AMD Radeon Pro 450 vs AMD Radeon Pro 5500M Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M and the AMD Radeon Pro 450 are two mobile workstation GPUs separated by three years of architectural evolution. The benchmark data shows a decisive performance gap, with the 5500M winning all three head-to-head tests by margins exceeding 190%. While both cards target Apple's Mac lineup, the 5500M represents a generational leap in compute capability, memory bandwidth, and feature support, whereas the 450 serves as a baseline entry point. The following analysis quantifies these differences using only the provided benchmark results and specifications.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most comprehensive comparison comes from the Geekbench suite, which exercises real-world compute workloads across different APIs. In Geekbench Metal, the 5500M scores 38,235 points against the 450's 12,893 points, yielding a delta of 196.6%. This means the newer GPU delivers nearly triple the Metal performance, a critical metric for macOS applications that rely heavily on Apple's graphics API. The margin is even steeper in OpenCL, where the 5500M posts 31,088 points versus 9,002 points, a 245.3% advantage. OpenCL results are particularly telling for professional workloads like video encoding and scientific simulation, where raw FP32 throughput dominates.

Vulkan testing shows a similar pattern, with the 5500M achieving 35,134 points compared to 10,518 points for the 450, a 234% difference. This consistency across all three APIs indicates that the performance gap is not API-specific but reflects a fundamental compute advantage. The 5500M's FP32 rating of 4.454 TFLOPS is over four times the 450's 1,024.0 GFLOPS, explaining why every benchmark shows such a lopsided result. Even the 450's strongest relative performance, Metal at 196.6% delta, still represents a near-total defeat.

Looking at the broader competitive landscape, the 5500M's average benchmark score of 11,528 places it in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, with its nearest rival being the NVIDIA Tesla K20c at 11,479 (0.4% ahead). The 450's average score of 10,804 puts it in the 49th percentile, with the NVIDIA Quadro K2200 as its closest competitor at 10,761 (0.4% behind). This means the 450 is actually positioned close to the 5500M in percentile terms, but the head-to-head data reveals a massive intra-generation gap that percentiles obscure. The 5500M's Passmark G3D score of 6,732 versus the 450's absence of such scores further confirms the 5500M's dominance in DirectX-based workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The data shows zero wins for the Radeon Pro 450 across the three shared benchmarks. The 5500M takes every category: Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan. For the 450, its only potential advantage lies in power consumption, with a 35 W TDP versus 85 W for the 5500M. This lower power draw could make the 450 preferable in thermally constrained chassis, though the benchmark results offer no direct evidence of such a trade-off. The 450 also fits an MXM module form factor, which may offer greater serviceability in certain laptop designs, but this is a physical specification rather than a performance metric.

For users prioritizing compute performance, the 5500M is the clear winner in every measurable graphics task. Its higher pixel rate of 46.40 GPixel/s versus 12.80 GPixel/s for the 450 means faster rasterization for display workloads. Texture rate follows suit at 139.2 GTexel/s versus 32.00 GTexel/s, benefiting any texture-bound rendering. The 5500M's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory versus 2 GB of GDDR5 on the 450 also eliminates memory capacity as a bottleneck for large datasets, though the 450's smaller memory footprint could be sufficient for lighter tasks.

The 450 might still find relevance in scenarios where battery life is paramount, given its 35 W TDP. However, the benchmark data suggests that even basic GPU acceleration tasks would take nearly three times longer on the 450, making any power savings a poor trade-off for productivity. The 5500M's 51st percentile ranking versus the 450's 49th percentile also shows that the newer card is closer to the median GPU performance, whereas the 450 sits just below that mark.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is substantial. The 5500M uses the Navi 14 chip built on RDNA 1.0 architecture, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC with 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die. The 450 uses the Baffin chip based on GCN 4.0, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries with 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. This node shrink from 14 nm to 7 nm allows the 5500M to pack more than double the transistors into only 35 mm² of additional silicon, resulting in a transistor density of 40.5M per mm² versus 24.4M per mm² for the 450.

RDNA 1.0 represents a significant departure from GCN 4.0 in terms of shader organization and instruction scheduling. The 5500M features 1,536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units, compared to 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs on the 450. This 2.4x increase in shader count directly explains the FP32 throughput advantage, though the 5500M also benefits from architectural efficiency improvements inherent to RDNA. The 5500M's FP16 performance of 8.909 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) versus the 450's 1,024.0 GFLOPS (1:1 ratio) indicates that the newer architecture handles half-precision workloads with twice the throughput, a feature absent in GCN 4.0.

Memory architecture also diverges sharply. The 5500M supports GDDR6 at 1500 MHz with 12 Gbps effective speed, delivering 192.0 GB/s bandwidth over a 128-bit bus. The 450 uses GDDR5 at 1270 MHz with 5.1 Gbps effective speed, providing 81.28 GB/s over the same 128-bit bus width. This 2.36x bandwidth advantage for the 5500M is critical for memory-bound workloads like texture streaming and compute kernels. The 5500M also supports PCIe 4.0 x8, doubling the interconnect bandwidth of the 450's PCIe 3.0 x8, which reduces data transfer bottlenecks in hybrid CPU-GPU workloads.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification field. The 5500M uses a 7 nm TSMC process, while the 450 uses 14 nm GlobalFoundries. Transistor count stands at 6,400 million for the 5500M versus 3,000 million for the 450, with die sizes of 158 mm² and 123 mm² respectively. Memory configuration shows 8 GB GDDR6 for the 5500M versus 2 GB GDDR5 for the 450, with bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s versus 81.28 GB/s. The 5500M has 1,536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the 450 has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs.

Clock speeds differ significantly, with the 5500M running at 1000 MHz base and 1450 MHz boost, while the 450 has no listed base or boost clocks. Memory clocks show 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) for the 5500M versus 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective) for the 450. Pixel rate is 46.40 GPixel/s versus 12.80 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 139.2 GTexel/s versus 32.00 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 4.454 TFLOPS versus 1,024.0 GFLOPS, with FP16 at 8.909 TFLOPS (2:1) versus 1,024.0 GFLOPS (1:1). TDP is 85 W versus 35 W, with the 450 using an MXM slot width while the 5500M has no listed slot width. Bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x8 for the 5500M versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for the 450. The 5500M supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4, while the 450 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M in Geekbench Metal compared to the Radeon Pro 450?

A: The 5500M scores 38,235 points versus 12,893 points for the 450, resulting in a 196.6% performance delta in favor of the 5500M.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference between these two GPUs?

A: The 5500M provides 192.0 GB/s bandwidth with 8 GB GDDR6 memory, while the 450 provides 81.28 GB/s with 2 GB GDDR5 memory, a 2.36x advantage for the 5500M.

Q: Which GPU has better Vulkan API support?

A: The 5500M supports Vulkan 1.4, while the 450 supports Vulkan 1.3. In Vulkan benchmark testing, the 5500M scores 35,134 points versus 10,518 points for the 450, a 234% delta.

Q: How do the transistor counts compare between the two architectures?

A: The 5500M's Navi 14 chip contains 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die, while the 450's Baffin chip contains 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The 5500M has a TDP of 85 W, while the 450 has a TDP of 35 W, making the 450 significantly more power-efficient for thermally limited designs.

Q: Which GPU has higher FP32 compute throughput?

A: The 5500M delivers 4.454 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, compared to 1,024.0 GFLOPS for the 450, a 4.35x advantage for the 5500M.