AMD Radeon 680M vs AMD Radeon Pro 555 Comparison

The Verdict

The data presents a clear generational divide. The AMD Radeon 680M is the definitive winner in every recorded head-to-head benchmark, outperforming the AMD Radeon Pro 555 by a significant margin. The Radeon 680M secures 2 wins out of 2 possible comparisons, while the Radeon Pro 555 records no wins. The average benchmark score tells the same story: the Radeon 680M sits at 15270, while the Radeon Pro 555 lags at 13407. This is a 13.9% gap in average scores, but the individual benchmark deltas are far more dramatic. The Radeon 680M is the clear choice for any user prioritizing raw compute performance, particularly in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. The Radeon Pro 555, being an end-of-life product from a much older generation, cannot compete on performance, and the data suggests it should only be considered in legacy systems where its specific feature set or compatibility is required.

Where Each One Wins

The Radeon 680M wins decisively in both benchmark categories where the two were directly compared. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Radeon 680M scores 23468 against the Radeon Pro 555's 11682, a staggering 100.9% advantage. This means the Radeon 680M delivers more than double the OpenCL performance of the Pro 555, making it vastly superior for compute-heavy tasks like video encoding, physics simulations, or any application that leverages OpenCL acceleration. In Geekbench Vulkan, the Radeon 680M scores 21965 versus 12303 for the Pro 555, a 78.5% lead. Vulkan is a modern graphics API, and this massive difference indicates the Radeon 680M is far better suited for contemporary gaming and graphics workloads. The Radeon Pro 555 has one recorded benchmark win in Geekbench Metal, scoring 16236, a test the Radeon 680M did not participate in. However, this is a single data point from a different API, and it does not offset the two decisive losses in shared tests. The data shows the Radeon 680M is the winner for any modern application, while the Pro 555's only claim to relevance is its Metal score, which is specifically relevant to Apple ecosystem software.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is immense and explains the performance disparity. The Radeon 680M is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture, manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC. It features 13,100 million transistors on a 208 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 63.0 million per mm². Its base clock is 2000 MHz with a boost clock of 2200 MHz. In contrast, the Radeon Pro 555 uses the GCN 4.0 architecture, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It has only 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, with a density of 24.4 million per mm². The Pro 555's clocks are not specified, but it runs its memory at 1275 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective). The Radeon 680M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Pro 555 only supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. This means the Radeon 680M supports the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate features, including hardware ray tracing, which is confirmed by its 12 dedicated ray tracing cores. The Pro 555 has no ray tracing cores at all. The Radeon 680M also has a newer PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the Pro 555 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x8. These architectural differences, particularly the process node, transistor count, and ray tracing support, are the fundamental drivers of the performance gap.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon 680M has a significantly higher average benchmark score of 15270, while the AMD Radeon Pro 555 has an average score of 13407.

Q: How much faster is the Radeon 680M in OpenCL compared to the Radeon Pro 555?

A: In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the Radeon 680M scores 23468, which is 100.9% higher than the Radeon Pro 555's score of 11682, meaning it is more than twice as fast.

Q: Does the Radeon 680M support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the Radeon 680M is equipped with 12 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes ray tracing capabilities. The Radeon Pro 555 has no ray tracing cores.

Q: What is the transistor count difference between the two GPUs?

A: The Radeon 680M contains 13,100 million transistors, whereas the Radeon Pro 555 contains 3,000 million transistors. This is a substantial difference in complexity and capability.

Q: Which GPU has a higher memory bandwidth?

A: The Radeon Pro 555 has a dedicated memory bandwidth of 81.60 GB/s using 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus. The Radeon 680M's memory bandwidth is system dependent, as it uses shared system memory.

Q: What is the production status of these two GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon 680M is listed as "Active" in production, while the AMD Radeon Pro 555 is listed as "End-of-life", indicating it is no longer in active production.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data is stark and unambiguous. The first comparison is in Geekbench OpenCL, where the Radeon 680M scores 23468 against the Radeon Pro 555's 11682. This represents a delta of 100.9%, meaning the Radeon 680M is over twice as fast. This is the largest single victory margin in the dataset and highlights the massive compute advantage of the newer architecture. The second benchmark is Geekbench Vulkan, where the Radeon 680M scores 21965 versus 12303 for the Radeon Pro 555. The delta here is 78.5%, a substantial lead but slightly less than the OpenCL margin. This suggests the Radeon 680M's advantage is consistent across different graphics APIs, though its OpenCL compute lead is even more pronounced. It is importantly the Radeon 680M's scores of 23468 and 21965 are both above its own average of 15270, indicating it performs particularly well in these specific compute tests. Conversely, the Radeon Pro 555's scores of 11682 and 12303 are both below its average of 13407, showing it underperforms in these exact workloads compared to its own baseline. The Radeon Pro 555's only benchmark victory comes in Geekbench Metal, where it scores 16236, but this test was not run on the Radeon 680M, so it cannot be compared. The recorded data shows the Radeon 680M is the clear performance leader in every directly comparable test.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every core specification. The process node is a major divergence: the Radeon 680M uses 6 nm at TSMC, while the Radeon Pro 555 uses 14 nm at GlobalFoundries. This leads to a massive difference in transistor count, with the Radeon 680M featuring 13,100 million transistors on a 208 mm² die, versus the Pro 555's 3,000 million on a 123 mm² die. The clock speeds also differ, with the Radeon 680M having a base clock of 2000 MHz and a boost of 2200 MHz, while the Pro 555's GPU clocks are not listed but its memory runs at 1275 MHz. The memory subsystems are entirely different: the Radeon 680M uses system shared memory with system dependent bandwidth, while the Pro 555 has 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with a fixed bandwidth of 81.60 GB/s. The shading units are the same at 768, and the texture mapping units are also equal at 48, but the render output units differ, with the Radeon 680M having 32 ROPs versus the Pro 555's 16. The Radeon 680M also has 12 ray tracing cores, which the Pro 555 lacks entirely. The pixel rate is 70.40 GPixel/s for the Radeon 680M versus 13.60 GPixel/s for the Pro 555, and the texture rate is 105.6 GTexel/s versus 40.80 GTexel/s. The FP32 compute is 3.379 TFLOPS for the Radeon 680M and 1,305.6 GFLOPS for the Pro 555. The power draw also differs, with the Radeon 680M at 50 W and the Pro 555 at 75 W. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x8 on the Radeon 680M versus PCIe 3.0 x8 on the Pro 555. API support shows the Radeon 680M supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Pro 555 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. The production status is Active for the Radeon 680M and End-of-life for the Pro 555, and the release dates reflect this, with the Radeon 680M launching in January 2023 and the Pro 555 in June 2017.