AMD Radeon Pro 460 vs AMD Radeon Pro 560X Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 460 and AMD Radeon Pro 560X are two mobile workstation GPUs from the same GCN 4.0 family, separated by nearly two years and a chip revision. On paper the newer Pro 560X looks like the clear upgrade: more memory bandwidth, higher theoretical compute, and a bigger power budget. The recorded benchmark data tells a more complicated story, with the older Pro 460 winning two of three head-to-head tests, including a blowout in OpenCL. This comparison walks through what the numbers actually show and who each card suits.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Three Geekbench compute tests are recorded for both cards, and the split favors the Pro 460.

Geekbench Metal is the closest contest of the three. The Radeon Pro 460 scores 20426 against 18763 for the Pro 560X, an 8.9 percent advantage for the older card. That is a real gap, large enough to be noticeable in sustained GPU compute work on macOS, but not the kind of difference that changes which workload class a machine can handle. Both cards remain in the same performance tier here.

Geekbench OpenCL is where the data diverges sharply. The Pro 460 posts 15284 while the Pro 560X manages only 9663, a 58.2 percent win for the Pro 460. That is the single most important number in this comparison. OpenCL is a widely used compute path, and a deficit of that size means the Pro 560X effectively drops a performance class in OpenCL workloads despite being the newer part. Anyone running OpenCL-accelerated applications should treat these two cards as belonging to different tiers.

Geekbench Vulkan is a dead heat. The Pro 460 scores 16816 and the Pro 560X scores 16819, with the Pro 560X taking the nominal win by a margin best described as a rounding error. For Vulkan workloads, the two cards are interchangeable in practice.

Aggregating the database, the Pro 460 carries an average benchmark score of 17509 against 15082 for the Pro 560X, and sits at the 61st percentile versus 57th for the Pro 560X. The overall picture is clear: the Pro 460 is the stronger measured performer, driven almost entirely by that OpenCL result.

Context from the recorded rival data reinforces how tightly matched these parts are to their respective fields. The Pro 460's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla K40c at an average score of 17468, just 0.2 percent behind it, the AMD Radeon Pro 560 at 17551, and the AMD Radeon 780M at 17588. The Pro 560X competes with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti at 15063, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 at 15171, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM at 15199, and the AMD Radeon 680M at 15270. Both cards are mid-tier parts in the broader database, but the Pro 460 sits a notch higher.

Where Each One Wins

The Pro 460 is the choice for measured compute performance. It wins Metal by 8.9 percent and OpenCL by 58.2 percent, and its higher average score and percentile confirm the trend. If the workload is OpenCL-heavy, whether that is certain media encode paths, scientific libraries, or older compute tooling, the Pro 460 is decisively the better card in the recorded data. Its Metal lead also makes it the safer pick for general macOS GPU compute despite its lower theoretical specifications.

The Pro 560X's case rests on its hardware rather than its benchmark wins. Its only recorded victory is the Vulkan tie, which breaks its way by three points out of more than sixteen thousand, effectively a draw. Where the Pro 560X genuinely pulls ahead is in raw specification: 94.08 GB/s of memory bandwidth versus 81.28 GB/s for the Pro 460, 2.056 TFLOPS of FP32 against 1.858 TFLOPS, a pixel rate of 16.06 GPixel/s versus 14.51 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 64.26 GTexel/s versus 58.05 GTexel/s. In bandwidth-bound or fill-rate-bound scenarios the Pro 560X has more headroom on paper, even though the measured Geekbench results do not show it converting that advantage into wins.

The practical read: the Pro 460 wins where it has been measured; the Pro 560X wins where theory favors it. Two of three recorded tests favor the Pro 460, and the one it loses is a statistical tie.

Architecture Differences

Both cards share the same foundation: AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. Both carry 3000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, giving an identical transistor density of 24.4 million per square millimeter. The two parts are clearly siblings.

The differentiation is in the chip and the clocks. The Pro 460 uses the Baffin chip and belongs to the Radeon Pro Mac 400 Series, with a base clock of 850 MHz and a boost clock of 907 MHz. The Pro 560X uses the Polaris 21 chip from the Radeon Pro Mac 500X Series, and its base and boost clocks are not recorded in the database, but its theoretical rates imply it runs materially faster than the Pro 460: the higher pixel and texture rates, plus the higher FP32 throughput from an identical 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, indicate a meaningfully higher effective clock. The memory side is unambiguous: the Pro 560X's GDDR5 runs at 5.9 Gbps effective versus 5.1 Gbps effective for the Pro 460, which is what produces the 94.08 GB/s versus 81.28 GB/s bandwidth gap on the same 128-bit bus.

The power story runs the other way. The Pro 460 is a 35 W part; the Pro 560X is rated at 75 W, more than double. That difference matters in a laptop chassis, where the Pro 460's lower thermal ceiling makes it easier to cool and likely steadier under sustained load. Neither card requires power connectors, both are integrated-graphics-package style parts, and both connect over PCIe 3.0 x8.

Feature support is identical on paper: DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, and both handle FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, the same 1.858 TFLOPS on the Pro 460 and 2.056 TFLOPS on the Pro 560X. The Pro 460 launched in late October 2016; the Pro 560X followed in mid-July 2018. Both are now end-of-life.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in the recorded benchmarks?

A: The Radeon Pro 460. It wins Geekbench Metal 20426 to 18763 (8.9 percent) and Geekbench OpenCL 15284 to 9663 (58.2 percent), while the two tie in Vulkan at 16816 versus 16819. Its average benchmark score of 17509 also beats the Pro 560X's 15082.

Q: How can the older Pro 460 beat the newer Pro 560X?

A: The Pro 560X has better theoretical hardware, including higher memory bandwidth and FP32 throughput, but the measured compute results do not follow the specs. Benchmark results indicate the Pro 560X underperforms its paper numbers in OpenCL and Metal, while matching the Pro 460 in Vulkan.

Q: Do both cards have the same amount of memory?

A: Yes. Both ship with 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus. The difference is speed: the Pro 560X delivers 94.08 GB/s of bandwidth versus 81.28 GB/s for the Pro 460.

Q: Which card uses less power?

A: The Pro 460, by a wide margin. Its TDP is 35 W against 75 W for the Pro 560X, which matters in a mobile workstation for thermals and sustained performance.

Q: Are they built on the same process?

A: Yes. Both use a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process, share GCN 4.0 architecture, and have identical die area (123 mm²), transistor count (3000 million), and the same 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 16 ROPs.

Q: Which APIs do they support?

A: Identical support on both: DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3.

Specification Differences

Only the fields where the two cards differ:

• Chip: Baffin (Pro 460) versus Polaris 21 (Pro 560X)
• Generation: Radeon Pro Mac 400 Series versus Radeon Pro Mac 500X Series
• Release date: October 2016 versus July 2018
• Core clocks: 850 MHz base and 907 MHz boost on the Pro 460; not recorded for the Pro 560X
• Memory speed: 5.1 Gbps effective versus 5.9 Gbps effective
• Memory bandwidth: 81.28 GB/s versus 94.08 GB/s
• Pixel rate: 14.51 GPixel/s versus 16.06 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 58.05 GTexel/s versus 64.26 GTexel/s
• FP32/FP16 throughput: 1.858 TFLOPS versus 2.056 TFLOPS
• TDP: 35 W versus 75 W

Everything else in the database matches: manufacturer, architecture, process node, foundry, transistor count, die size, density, memory size and type, bus width, shading units, TMUs, ROPs, bus interface, API support, integrated packaging, and end-of-life status.

The Verdict

The measured data favors the Radeon Pro 460, and not by a small margin. Two wins in three tests, a 58.2 percent OpenCL advantage, a higher average score, and a higher percentile make it the stronger card in the recorded results, especially for anyone whose workflow touches OpenCL. Add its 35 W TDP, half that of the Pro 560X, and the Pro 460 is the better pick for compute and thermals alike.

The Pro 560X is harder to recommend on benchmark evidence alone. Its only recorded win is a three-point Vulkan tie, and its average score trails the Pro 460 by a wide margin. The argument for it is entirely on the specification sheet: roughly 16 percent more memory bandwidth, roughly 11 percent more FP32 throughput, and higher pixel and texture rates. If a workload is bandwidth-bound rather than compute-scheduled, the Pro 560X's hardware edge could matter, but the database contains no measured result demonstrating it. For buyers choosing between machines carrying these two end-of-life parts, the Pro 460 is the data-backed pick; the Pro 560X is a bet on paper specifications the benchmarks did not confirm.