusion XL: NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell leads by roughly 346% (2.94 vs 13.1 images/min) in our testing.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 full review · NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings