AMD Radeon 660M vs AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and the AMD Radeon 660M occupy completely different corners of the graphics hardware landscape, yet both carry the Radeon name. The RX 5700 XT is a discrete, dual-slot desktop graphics card built for high-performance gaming, while the 660M is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) designed for mobile processors. This analysis compares the two based on recorded benchmark data, architectural specifications, and performance metrics from the database.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT holds a higher average benchmark score of 16,361, compared to the AMD Radeon 660M's average of 13,812. The RX 5700 XT also ranks in the 59th percentile among all GPUs, while the 660M sits in the 55th percentile.

Q: How do the two compare in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The AMD Radeon 660M wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 12,876, which is 26% higher than the RX 5700 XT's score of 9,524. This result is notable because the integrated part outperforms the discrete card in this compute workload.

Q: What happens in the Geekbench Vulkan test?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT dominates the Vulkan test, scoring 68,310 versus the 660M's 14,748. The RX 5700 XT leads by 363.2%, a massive margin that reflects the discrete card's superior graphics throughput.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT has 2,560 shading units, while the AMD Radeon 660M has only 384. This difference of over 6.5 times explains much of the performance gap in rasterization-heavy workloads.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The RX 5700 XT has a TDP of 225 W and requires a 550 W suggested power supply, while the 660M has a TDP of 40 W and draws power directly from the system without dedicated connectors. The 660M is an IGP, meaning it shares power with the host processor.

Q: Do both GPUs support DirectX 12?

A: Yes, but at different feature levels. The RX 5700 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the 660M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes additional features like ray tracing support through its 6 dedicated RT cores.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on different architectures and manufacturing processes, which fundamentally shapes their capabilities. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT uses the Navi 10 chip with RDNA 1.0 architecture, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. This chip contains 10,300 million transistors on a die size of 251 mm², yielding a transistor density of 41.0 million per mm². In contrast, the AMD Radeon 660M uses the Rembrandt chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture, built on a more advanced 6 nm process, also at TSMC. The Rembrandt die measures 208 mm² but packs 13,100 million transistors, resulting in a density of 63.0 million per mm², which is significantly higher.

The architecture generation also differs. The RX 5700 XT belongs to the Navi (RX 5000) generation, while the 660M is part of the Navi II IGP (Rembrandt Mobile) generation. This means the 660M benefits from architectural refinements introduced with RDNA 2.0, including hardware ray tracing support. The 660M features 6 RT cores, whereas the RX 5700 XT has no dedicated ray tracing hardware at all. This is a key differentiator for games and applications that leverage DirectX 12 Ultimate features.

The memory subsystems are entirely different as well. The RX 5700 XT comes with 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 660M, being an integrated solution, uses System Shared memory, meaning it relies on the host system's RAM for both capacity and bandwidth. The database lists the 660M's memory bandwidth as "System Dependent," which means performance can vary significantly based on the laptop or system it is paired with.

Shader throughput also diverges sharply. The RX 5700 XT delivers 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the 660M manages 1,459.2 GFLOPS, roughly one-seventh of the discrete card's output. Texture and pixel rates follow the same trend: the RX 5700 XT achieves 304.8 GTexel/s and 121.9 GPixel/s, while the 660M records 45.60 GTexel/s and 30.40 GPixel/s. These raw throughput numbers explain why the RX 5700 XT is far more capable in demanding 3D workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark results paint a clear picture of where each GPU excels. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the clear winner in traditional graphics performance, as evidenced by its Vulkan score of 68,310, which is 363.2% higher than the 660M's 14,748. This makes the RX 5700 XT the obvious choice for gaming, especially at higher resolutions and detail settings where raw pixel and texture throughput matter most. The discrete card also has a much higher average benchmark score of 16,361, placing it above rivals like the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (16,415, only 0.3% higher) and just 0.9% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 (16,504).

The AMD Radeon 660M, however, wins in the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 12,876, beating the RX 5700 XT's 9,524 by 26%. This suggests that the 660M's RDNA 2.0 architecture, with its newer instruction set and compute optimizations, handles certain OpenCL workloads more efficiently despite having far fewer shading units. The 660M also benefits from being part of a mobile processor, where its 40 W TDP makes it suitable for thin-and-light laptops. It consumes a fraction of the power of the RX 5700 XT, which requires a 225 W TDP and a 550 W power supply, making the 660M the only practical option for portable devices.

The 660M's nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (average score 13,821, only 0.1% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13,871, 0.4% higher), indicating that it competes at a very different performance tier than the RX 5700 XT. The RX 5700 XT, meanwhile, sits near the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16,408, 0.3% higher) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16,351, 0.1% higher).

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every major specification category. The RX 5700 XT has a base clock of 1605 MHz and a boost clock of 1905 MHz, with a game clock of 1755 MHz. The 660M has a lower base clock of 1500 MHz but a similar boost clock of 1900 MHz. Memory clocks cannot be directly compared because the 660M uses System Shared memory, while the RX 5700 XT runs its GDDR6 at 1750 MHz, or 14 Gbps effective.

The RX 5700 XT has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units. The 660M has 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. These are massive differences that directly impact fill rates and compute throughput. The RX 5700 XT also has a PCIe 4.0 x16 bus interface, while the 660M uses PCIe 4.0 x8, which is typical for integrated graphics.

Power and cooling requirements set the two apart completely. The RX 5700 XT is a dual-slot card measuring 272 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 36 mm in width. It requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. The 660M has no dedicated dimensions listed, no power connectors, and is classified as an IGP. It simply shares the host system's power delivery.

Display outputs also differ. The RX 5700 XT offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, making it suitable for multi-monitor desktop setups. The 660M's display outputs are "Portable Device Dependent," meaning they are determined by the laptop or device it is integrated into, rather than being a fixed feature of the GPU itself.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct benchmark comparisons between the RX 5700 XT and the 660M, and the results could not be more lopsided in opposite directions.

In the Geekbench Vulkan test, the RX 5700 XT scores 68,310 against the 660M's 14,748, producing a delta of 363.2% in favor of the discrete card. This is the single largest performance gap in the comparison. Vulkan is a low-level graphics API that stresses raw GPU throughput, and the RX 5700 XT's 2,560 shading units, 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 compute utterly overwhelm the 660M's 384 shading units and system-shared memory. For any modern game that supports Vulkan, the RX 5700 XT will deliver dramatically higher frame rates.

The Geekbench OpenCL test, however, flips the result. The 660M scores 12,876 while the RX 5700 XT scores 9,524, giving the integrated GPU a 26% lead. OpenCL workloads often favor architectures with newer compute features, and the 660M's RDNA 2.0 implementation appears to execute certain kernels more efficiently. This is particularly relevant for compute-heavy tasks like video encoding, physics simulations, or machine learning inference that rely on OpenCL rather than traditional graphics APIs. The 660M's 6 RT cores may also contribute to more efficient ray intersection calculations, even though the RX 5700 XT has no such hardware.

The average benchmark scores from the broader database further contextualize these results. The RX 5700 XT averages 16,361 across all recorded tests, while the 660M averages 13,812, a difference of roughly 18.5%. This aligns with the expectation that a discrete GPU with 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory and 9.754 TFLOPS of compute should outperform an integrated solution with shared memory. However, the OpenCL result serves as a reminder that architecture generation matters: the 660M's RDNA 2.0 design, despite its lower raw specifications, can win in specific compute scenarios.

Each GPU wins exactly one head-to-head benchmark in the database. The RX 5700 XT takes the Vulkan test with a 363.2% margin, while the 660M takes the OpenCL test with a 26% margin. This split illustrates that "better" depends entirely on the workload. For gaming and graphics-intensive applications, the RX 5700 XT is unequivocally superior. For OpenCL compute tasks, the 660M's newer architecture provides an unexpected advantage.

The production status of both GPUs is listed as end-of-life, with the RX 5700 XT released on July 6, 2019, and the 660M released on January 3, 2022. The RX 5700 XT had a launch MSRP of 399 USD, while the 660M has no recorded MSRP because it ships as part of a processor package. The RX 5700 XT's predecessor is Vega, and its successor is Navi II; the 660M's predecessor is Vega II IGP, and its successor is Navi III IGP. These lineage details confirm that the 660M represents a later generation of integrated graphics, even though it cannot match the raw power of the older discrete card.