AMD Radeon Pro 5300 vs Intel Arc A550M Comparison

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Arc A550M compare to the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 in raw compute performance?

A: The Intel Arc A550M leads decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 49,894 against 38,747 for the AMD, a 28.8% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the Intel scores 49,580 versus 35,793 for the AMD, a 38.5% gap.

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Arc A550M averages 49,737 across all recorded benchmarks, which places it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 averages 40,870, sitting in the 82nd percentile. That is a difference of roughly 21.7% in average score.

Q: What memory configuration does each GPU use?

A: The Intel Arc A550M comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on the same 128-bit bus, also delivering 224.0 GB/s. Both run at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed.

Q: Which GPU supports hardware ray tracing?

A: Only the Intel Arc A550M includes dedicated ray tracing cores, with 16 RT cores present. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 has no RT cores listed in the database. The Intel part also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the AMD part tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1).

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The Intel Arc A550M has a TDP of 60 W, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 has a TDP of 85 W. The AMD part lists a suggested PSU of 250 W, whereas the Intel part has no suggested PSU recorded. Neither card requires external power connectors; the AMD explicitly lists "None."

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor density?

A: The Intel Arc A550M, built on TSMC's 6 nm process, packs 21,700 million transistors into a 406 mm² die, yielding 53.4M transistors per mm². The AMD Radeon Pro 5300, on TSMC's 7 nm node, has 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die, giving 40.5M per mm².

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs represent fundamentally different design philosophies. The Intel Arc A550M uses the Xe-HPG architecture, built around the DG2-512 chip, and is part of the Alchemist generation (Arc 5 Mobile). It is manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC, a more advanced node than the AMD's 7 nm process. This allows Intel to pack 21,700 million transistors into a 406 mm² die, a substantial increase over AMD's 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die. The result is a transistor density of 53.4M per mm² for Intel versus 40.5M per mm² for AMD.

The compute layout differs sharply. The Intel GPU fields 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. It also includes 16 dedicated ray tracing cores. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300, based on the Navi 14 chip and RDNA 1.0 architecture, has 1280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It has no ray tracing cores at all. This structural difference directly explains the large performance gaps in graphics workloads.

Clock behavior also diverges. The Intel chip has a base clock of 900 MHz and a boost clock of 2050 MHz, a wide dynamic range. The AMD chip starts higher at 1000 MHz base but boosts to only 1650 MHz. Despite the lower base, Intel's boost advantage of 400 MHz helps it achieve far higher peak throughput.

Feature support separates the two as well. The Intel Arc A550M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), the full modern feature set including ray tracing and mesh shaders. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 supports only DirectX 12 (12_1), which lacks some of those advanced features. Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The memory subsystem is identical in bus width (128 bit) and bandwidth (224.0 GB/s), but Intel doubles the capacity to 8 GB versus AMD's 4 GB.

Power efficiency is a notable differentiator. The Intel part consumes 60 W under load, while the AMD part draws 85 W. Despite the higher power draw, the AMD produces significantly lower performance, making the Intel design more efficient per watt. The AMD's suggested PSU of 250 W further indicates a heavier system footprint, though neither card requires external power connectors.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct benchmark comparisons between these GPUs, and the Intel Arc A550M wins both. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Intel scores 49,894 against the AMD's 38,747. That is a 28.8% advantage, a substantial margin that reflects the Intel's higher shader count, larger memory pool, and faster boost clock. The AMD's 4.224 TFLOPS of FP32 compute simply cannot keep pace with the Intel's 8.397 TFLOPS.

The gap widens further in Geekbench Vulkan. Here, the Intel Arc A550M scores 49,580, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 scores 35,793. That represents a 38.5% lead for Intel. Vulkan tends to favor architectures with strong async compute and modern scheduling, and the Xe-HPG design appears to capitalize on this. The AMD's RDNA 1.0 architecture, while competent, does not close the gap in this API.

Looking at the broader context, the Intel's average score of 49,737 positions it just 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (49,957) and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (50,001). It is 2.4% behind the Radeon RX 6900 XT (50,951) but 2.6% ahead of the Radeon RX 6800 XT (48,477). The AMD Radeon Pro 5300, with an average of 40,870, sits 0.8% behind the RTX 3080 Ti (41,187) and 1.2% ahead of the RTX 5070 (40,377). It also edges out the Radeon Pro 580 (40,318) by 1.4% and the Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40,063) by 2.0%.

The per-test results tell a clear story. The Intel GPU is not just marginally faster; it is categorically superior in both recorded workloads. The largest single-test margin, 38.5% in Vulkan, shows that the architecture scales well with modern APIs. The smaller OpenCL margin of 28.8% still represents a decisive win. No benchmark in the database favors the AMD part.

Specification Differences

| Specification | Intel Arc A550M | AMD Radeon Pro 5300 |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Xe-HPG | RDNA 1.0 |

| Process Node | 6 nm | 7 nm |

| Transistors | 21,700 million | 6,400 million |

| Die Size | 406 mm² | 158 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 53.4M / mm² | 40.5M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 900 MHz | 1000 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2050 MHz | 1650 MHz |

| Memory Size | 8 GB | 4 GB |

| Shading Units | 2048 | 1280 |

| TMUs | 128 | 80 |

| ROPs | 64 | 32 |

| Ray Tracing Cores | 16 | None |

| Pixel Rate | 131.2 GPixel/s | 52.80 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 262.4 GTexel/s | 132.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 8.397 TFLOPS | 4.224 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 16.79 TFLOPS (2:1) | 8.448 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 60 W | 85 W |

| Suggested PSU | None | 250 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x8 |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | No outputs |

| DirectX | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (12_1) |

| Release Date | Not recorded | 2020-08-03 |

The Verdict

The data points to a straightforward conclusion: the Intel Arc A550M is the stronger GPU in every measured category. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks, posting a 28.8% lead in OpenCL and a 38.5% lead in Vulkan. Its average benchmark score of 49,737 versus 40,870 places it in a higher percentile (86th versus 82nd) and closer to high-end desktop parts like the Radeon RX 6900 XT.

For users prioritizing compute performance, particularly in Vulkan-based workloads, the Intel Arc A550M is the clear choice. Its 8 GB memory capacity doubles the AMD's 4 GB, which matters for larger datasets and higher-resolution textures. The presence of 16 ray tracing cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support gives it a feature advantage that the AMD cannot match. The lower 60 W TDP also makes it more suitable for thermally constrained systems.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 does have one advantage: its release date of August 3, 2020, means it has a longer production history, though both are now end-of-life. Its higher base clock of 1000 MHz is irrelevant given the Intel's 2050 MHz boost. The AMD's 85 W TDP and 250 W suggested PSU indicate it demands more system resources while delivering less performance.

Buyers who need a GPU for maximum compute throughput, modern API support, and larger memory should select the Intel Arc A550M. Buyers who require only basic OpenCL or Metal performance (the AMD's Metal score of 48,070 is its best) and who are constrained to systems without external power connectors might consider the AMD, but the benchmark data shows no scenario where it outperforms the Intel part. The verdict from the database is unambiguous: Intel wins on every recorded metric.