AMD Radeon 860M vs AMD Radeon RX 6550M Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data records two direct comparisons between the AMD Radeon 860M and the AMD Radeon RX 6550M, both in Geekbench compute workloads. The results are unambiguous, with the RX 6550M claiming victory in both tests. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 6550M scores 42,536 against the 860M's 22,759, a delta of -46.5% for the 860M. That means the discrete-class part delivers nearly double the raw compute throughput in this API. The Vulkan test narrows the gap somewhat, but the RX 6550M still wins decisively: 50,867 versus 30,043, a -40.9% delta for the 860M. Across both workloads, the RX 6550M maintains a commanding lead, and its average benchmark score of 46,702 dwarfs the 860M's 26,401.

The performance percentile ranking reinforces this split. The RX 6550M sits at the 85th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the 860M lands at the 72nd percentile. That 13-point gap places the two parts in different competitive tiers. The RX 6550M's nearest rivals include the Intel Arc A530M (46,614 average score, 0.2% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 5600M (46,601, 0.2% delta), showing it trades blows with established mobile discrete GPUs. The 860M, by contrast, finds itself alongside the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 (26,421, -0.1% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (26,331, 0.3% delta), a group of lower-power and integrated-class solutions.

The raw compute figures explain why the margin is so wide. The RX 6550M delivers 5.816 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the 860M manages 3.072 TFLOPS. The RX 6550M also doubles the shading units (1,024 versus 512), texture mapping units (64 versus 32), and render output units (32 versus 16). Its pixel rate of 90.88 GPixel/s and texture rate of 181.8 GTexel/s are roughly double the 860M's 48.00 GPixel/s and 96.00 GTexel/s. These are not marginal differences; they represent a full class separation in execution resources.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 6550M wins every recorded benchmark, so the use-case split is driven by the nature of the workloads and the hardware behind them. The 860M's OpenCL score of 22,759 and Vulkan score of 30,043 indicate a part suited to lighter graphical tasks and compute that does not stress memory bandwidth heavily. Its memory is system-shared, with bandwidth marked as system dependent, meaning performance scales with the host laptop's RAM configuration. In contrast, the RX 6550M comes with 4 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, delivering 144.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That fixed, high-speed pool gives it a structural advantage in texture-heavy scenes and larger working sets.

For gaming and GPU-accelerated content creation, the RX 6550M's higher FP32 throughput (5.816 TFLOPS) and doubled ROPs (32) make it the stronger candidate. The 860M's FP16 rate is identical to its FP32 rate at 3.072 TFLOPS (1:1), whereas the RX 6550M runs FP16 at 11.63 TFLOPS (2:1), a 3.8x advantage in half-precision workloads. Applications that use FP16 for machine learning inference or image processing will see a substantial benefit from the RX 6550M. The 860M does hold one advantage: its 15 W TDP is drastically lower than the RX 6550M's 80 W, which matters for sustained performance in thin-and-light chassis where thermals and battery life are constrained. The 860M also boosts to 3000 MHz, higher than the RX 6550M's 2840 MHz boost, though this does not compensate for the shader count deficit.

The architecture generation also plays a role. The 860M uses RDNA 3.5 on a 4 nm process, while the RX 6550M uses RDNA 2.0 on 6 nm. The newer architecture brings efficiency improvements and feature updates, but the RX 6550M's larger silicon footprint and dedicated memory pool prove more decisive in raw compute benchmarks.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different RDNA generations. The 860M is built on RDNA 3.5, part of the Navi III IGP (Strix Point Mobile) generation, using the Krackan Point chip. The RX 6550M is based on RDNA 2.0, belonging to the Navi Mobile (RX 6000M) generation with the Navi 24 chip. This generational gap manifests in several measurable ways beyond performance.

The manufacturing process differs: the 860M uses a 4 nm node from TSMC, while the RX 6550M uses a 6 nm node, also from TSMC. The smaller node should improve transistor density and power efficiency for the 860M, and indeed its TDP of 15 W is far below the RX 6550M's 80 W. The RX 6550M's die is 107 mm² containing 5,400 million transistors, a density of 50.5M per mm². The 860M's transistor count and die size are not recorded in the database, so a direct density comparison is not possible.

Shader and RT core counts scale with the architectural generation. The 860M has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and 8 ray tracing cores. The RX 6550M doubles all of those: 1,024 shading units, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 16 RT cores. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so their API feature sets are aligned. Both also use a PCIe 4.0 interface, though the 860M runs at x8 lanes while the RX 6550M uses x4 lanes; the 860M's wider interface compensates for its reliance on system memory.

The clock behavior reveals different design philosophies. The 860M has a base clock of 600 MHz and a boost of 3000 MHz, an aggressive boost curve typical of power-limited integrated GPUs. The RX 6550M runs a base clock of 2000 MHz, a game clock of 2560 MHz, and a boost of 2840 MHz, with memory clocked at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). The 860M's memory clock is listed as system shared, with bandwidth dependent on the host system.

Specification Differences

The clearest specification gap is memory. The RX 6550M carries 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 144.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 860M uses system-shared memory with a system-dependent bandwidth figure. This affects not just capacity but also latency and allocation flexibility.

Compute resources differ across every major unit count. The RX 6550M has 1,024 shading units, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 16 RT cores, each exactly double the 860M's 512, 32, 16, and 8. The FP32 throughput follows suit: 5.816 TFLOPS versus 3.072 TFLOPS. FP16 rates are 11.63 TFLOPS for the RX 6550M versus 3.072 TFLOPS for the 860M, a wider margin due to the RX 6550M's 2:1 FP16 ratio versus the 860M's 1:1.

Pixel and texture fill rates also double: 90.88 GPixel/s versus 48.00 GPixel/s, and 181.8 GTexel/s versus 96.00 GTexel/s. The RX 6550M draws more power, with a TDP of 80 W versus 15 W, and uses a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface versus the 860M's PCIe 4.0 x8. Both are listed as IGP slot width with no power connectors and portable-device-dependent display outputs. The RX 6550M's release date is 2023-01-03, while the 860M launched on 2025-02-28. The RX 6550M's predecessor is listed as Polaris Mobile, while the 860M's predecessor is Navi II IGP; neither has a recorded successor.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6550M, with an average score of 46,702 compared to the AMD Radeon 860M's 26,401.

Q: What is the score difference in the Vulkan test?

A: The RX 6550M scores 50,867, while the 860M scores 30,043, a delta of -40.9% for the 860M.

Q: How do the FP32 compute figures compare?

A: The RX 6550M delivers 5.816 TFLOPS, while the 860M delivers 3.072 TFLOPS.

Q: Which GPU has more ray tracing cores?

A: The RX 6550M has 16 RT cores, double the 860M's 8 RT cores.

Q: What memory configuration does each GPU use?

A: The RX 6550M uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 144.0 GB/s bandwidth. The 860M uses system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth.

Q: How do their percentiles compare among all GPUs?

A: The RX 6550M is at the 85th percentile, while the 860M is at the 72nd percentile.