AMD Radeon 860M vs AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT wins every head-to-head benchmark in this comparison. In the two directly comparable tests, it takes both Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan runs outright. The RX 6600 XT's average benchmark score of 24,442 sits slightly below the 860M's 26,401 average, but that average masks the reality of the direct comparisons — the discrete card is dramatically faster in every workload measured head-to-head.

The Radeon 860M wins in a different sense: it is an integrated GPU with a 15 W TDP, so it wins on power envelope and physical footprint by existing within a processor rather than requiring its own slot and power delivery. Its benchmark portfolio is thin — just two Geekbench scores — but its 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs is actually higher than the RX 6600 XT's 70th percentile. That percentile gap comes from the 860M's strong OpenCL and Vulkan results relative to the entire GPU landscape, not from beating the RX 6600 XT directly.

The RX 6600 XT's wins are decisive. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 80,503 versus 22,759 for the 860M, a 71.7% margin. In Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 72,417 versus 30,043, a 58.5% margin. Those are not close contests; they are generational and architectural chasms. The 860M's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (deltaPct 0.3) and the RTX A4000 (deltaPct -1.1), which tells you the integrated part punches far above its power class in synthetic compute. The RX 6600 XT's nearest rivals are the GTX 1630 (deltaPct 0.7), GTX 780 Ti (deltaPct 0.8), and RTX 2080 SUPER (deltaPct 1.1) — a strange mix that reflects its mixed benchmark results across DirectX versions and compute tests.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different generations of RDNA. The 860M uses RDNA 3.5 on a 4 nm TSMC process, while the RX 6600 XT uses RDNA 2.0 on a 7 nm TSMC process. That node difference is significant: the 860M fits into a 15 W integrated package, while the RX 6600 XT consumes 160 W and needs a dual-slot cooler with a single 8-pin power connector and a 450 W suggested PSU.

The RX 6600 XT is built on the Navi 23 chip with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 46.7M per mm². The 860M's transistor count and die size are listed as unknown, but its chip is Krackan Point, part of the Navi III IGP generation for Strix Point Mobile. The RX 6600 XT belongs to the Navi II (RX 6000) generation and lists its predecessor as Navi and successor as Navi III — meaning the 860M's architecture is the direct descendant of the RX 6600 XT's lineage.

Compute resources differ by a factor of four. The 860M has 512 shading units, 32 texture mapping units, 16 ROPs, and 8 ray tracing cores. The RX 6600 XT has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 32 ray tracing cores. That is exactly 4x the shading units, TMUs, and ROPs, and 4x the ray tracing cores. The RX 6600 XT's FP32 throughput is 10.60 TFLOPS versus 3.072 TFLOPS for the 860M — a 3.45x gap. FP16 tells a different story: the 860M does 3.072 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the RX 6600 XT does 21.21 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), meaning the discrete card's FP16 advantage is even larger at roughly 6.9x.

Memory is another major divide. The 860M uses system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth — it borrows from the host CPU's RAM. The RX 6600 XT has 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 860M's pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s; the RX 6600 XT hits 165.7 GPixel/s and 331.4 GTexel/s. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, and both use a PCIe 4.0 x8 bus interface.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The Geekbench OpenCL result is the largest single margin in this comparison. The RX 6600 XT scores 80,503 against the 860M's 22,759, a 71.7% advantage. That is a massive gap for a compute-oriented benchmark, reflecting the RX 6600 XT's 4x shading unit count, 10.60 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, and dedicated memory bandwidth. The 860M's 3.072 TFLOPS and system-shared memory simply cannot keep pace in a workload that scales with raw compute and memory bandwidth.

Geekbench Vulkan narrows the gap slightly but still heavily favors the discrete card. The RX 6600 XT scores 72,417 versus 30,043 for the 860M, a 58.5% margin. The narrower gap in Vulkan relative to OpenCL suggests the 860M's RDNA 3.5 architecture handles modern graphics APIs more efficiently per compute unit than older RDNA 2.0 does, but the sheer resource advantage of the RX 6600 XT remains overwhelming.

The RX 6600 XT also has a much richer benchmark portfolio. It shows scores in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 (1,804), Geekbench Metal (88,720), Passmark DirectX 9/10/11/12 (194, 109, 163, 61 respectively), Passmark G2D (912), Passmark G3D (16,461), and Passmark GPU Compute (7,520). The 860M has no such breadth, with only the two Geekbench results. The Passmark DirectX 12 score of 61 for the RX 6600 XT is notably low, and its DirectX 9 score of 194 is the highest among its Passmark DirectX results — an odd distribution that may reflect driver quirks or test methodology, but it does not change the overall picture.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each card reinforces the gap. The 860M's average score of 26,401 places it just 0.1% behind the MX550 and 0.3% ahead of the RTX 5060 — both low-power or midrange parts. The RX 6600 XT's 24,442 average sits 0.7% above the GTX 1630 and 1.1% above the RTX 2080 SUPER. The 860M's percentile of 72 versus the RX 6600 XT's 70 says the integrated part is more consistently strong across all GPUs, but that is a statistical artifact of the 860M having only two benchmark results — both of which are relatively high — versus the RX 6600 XT's eleven results, some of which (like the Passmark numbers) drag its average down.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is the far faster GPU. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks by margins of 71.7% and 58.5%, has 4x the shading units, 4x the ROPs, 4x the ray tracing cores, and 3.45x the FP32 throughput. It has 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth versus the 860M's system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth. If you need to run demanding games or compute workloads on a desktop, the RX 6600 XT is the obvious choice — it is a dual-slot card with a 160 W TDP, a single 8-pin connector, and a 450 W suggested PSU, and it delivers desktop-class performance.

The Radeon 860M's case rests entirely on its integration and efficiency. It is an IGP with a 15 W TDP, no power connectors, no slot width, and portable-device-dependent display outputs. It belongs in a laptop or a compact system where a discrete GPU is not an option. Its 72nd percentile ranking and its nearest rivals — the RTX 5060 and RTX A4000 — show that it is not a weak integrated part; it is genuinely competitive with low-end discrete GPUs in synthetic benchmarks. But the RX 6600 XT is not a low-end discrete GPU; it is a midrange desktop card, and the head-to-head results show exactly where that distinction lands.

Who should pick which? If you are building a desktop with a dedicated PCIe slot and a 450 W PSU, the RX 6600 XT wins on every measurable performance axis. If you need a mobile or ultra-compact solution where the GPU must share power and memory with the CPU, the 860M is the only sensible option — and the data shows it handles that role better than its power budget suggests. The RX 6600 XT is end-of-life, while the 860M is active and released on 2025-02-28 versus the RX 6600 XT's 2021-07-29, so availability and longevity also favor the newer integrated part.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon 860M has an average benchmark score of 26,401, which is higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT's 24,442. However, the RX 6600 XT wins both head-to-head benchmarks by large margins, so the average is skewed by the RX 6600 XT's broader test portfolio.

Q: How much faster is the RX 6600 XT in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RX 6600 XT scores 80,503 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 22,759 for the 860M, a 71.7% advantage. This is the largest margin between the two GPUs in any benchmark.

Q: What is the TDP difference between the two cards?

A: The Radeon 860M has a 15 W TDP, while the RX 6600 XT has a 160 W TDP. The RX 6600 XT requires a dual-slot cooler, a single 8-pin power connector, and a 450 W suggested PSU.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same DirectX and Vulkan versions?

A: Yes. Both the 860M and the RX 6600 XT support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: How do their shading unit counts compare?

A: The RX 6600 XT has 2,048 shading units, exactly 4x the 860M's 512 shading units. The RX 6600 XT also has 128 TMUs and 64 ROPs versus 32 TMUs and 16 ROPs for the 860M.

Q: What memory configuration does each GPU use?

A: The RX 6600 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. The 860M uses system-shared memory with no dedicated VRAM, and its bandwidth is listed as system-dependent.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon 860M | AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | RDNA 3.5 | RDNA 2.0 |

| Process Node | 4 nm | 7 nm |

| Transistors | unknown | 11,060 million |

| Die Size | unknown | 237 mm² |

| Transistor Density | null | 46.7M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 600 MHz | 1968 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 3000 MHz | 2589 MHz |

| Game Clock | null | 2359 MHz |

| Memory Size | System Shared | 8 GB |

| Memory Type | System Shared | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus Width | System Shared | 128 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | System Dependent | 256.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 512 | 2048 |

| TMUs | 32 | 128 |

| ROPs | 16 | 64 |

| Ray Tracing Cores | 8 | 32 |

| Pixel Rate | 48.00 GPixel/s | 165.7 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 96.00 GTexel/s | 331.4 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 3.072 TFLOPS | 10.60 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 3.072 TFLOPS (1:1) | 21.21 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 15 W | 160 W |

| Slot Width | IGP | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | null | 450 W |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a |

| Dimensions | null | 190 mm x 110 mm x 40 mm |

| Production Status | Active | End-of-life |

| Release Date | 2025-02-28 | 2021-07-29 |

| Launch MSRP | null | 379 USD |

| Predecessor | Navi II IGP | Navi |

| Successor | null | Navi III |