AMD Radeon 860M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile Comparison

AMD Radeon 860M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded head-to-head data for these two GPUs is limited to two compute-oriented tests, but the margins are decisive. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile scores 96,969 against the AMD Radeon 860M's 22,759, a gap of 76.5%. That is not a close contest; the NVIDIA part delivers over four times the raw compute throughput in this workload. The Vulkan result tells a similar story: the RTX 5060 Mobile posts 96,451 versus 30,043 for the Radeon 860M, a 68.9% advantage. In both recorded tests, the NVIDIA GPU wins outright, and the AMD part trails by margins that suggest a fundamentally different performance class.

Looking at the broader database averages, the picture becomes more nuanced. The Radeon 860M has an average benchmark score of 26,401, which places it at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs. The RTX 5060 Mobile, despite its dominant head-to-head wins, averages only 22,435 and sits at the 67th percentile. This discrepancy is because the two parts are measured across different benchmark suites. The Radeon 860M's average is built from only two Geekbench results, both of which are relatively strong for an integrated GPU. The RTX 5060 Mobile's average includes a much wider set of tests, including DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 workloads, 3DMark Steel Nomad, Passmark G2D, G3D, and compute tests, and some of those scores drag its average down. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3,013.5 and the Passmark G3D score of 18,852 are solid, but the Passmark DirectX 9 score of 203 and DirectX 12 score of 87 are low in absolute terms, pulling the mean lower.

When comparing each part to its nearest rivals in the database, the Radeon 860M sits within 1.1% of the NVIDIA GeForce MX550, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary, the NVIDIA RTX A4000, and notably, the desktop NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060. The delta percentages are tiny: 0.3% ahead of the RTX 5060, 0.1% behind the MX550, 0.6% behind the RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary, and 1.1% behind the RTX A4000. The RTX 5060 Mobile, by contrast, sits within 1.3% of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, AMD Radeon RX 5700, AMD Radeon RX 6700S, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile. It is 1.2% ahead of the RX 5700 and 1.3% ahead of the RX 6700S, while trailing the RX 7700 XT by 0.5% and the RTX 4060 Mobile by 1.3%.

The key takeaway from the head-to-head numbers is that the RTX 5060 Mobile dominates in the two shared benchmarks, but the Radeon 860M's average score is higher because the database averages are computed over different test sets. The raw compute gap in OpenCL and Vulkan is real and substantial, and it points to a large performance gulf in general-purpose GPU compute.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5060 Mobile wins every recorded head-to-head benchmark. In OpenCL, its 96,969 score is 74,210 points higher than the Radeon 860M's 22,759. In Vulkan, the margin is 66,408 points. These are not narrow victories; they represent a multi-generational leap in raw throughput. The RTX 5060 Mobile also carries a hardware feature set that the Radeon 860M lacks entirely, including dedicated tensor cores, which the AMD part has none of. That makes the NVIDIA GPU the clear choice for any workload that leverages CUDA-accelerated compute, machine learning inference, or DirectX ray tracing with dedicated hardware.

The Radeon 860M, however, holds its own in the context of its class. Its average benchmark score of 26,401 is higher than the RTX 5060 Mobile's 22,435, and it sits at a higher percentile ranking. Its Geekbench Vulkan score of 30,043 is respectable for an integrated part, and its Geekbench OpenCL score of 22,759 is competitive with discrete mobile GPUs like the MX550. The Radeon 860M also has a much lower thermal design power at 15 W compared to the RTX 5060 Mobile's 45 W, which means it is designed for thin-and-light systems where sustained power draw is a constraint. The RTX 5060 Mobile, with its 45 W TDP, is built for larger laptops with more robust cooling solutions.

In terms of memory, the RTX 5060 Mobile has a dedicated 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon 860M uses system shared memory, with bandwidth that is system dependent. That means the AMD part's memory performance varies with the host system's RAM configuration, while the NVIDIA part has a fixed, dedicated memory pipeline. For gaming at higher resolutions or with high-texture settings, the dedicated memory and bandwidth of the RTX 5060 Mobile are significant advantages.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile is the faster GPU, and by a wide margin, in every directly comparable benchmark. If the workload is compute-heavy, ray-traced, or reliant on dedicated tensor cores, the RTX 5060 Mobile is the only choice between these two. Its OpenCL and Vulkan scores are roughly 3.2 to 4.3 times higher than the Radeon 860M's, and its 26 RT cores and 104 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration that the AMD part simply does not have. The RTX 5060 Mobile also benefits from a dedicated 8 GB GDDR7 memory pool with 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is essential for modern game assets and GPU compute tasks.

The Radeon 860M, however, is not without merit. Its average benchmark score is higher, and it ranks at the 72nd percentile versus the RTX 5060 Mobile's 67th. It achieves this with a 15 W TDP, making it suitable for ultraportable laptops where battery life and thermal headroom are priorities. Its nearest rivals in the database are all discrete GPUs, and it trades blows with them within a 1.1% margin. If the system is a thin-and-light notebook and the workload is light gaming, media playback, or general productivity, the Radeon 860M may be sufficient. But for anyone who needs serious GPU performance, the RTX 5060 Mobile is the clear winner based on the recorded data.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon 860M has an average benchmark score of 26,401, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile averages 22,435.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5060 Mobile in Geekbench Vulkan?

A: The RTX 5060 Mobile scores 96,451 in Geekbench Vulkan, which is 68.9% higher than the Radeon 860M's 30,043.

Q: Does the Radeon 860M have tensor cores?

A: No, the Radeon 860M has no tensor cores. The RTX 5060 Mobile has 104 tensor cores.

Q: What is the memory configuration of each GPU?

A: The RTX 5060 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus with 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon 860M uses system shared memory with system dependent bandwidth.

Q: How do their thermal design power ratings compare?

A: The Radeon 860M has a 15 W TDP, while the RTX 5060 Mobile has a 45 W TDP.

Q: Which GPU is closer to the AMD Radeon RX 5700 in performance?

A: The RTX 5060 Mobile is 1.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 in average score. The Radeon 860M does not list the RX 5700 as a nearest rival.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural lineages. The AMD Radeon 860M is built on RDNA 3.5 and uses the Krackan Point chip, part of the Navi III IGP generation for Strix Point Mobile. It is manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile uses Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB206 chip, part of the GeForce 50 Mobile generation, and is built on a 5 nm process, also at TSMC. The transistor counts differ substantially: the RTX 5060 Mobile has 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 121.0 million per square millimeter, while the Radeon 860M's transistor count and die size are listed as unknown.

The compute resources also diverge sharply. The Radeon 860M has 512 shading units, 32 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs. The RTX 5060 Mobile has 3,328 shading units, 104 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so feature-level API compatibility is the same. The Radeon 860M has 8 ray tracing cores, while the RTX 5060 Mobile has 26. The RTX 5060 Mobile also has 104 tensor cores, which the Radeon 860M lacks entirely. The bus interface also differs: the Radeon 860M uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the RTX 5060 Mobile uses PCIe 5.0 x16.

Specification Differences

The clock speeds are notably different. The Radeon 860M has a base clock of 600 MHz and a boost clock of 3000 MHz, while the RTX 5060 Mobile has a base clock of 952 MHz and a boost clock of 1455 MHz. The memory clocks also differ: the Radeon 860M uses system shared memory, while the RTX 5060 Mobile runs its GDDR7 at 1500 MHz with 24 Gbps effective transfer. The memory bus width for the RTX 5060 Mobile is 128 bit, whereas the Radeon 860M's is system shared.

Pixel and texture rates reflect the compute differences. The Radeon 860M achieves 48.00 GPixel/s and 96.00 GTexel/s, while the RTX 5060 Mobile delivers 69.84 GPixel/s and 151.3 GTexel/s. Floating point performance is 3.072 TFLOPS for the Radeon 860M and 9.684 TFLOPS for the RTX 5060 Mobile, with both offering a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio. The power draw differs by 30 W, with the Radeon 860M at 15 W and the RTX 5060 Mobile at 45 W. Both are IGP slot width with no power connectors, and both have portable device dependent display outputs. The Radeon 860M was released on February 28, 2025, while the RTX 5060 Mobile followed on May 19, 2025. Neither has a recorded launch MSRP.