AMD Radeon Pro 555 vs AMD Radeon RX 580 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 555 and the AMD Radeon RX 580 are both end-of-life GCN 4.0 parts from the same 14 nm generation, but they occupy completely different performance tiers. Benchmark data shows the RX 580 is the dominant performer, winning all three head-to-head tests by massive margins, with the Pro 555 trailing by 64% to 73% depending on the API. Despite this, both cards sit within one percentile point of each other in the global database (54th vs 53rd), which illustrates how the Pro 555’s mobile-oriented design and the RX 580’s desktop-class power create different value propositions in different contexts.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 555 has a higher average benchmark score of 13,407 compared to the AMD Radeon RX 580’s 12,928. This is a 3.7% advantage for the Pro 555, even though the RX 580 wins every individual head-to-head test.

Q: How much faster is the RX 580 in Geekbench Metal?

A: The RX 580 scores 45,235 in Geekbench Metal, while the Pro 555 scores 16,236. The RX 580 is 64.1% ahead, which is the smallest margin of victory across the three head-to-head tests.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between the two cards?

A: The Pro 555 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 81.60 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 580 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 256.0 GB/s bandwidth — more than three times the bandwidth.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor density?

A: The RX 580 has a transistor density of 24.6M / mm², while the Pro 555 has 24.4M / mm². The difference is negligible, as both use the same 14 nm GlobalFoundries process.

Q: Do both cards support the same DirectX version?

A: Yes, both support DirectX 12 (12_0), along with OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.3. Their API feature sets are identical.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the RX 580?

A: The RX 580 launched with an MSRP of 229 USD. The Pro 555 has no launch MSRP listed in the data.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 580 wins decisively in raw compute and graphics throughput. Across the three head-to-head benchmarks — Geekbench Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan — the RX 580 takes all three victories. The largest win comes in Vulkan, where the RX 580 scores 45,173 against the Pro 555’s 12,303, a 72.8% advantage. The smallest win is in Metal, where the RX 580 leads by 64.1%. This pattern holds across all measured APIs, indicating the RX 580’s advantage is architectural and not API-specific.

The AMD Radeon Pro 555’s only statistical win is in average benchmark score, where it edges out the RX 580 by 479 points (13,407 vs 12,928). This anomaly likely stems from the benchmark distribution: the Pro 555 has three Geekbench results, while the RX 580’s average includes a broader set of PassMark and 3DMark tests, some of which are lower-scoring. In terms of percentile ranking, the Pro 555 sits at the 54th percentile, one point above the RX 580’s 53rd percentile, reinforcing that the Pro 555’s average is inflated by a narrower test suite.

For real-world use cases, the RX 580 is the clear choice for any workload that stresses the GPU — gaming, rendering, or compute. The Pro 555, with its IGP slot width and portable-device-dependent display outputs, is designed for integration into laptops or compact systems where the RX 580’s dual-slot, 185 W footprint would be impractical. The Pro 555’s 75 W TDP makes it suitable for power-constrained environments, though the data does not include any power efficiency benchmarks to quantify this advantage.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs share the GCN 4.0 architecture and are built on the same 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries, but their silicon implementations differ significantly. The Pro 555 uses the Polaris 21 chip, which is a smaller die at 123 mm² with 3,000 million transistors. The RX 580 uses the Polaris 20 chip, which is nearly double the die size at 232 mm² and packs 5,700 million transistors. Transistor density is nearly identical — 24.4M / mm² vs 24.6M / mm² — confirming that the performance gap comes from scale, not process efficiency.

The RX 580’s larger chip translates directly into more execution resources. It has 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. The Pro 555 has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs — exactly one-third of the RX 580’s shading units and TMUs, and half the ROPs. This 3:1 ratio in shading units explains why the RX 580’s FP32 compute is 6.175 TFLOPS versus the Pro 555’s 1,305.6 GFLOPS, a 4.7x difference in raw floating-point throughput.

Memory architecture is another major divergence. The RX 580 features a 256-bit memory bus with 8 GB of GDDR5, while the Pro 555 uses a 128-bit bus with 2 GB. Both run GDDR5, but the RX 580’s memory clock is 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) versus the Pro 555’s 1275 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective). The resulting bandwidth gap is stark: 256.0 GB/s vs 81.60 GB/s. The RX 580 also has a higher boost clock at 1340 MHz, while the Pro 555 lists no boost clock in the data.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets reveal a clear tier separation. The RX 580 has a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz; the Pro 555 lists no base or boost clock. Memory size differs by 4x (8 GB vs 2 GB), and bus width doubles from 128-bit to 256-bit. Bandwidth jumps from 81.60 GB/s to 256.0 GB/s. The RX 580’s pixel rate is 42.88 GPixel/s versus 13.60 GPixel/s for the Pro 555, and its texture rate is 193.0 GTexel/s versus 40.80 GTexel/s.

Power and physical specifications diverge sharply. The RX 580 has a 185 W TDP with a dual-slot form factor, a single 8-pin power connector, and a suggested PSU of 450 W. It measures 241 mm (9.5 inches) in length. The Pro 555 is an IGP with no power connectors, a 75 W TDP, and portable-device-dependent display outputs. The RX 580 offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the Pro 555’s outputs are unspecified. Both use PCIe 3.0, but the RX 580 runs at x16 while the Pro 555 is limited to x8.

The RX 580 was released on 2017-04-17, roughly seven weeks before the Pro 555’s 2017-06-04 release. The RX 580’s predecessor is listed as Arctic Islands and its successor as Vega, while the Pro 555 has no predecessor or successor listed. The RX 580 has a launch MSRP of 229 USD; the Pro 555 has none.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The three head-to-head tests all favor the RX 580, and the margins are consistently large. In Geekbench Metal, the RX 580 posts 45,235 against the Pro 555’s 16,236, a 64.1% lead. This is the closest result, but still a dominant victory. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 580 scores 37,453 versus 11,682, widening the gap to 68.8%. The Pro 555’s relative performance degrades further in Vulkan, where the RX 580’s 45,173 dwarfs the Pro 555’s 12,303, a 72.8% difference.

The trend across these three tests is instructive. The RX 580’s advantage grows as the test moves from Metal to OpenCL to Vulkan, suggesting the larger Polaris 20 die scales better with compute-heavy workloads. The Pro 555’s scores cluster between 11,682 and 16,236, while the RX 580’s scores range from 37,453 to 45,235 — a much wider spread that indicates the RX 580 has more headroom across different API implementations.

Looking at the RX 580’s broader benchmark suite, its PassMark scores show strengths in specific areas: 8,813 in G3D, 3,488 in GPU compute, and 769 in G2D. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1,005. The Pro 555 has no equivalent results in the data, so direct comparison is limited to the three Geekbench tests. The RX 580’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (0.1% lower average score) and the GTX 1660 SUPER (0.4% lower), while the Pro 555’s nearest rival is the AMD Radeon HD 8950M (0.2% higher average score).

The Verdict

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the unequivocal performance winner. It beats the Pro 555 by 64% to 73% across all three head-to-head benchmarks, offers 4x the memory, 3x the shading units, and over 3x the memory bandwidth. For any application that demands GPU throughput — whether gaming, 3D rendering, or compute tasks — the RX 580 is the only rational choice based on this data.

The AMD Radeon Pro 555’s case rests entirely on form factor and power. Its 75 W TDP, IGP slot width, and lack of power connectors make it suitable for compact or mobile systems where the RX 580’s 185 W TDP, dual-slot design, and 8-pin connector are non-starters. The Pro 555’s higher average benchmark score (13,407 vs 12,928) and one-point percentile advantage (54th vs 53rd) are statistical artifacts of a smaller test suite, not evidence of superior performance.

Buyers should choose the RX 580 if they have the physical space, power budget, and need for maximum performance. Choose the Pro 555 only if the system constraint — an IGP slot, no auxiliary power — makes the RX 580 physically impossible to install. The RX 580’s 8 GB memory and 256-bit bus also make it far more future-proof for large textures and high-resolution workloads. The Pro 555’s 2 GB frame buffer is a hard ceiling for modern content. The verdict is clear: the RX 580 is the better GPU by every measurable performance metric in the data.