AMD Radeon 860M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive advantage for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile in both available cross-benchmark tests. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,420 against the AMD Radeon 860M's 22,759, a delta of -74.5% for the AMD part. That is not a marginal gap; it is a three-fold-plus difference in raw compute throughput as measured by this workload. The Vulkan result tells a similar story: the RTX 4060 Mobile posts 89,569 while the Radeon 860M manages 30,043, a -66.5% delta. Both tests consistently favor the discrete-class NVIDIA solution by a wide margin.

What makes this interesting is that the average benchmark scores across all recorded tests do not fully reflect that dominance. The Radeon 860M holds an average benchmark score of 26,401, which places it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs in the database. The RTX 4060 Mobile averages 22,729, sitting in the 67th percentile. This inversion happens because the two products are measured across different test suites: the AMD part only has two Geekbench entries, while the NVIDIA part includes nine tests, several of which (like Passmark DirectX 9 at 216 and DirectX 10 at 107) are legacy API workloads that drag down its average. The head-to-head data, limited to the two Geekbench tests, is unambiguous: the RTX 4060 Mobile wins both, and wins big.

Looking at nearest rivals for context, the Radeon 860M's average score of 26,401 sits within 1.1% of the NVIDIA RTX A4000 (26,683) and just 0.1% below the GeForce MX550 (26,421). That places the integrated AMD part in the same performance envelope as those older or lower-tier discrete options. The RTX 4060 Mobile, by contrast, is within 1.3% of the newer RTX 5060 Mobile (22,435) and 0.8% of the RX 7700 XT (22,549), meaning it trades blows with desktop-class cards from the previous generation. The delta between the two products in the head-to-head is so large that the percentile rankings almost seem beside the point; the RTX 4060 Mobile is in a different performance class entirely for the workloads tested.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the Geekbench OpenCL test, and by how much?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile wins with a score of 89,420 versus 22,759 for the AMD Radeon 860M. That is a -74.5% delta for the AMD part, meaning the NVIDIA card delivers roughly 3.9 times the OpenCL score.

Q: How does the Radeon 860M perform in Vulkan relative to the RTX 4060 Mobile?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,569 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Radeon 860M scores 30,043. The delta is -66.5%, again favoring NVIDIA by a wide margin.

Q: Why does the Radeon 860M have a higher average benchmark score than the RTX 4060 Mobile?

A: The Radeon 860M's average is 26,401 versus 22,729 for the RTX 4060 Mobile. This is because the average is computed over different test sets: the AMD part has only two Geekbench entries, while the NVIDIA part includes seven additional Passmark tests, several of which are older DirectX 9 and 10 workloads that score much lower (e.g., 216 and 107 respectively).

Q: What is the percentile ranking for each GPU in the database?

A: The Radeon 860M sits in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 4060 Mobile is in the 67th percentile. These rankings reflect the full test suite for each part, not just the head-to-head comparison.

Q: Which rivals are closest to the Radeon 860M in average score?

A: The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 (26,421, -0.1% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary (26,553, -0.6% delta). The RTX 5060 is also close at 26,331 with a +0.3% delta.

Q: Which rivals are closest to the RTX 4060 Mobile in average score?

A: The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (22,895, -0.7% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (22,549, +0.8% delta), and the Intel Arc B580 (23,021, -1.3% delta). The RTX 5060 Mobile is at 22,435 with a +1.3% delta.

Where Each One Wins

The data reveals a clear split. The RTX 4060 Mobile wins both head-to-head tests, so in raw compute performance as measured by Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan, NVIDIA dominates. This suggests the RTX 4060 Mobile is better suited for workloads that leverage general-purpose compute or Vulkan-based rendering, including modern game engines and GPU-accelerated applications. The margin is so large that the integrated Radeon 860M cannot realistically compete in these scenarios.

However, the Radeon 860M holds its own in terms of overall database standing. Its 72nd percentile ranking versus 67th for the RTX 4060 Mobile, combined with a higher average score (26,401 versus 22,729), indicates that when considering a broader set of benchmarks, the AMD part is not a slouch. This is partly an artifact of the test set, but it also reflects that the Radeon 860M performs proportionally better on the Geekbench tests it has than the RTX 4060 Mobile does across its mixed bag of Passmark and Geekbench entries. For users who only run workloads similar to Geekbench's OpenCL or Vulkan tests, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the obvious choice. For those who care about the full spectrum of legacy API performance, the Radeon 860M's data profile is less penalized by old DirectX tests.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ fundamentally in their memory architecture. The Radeon 860M uses system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth, meaning its performance scales with the host laptop's RAM configuration. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That dedicated memory is a major advantage for the NVIDIA part, as it avoids contention with the CPU for memory bandwidth. The AMD part also has a lower base clock (600 MHz versus 1545 MHz) and a higher boost clock (3000 MHz versus 1890 MHz), which is typical of integrated GPUs that have access to more variable power budgets.

The compute specifications are starkly different. The Radeon 860M has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 3072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. That is a 6x difference in shading units, a 3x difference in TMUs, and a 3x difference in ROPs. The pixel rate for the RTX 4060 Mobile is 90.72 GPixel/s versus 48.00 GPixel/s for the Radeon 860M, and the texture rate is 181.4 GTexel/s versus 96.00 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput is 11.61 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 3.072 TFLOPS for AMD, a 3.8x gap. The RTX 4060 Mobile also has 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores, while the Radeon 860M has 8 RT cores and no tensor cores listed.

The TDP difference is notable: 15 W for the Radeon 860M versus 115 W for the RTX 4060 Mobile. This explains the performance gap, as the NVIDIA part is allowed to draw nearly 8 times more power. Both use a PCIe 4.0 x8 bus interface and have no power connectors, but the slot width is listed as IGP for both, which is odd for a discrete mobile GPU. The process nodes differ: TSMC 4 nm for AMD versus TSMC 5 nm for NVIDIA. The RTX 4060 Mobile has a known transistor count of 18,900 million on a 159 mm² die, while the Radeon 860M's transistor count and die size are unknown.

Architecture Differences

The Radeon 860M is built on AMD's RDNA 3.5 architecture, using the Krackan Point chip, and belongs to the Navi III IGP generation. It is an integrated graphics processor on a 4 nm TSMC node, designed for the Strix Point Mobile platform. The RTX 4060 Mobile uses NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD107 chip, part of the GeForce 40 Mobile generation, on a 5 nm TSMC node. The architectural philosophies diverge: RDNA 3.5 focuses on power efficiency for integration into mobile APUs, while Ada Lovelace is a full discrete GPU architecture with dedicated RT and tensor cores for ray tracing and AI workloads.

The RTX 4060 Mobile has 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS-style AI features. The Radeon 860M has 8 RT cores but no tensor cores, so it lacks the dedicated AI acceleration hardware that the NVIDIA part includes. This is a significant architectural difference, as tensor cores are used for DLSS and other AI-based rendering techniques. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so the API surface is equivalent, but the underlying hardware capabilities differ sharply.

The Radeon 860M's FP16 and FP32 throughput are both 3.072 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the RTX 4060 Mobile also has a 1:1 FP16/FP32 ratio at 11.61 TFLOPS. The NVIDIA part's higher transistor density (118.9M per mm²) on a larger die reflects its more complex architecture with dedicated cores. The AMD part's process node is smaller (4 nm versus 5 nm), but without transistor counts, the density comparison is incomplete. The production status for both is active, with the Radeon 860M released in early 2025 and the RTX 4060 Mobile in early 2023, making the NVIDIA part a previous-generation product that still outpaces the newer integrated solution.

The Verdict

The data points to a straightforward conclusion: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile is the far more capable GPU for compute-heavy and modern rendering workloads. Its 74.5% and 66.5% advantages in the two head-to-head Geekbench tests are decisive, and its dedicated 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth removes a critical bottleneck that the Radeon 860M faces with system-shared memory. For users who need consistent, high-end graphics performance in a laptop, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the clear pick, even at 115 W TDP versus 15 W.

The AMD Radeon 860M is not without merit. Its higher percentile ranking (72nd versus 67th) and higher average benchmark score (26,401 versus 22,729) suggest that in certain workloads, particularly those similar to Geekbench's OpenCL test, it punches above its weight class for an integrated part. Its nearest rivals include the GeForce MX550 and RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary, which are older discrete GPUs, indicating that this IGP can match or exceed some dedicated solutions from previous generations. However, it cannot match the RTX 4060 Mobile in the tests they share, and its system-dependent memory bandwidth means performance varies with the host platform.

The choice reduces to power and purpose. The RTX 4060 Mobile is for users who demand high frame rates, ray tracing, and AI features, and who are willing to accept the power draw. The Radeon 860M is for ultra-portable or efficient systems where the 15 W TDP and integrated form factor matter more than raw performance. The data does not show a scenario where the Radeon 860M beats the RTX 4060 Mobile in a head-to-head test, so the verdict is one-sided for those who prioritize performance. For those who prioritize efficiency and integration, the Radeon 860M offers a respectable, if not competitive, alternative within its power envelope.