AMD Radeon HD 8950M vs AMD Radeon Pro 5500M Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data presents a decisive picture. Across the two shared tests, the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M wins both, and it does so by a substantial margin. The most direct comparison comes from the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the Pro 5500M scores 31,088 against the HD 8950M’s 13,772. That is a delta of 55.7 percent in favor of the newer part, meaning the Pro 5500M delivers more than double the raw compute throughput in this workload. In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap is even wider: the Pro 5500M records 35,134 while the HD 8950M manages 12,979, a delta of 63.1 percent. The Vulkan result is particularly telling, as it reflects not just raw shader output but also the efficiency of the driver and architecture under a modern low-level API.

The HD 8950M, for its part, does not win a single head-to-head contest. Its best showing is in OpenCL, where it still trails by more than half. The data shows a generational leap, not a marginal improvement. The Pro 5500M’s average benchmark score across all its recorded tests is 11,528, which is actually lower than its OpenCL and Vulkan scores alone, because that average includes several legacy DirectX and compute tests that drag the figure down. The HD 8950M’s average score is 13,376 from just two tests, both of which are modern API workloads. This is an important nuance: the HD 8950M only has two data points, both favorable to its architecture, while the Pro 5500M has ten, including older DirectX tests where it scores very low (for example, 29 in DirectX 12 and 36 in DirectX 10). In the tests that matter for current gaming and compute, the Pro 5500M is overwhelmingly faster.

Looking at the nearest rivals in the database adds context. The HD 8950M sits at the 54th percentile of all GPUs, slightly above the Pro 5500M’s 51st percentile. That percentile ranking, however, is based on average scores that mix very different test suites. The HD 8950M’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5500M with an average score of 13,356, a delta of just 0.2 percent, and the AMD FirePro M6100 at 13,354, also a 0.2 percent delta. The AMD Radeon Pro 555 scores 13,407, which is 0.2 percent higher than the HD 8950M, while the Pro 555X trails by 0.4 percent at 13,321. These are all extremely close results, indicating that the HD 8950M is essentially performance-equivalent to a cluster of mid-range mobile GPUs from its era, all hovering around the 13,300 to 13,400 mark.

The Pro 5500M’s nearest rivals tell a different story. Its average score of 11,528 places it near the NVIDIA Tesla K20c, which averages 11,479 (a 0.4 percent delta in favor of the Pro 5500M). The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT averages 11,627, which is 0.8 percent higher than the Pro 5500M, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 averages 11,680, 1.3 percent higher. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M trails at 11,261, a 2.4 percent deficit. Notice that the Pro 5500M’s rivals are a mix of older workstation cards and modern desktop parts, and the deltas are all small. This suggests that the Pro 5500M, despite its low average score from legacy tests, is competitively positioned against much more recent hardware when looking at its full benchmark profile.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M is the faster GPU in every shared benchmark, and the margins are large enough to call it a generational victory. In OpenCL, it is 55.7 percent ahead of the HD 8950M. In Vulkan, it is 63.1 percent ahead. No amount of architectural analysis can close that gap; these are not incremental differences but rather a complete overhaul of the underlying design. Anyone choosing between these two for a modern workload should pick the Pro 5500M without hesitation, as the benchmark results indicate it will deliver roughly double the compute performance in API-heavy tasks.

The HD 8950M does have one advantage in the recorded data: its percentile ranking is higher (54 versus 51), and its average benchmark score is higher (13,376 versus 11,528). However, this is a statistical artifact of the test sets involved. The HD 8950M’s average comes from just two tests, both modern, while the Pro 5500M’s average is dragged down by several legacy DirectX tests that score in the dozens. The Pro 5500M’s DirectX 9 score of 96 and DirectX 11 score of 42 are far below its OpenCL and Vulkan scores, indicating that its older API performance is poor, likely due to driver maturity or architectural focus on newer standards. The HD 8950M, by contrast, was never tested on those legacy paths in this database, so its average is not penalized.

For a user running current-generation games or compute workloads that use Vulkan or OpenCL, the Pro 5500M is the clear choice. For someone running older DirectX titles, the HD 8950M might appear more competitive based on its percentile, but the lack of DirectX benchmark data for the HD 8950M makes that comparison unreliable. The Pro 5500M’s DirectX 12 score of 29 is surprisingly low, but that test may not reflect real-world gaming performance, and the Vulkan and OpenCL scores are far more representative of modern usage. The verdict, strictly from the data, is that the Pro 5500M is the superior GPU for any workload that leverages its strengths, and the HD 8950M should only be considered if legacy DirectX compatibility is the sole requirement, and even then, the data does not support a clear win.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M wins with a score of 31,088 versus the HD 8950M’s 13,772, a delta of 55.7 percent.

Q: How large is the Vulkan performance gap?

A: The Pro 5500M scores 35,134 in Vulkan compared to 12,979 for the HD 8950M, a delta of 63.1 percent.

Q: Why does the HD 8950M have a higher average benchmark score despite losing both head-to-head tests?

A: The HD 8950M’s average of 13,376 comes from only two tests, both modern API workloads. The Pro 5500M’s average of 11,528 includes ten tests, several of which are legacy DirectX benchmarks with very low scores, pulling its average down.

Q: What are the closest rivals to the HD 8950M in the database?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 555 scores 13,407, which is 0.2 percent higher than the HD 8950M. The AMD Radeon RX 5500M at 13,356 and AMD FirePro M6100 at 13,354 are both within 0.2 percent, while the AMD Radeon Pro 555X trails by 0.4 percent.

Q: Which GPU has a better percentile ranking?

A: The HD 8950M ranks at the 54th percentile of all GPUs, while the Pro 5500M sits at the 51st percentile, but this ranking is based on different test sets and does not reflect their direct head-to-head results.

Q: Does the Pro 5500M have any weak benchmark results?

A: Yes, its legacy DirectX scores are very low: 36 in DirectX 10, 42 in DirectX 11, and 29 in DirectX 12, alongside a 96 in DirectX 9. These contrast sharply with its OpenCL and Vulkan scores.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every core specification. The HD 8950M uses a 28 nm process node, while the Pro 5500M is built on 7 nm. The transistor counts reflect this: the HD 8950M has 2,080 million transistors on a 160 mm² die, giving a density of 13.0 million transistors per square millimeter. The Pro 5500M packs 6,400 million transistors into a slightly smaller 158 mm² die, achieving a density of 40.5 million per square millimeter. That is more than three times the transistor density, a direct result of the newer manufacturing process.

Memory configurations are also very different. The HD 8950M has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, running at 1375 MHz with an effective data rate of 5.5 Gbps, yielding 88.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The Pro 5500M has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on the same 128-bit bus width, but the memory clock is 1500 MHz with a 12 Gbps effective rate, producing 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That is more than double the bandwidth of the older card, which matters greatly for texture-heavy workloads and higher resolutions.

The compute resources are similarly lopsided. The HD 8950M has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 render output units. The Pro 5500M has exactly double the shading units at 1,536, double the TMUs at 96, and double the ROPs at 32. The pixel rate for the HD 8950M is 17.20 GPixel/s, while the Pro 5500M achieves 46.40 GPixel/s. Texture rate jumps from 51.60 GTexel/s to 139.2 GTexel/s. Floating-point performance goes from 1.651 TFLOPS to 4.454 TFLOPS, and the Pro 5500M additionally supports FP16 at 8.909 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, a feature the HD 8950M lacks entirely.

Power consumption differs as well. The HD 8950M has a TDP of 100 W, while the Pro 5500M is rated at 85 W, meaning the newer card delivers far more performance while drawing less power. The bus interface changes from PCIe 3.0 x16 on the HD 8950M to PCIe 4.0 x8 on the Pro 5500M. The HD 8950M is listed as an MXM Module for slot width, while the Pro 5500M has no power connectors listed and no slot width data. The HD 8950M was released on 2013-05-13, while the Pro 5500M launched on 2019-11-12, a gap of over six years.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide is generational. The HD 8950M is built on GCN 2.0, using the Saturn chip, and belongs to the Solar System generation of HD 8900M parts. The Pro 5500M uses the RDNA 1.0 architecture with the Navi 14 chip, part of the Radeon Pro Mac Navi Mobile generation. This is not a refinement of the same design but a completely new architecture from the ground up. GCN 2.0 dates back to AMD’s early 2010s designs, where the focus was on compute throughput and asynchronous compute, but the architecture was known for higher power draw and less efficient instruction scheduling. RDNA 1.0 was designed specifically to improve instructions per clock, reduce latency, and offer better power efficiency, which explains how the Pro 5500M can more than double the shading units and still run at a lower TDP.

The API support also reflects the architectural evolution. The HD 8950M supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The Pro 5500M supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The higher DirectX feature level on the Pro 5500M enables additional rendering features, and the newer Vulkan version indicates better support for recent extensions and optimizations. Neither GPU has dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores, so both rely on traditional rasterization and compute shaders.

The die size difference is minimal (160 mm² versus 158 mm²), but the transistor count is vastly different, which means the Pro 5500M is far denser, packing more compute logic into the same physical area. The HD 8950M’s predecessor is listed as London and its successor as Gem System, while the Pro 5500M has no predecessor or successor recorded, reflecting its position as a standalone mobile workstation part. The display outputs are identical in description, both listed as Portable Device Dependent, and both are end-of-life products. The Pro 5500M’s power connector is listed as None, which is consistent with lower-power mobile designs, whereas the HD 8950M has no connector data listed. The production status for both is end-of-life, but the architectural gulf between them is the single most important factor in explaining the benchmark results.