AMD Radeon Pro 555 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data presents a sharply split picture between these two GPUs, with each card dominating in different API workloads. In Geekbench Metal, the AMD Radeon Pro 555 takes a decisive victory, scoring 16,236 against the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770's 9,369. That represents a 42.3% deficit for the GTX 770, a substantial margin that highlights the AMD card's strength in Apple's Metal API. This is the only test where the AMD Radeon Pro 555 emerges victorious, but the margin is large enough to define its profile.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 answers back emphatically in the other two workloads. In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 770 scores 15,707 compared to the Radeon Pro 555's 11,682, a 34.5% advantage. The gap widens further in Geekbench Vulkan, where the GTX 770 posts 19,166 against 12,303 for the AMD card, a commanding 55.8% lead. These are not marginal differences; the NVIDIA card is delivering roughly a third more performance in OpenCL and more than half again in Vulkan.

Looking at the aggregate benchmark score, the GTX 770 averages 14,747 across all tests, while the Radeon Pro 555 averages 13,407. The overall average places the GTX 770 about 10% ahead, but this masks the fact that the two cards are trading blows based on the API in question. The average score for the GTX 770 puts it in the 57th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the Radeon Pro 555 sits at the 54th percentile. Both cards occupy similar mid-pack territory, but the GTX 770's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, averages 14,692, just 0.4% behind, while the Radeon Pro 555's closest competitor, the AMD Radeon HD 8950M, averages 13,376, a 0.2% gap. The data shows that both cards are competitive within their respective peer groups, though their strengths are distributed differently across workload types.

Where Each One Wins

The use-case split is clear from the head-to-head results. The AMD Radeon Pro 555 is the stronger choice for Metal-based workloads, which are primarily found in macOS environments. Its 16,236 Metal score is not only 42.3% ahead of the GTX 770 but also represents its best absolute result across the three benchmark tests. This suggests the card is optimized for Apple's graphics stack, making it the more suitable option for creative applications on Mac platforms that leverage Metal for GPU acceleration.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770, by contrast, wins decisively in OpenCL and Vulkan. The 34.5% OpenCL advantage indicates strong general-purpose compute performance, while the 55.8% Vulkan lead points to robust cross-platform graphics API support. For users running Linux or Windows environments where Vulkan is the primary low-level API, or for compute tasks that rely on OpenCL, the GTX 770 is clearly the better performer. The GTX 770's texture rate of 138.9 GTexel/s versus 40.80 GTexel/s for the AMD card, and its pixel rate of 34.72 GPixel/s versus 13.60 GPixel/s, reinforce its advantage in rasterization-heavy workloads.

The Radeon Pro 555's architecture also supports FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, delivering 1,305.6 GFLOPS in both precisions, whereas the GTX 770 has no listed FP16 capability. For workloads that can utilize half-precision arithmetic, the AMD card offers a flexibility the NVIDIA card lacks, though its absolute FP32 throughput of 1,305.6 GFLOPS is considerably lower than the GTX 770's 3.333 TFLOPS.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs represent fundamentally different design philosophies from different eras. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 is built on the Kepler architecture using the GK104 chip, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The die measures 294 mm² and contains 3,540 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 12.0M per mm². The AMD Radeon Pro 555, on the other hand, uses the GCN 4.0 architecture with the Polaris 21 chip, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. Its die is substantially smaller at 123 mm², housing 3,000 million transistors for a density of 24.4M per mm², more than double the GTX 770's density.

The compute resource allocation differs markedly. The GTX 770 packs 1,536 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operations pipelines. The Radeon Pro 555 has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, exactly half the shading units and ROPs, and 37.5% of the TMU count. This disparity explains the large differences in texture and pixel throughput, with the GTX 770 delivering 138.9 GTexel/s against 40.80 GTexel/s for the AMD card.

Memory architecture also diverges significantly. Both cards have 2 GB of GDDR5, but the GTX 770 uses a 256-bit bus width versus 128-bit for the Radeon Pro 555, resulting in 224.4 GB/s of bandwidth for the NVIDIA card versus 81.60 GB/s for the AMD card. The memory clocks differ as well, with the GTX 770 running at 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective) and the Radeon Pro 555 at 1275 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective). The GTX 770's bandwidth advantage of nearly 2.75x is substantial and contributes directly to its higher fill rates.

Power characteristics reflect their respective positioning. The GTX 770 carries a 230 W TDP and requires dual-slot cooling with 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connectors, plus a suggested 550 W power supply. The Radeon Pro 555 is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with a 75 W TDP, no power connectors, and no suggested PSU rating, designed to draw power directly from the host system. The bus interface also differs, with the GTX 770 using PCIe 3.0 x16 and the Radeon Pro 555 using PCIe 3.0 x8.

API support shows generational differences. The GTX 770 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The Radeon Pro 555 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The AMD card's newer GCN 4.0 architecture brings a higher DirectX feature level and a newer Vulkan version, though the GTX 770's Vulkan performance in benchmarks is nonetheless far superior.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every measurable specification. The GTX 770 uses the GK104 chip on a 28 nm TSMC process with 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, while the Radeon Pro 555 uses Polaris 21 on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process with 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. Transistor density is 12.0M per mm² for NVIDIA versus 24.4M per mm² for AMD.

Clock speeds show the GTX 770 has a base clock of 1046 MHz and boost of 1085 MHz, while the Radeon Pro 555 has no listed base or boost clocks. Memory clocks are 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective) for the GTX 770 and 1275 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective) for the Radeon Pro 555. Memory bus width is 256-bit versus 128-bit, and bandwidth is 224.4 GB/s versus 81.60 GB/s.

Compute resources: 1,536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs for the GTX 770; 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs for the Radeon Pro 555. Pixel rate is 34.72 GPixel/s versus 13.60 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 138.9 GTexel/s versus 40.80 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 3.333 TFLOPS versus 1,305.6 GFLOPS, with the AMD card also offering FP16 at 1,305.6 GFLOPS (1:1) while the NVIDIA card lists no FP16 capability.

TDP is 230 W for the GTX 770 versus 75 W for the Radeon Pro 555. The GTX 770 is dual-slot with 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin connectors and a 550 W suggested PSU; the Radeon Pro 555 is an IGP with no connectors and no suggested PSU. Bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x8. Display outputs are 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2 for the GTX 770, while the Radeon Pro 555 is portable device dependent. The GTX 770 measures 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 38 mm in width, while the Radeon Pro 555 has no listed dimensions. DirectX support is 12 (11_0) versus 12 (12_0), and Vulkan is 1.2.175 versus 1.3. The GTX 770 was released on 2013-05-29 with a launch MSRP of 399 USD; the Radeon Pro 555 was released on 2017-06-04 with no launch MSRP listed.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in overall average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 has a higher average benchmark score of 14,747 compared to the AMD Radeon Pro 555's 13,407, placing it in the 57th percentile versus the 54th percentile for the AMD card.

Q: Why does the AMD Radeon Pro 555 win the Metal benchmark by such a large margin?

A: The Radeon Pro 555 scores 16,236 in Geekbench Metal versus 9,369 for the GTX 770, a 42.3% advantage. This reflects the AMD card's optimization for Apple's Metal API, which is its strongest workload among the three tests.

Q: How do the two cards compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The GTX 770 is significantly ahead in Geekbench Vulkan, scoring 19,166 against 12,303 for the Radeon Pro 555, a 55.8% lead. This is the largest performance gap between the two cards in any benchmark.

Q: What are the key memory bandwidth differences?

A: The GTX 770 has a 256-bit memory bus with 224.4 GB/s bandwidth, while the Radeon Pro 555 has a 128-bit bus with 81.60 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 770 also runs its GDDR5 memory at 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective) versus 1275 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective) for the AMD card.

Q: Which GPU has higher compute throughput in FP32?

A: The GTX 770 delivers 3.333 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is more than 2.5 times the Radeon Pro 555's 1,305.6 GFLOPS. However, the Radeon Pro 555 offers FP16 at 1,305.6 GFLOPS (1:1), a capability not listed for the GTX 770.

Q: How do the power requirements differ between the two cards?

A: The GTX 770 has a 230 W TDP, is dual-slot, requires 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin power connectors, and recommends a 550 W power supply. The Radeon Pro 555 is an integrated graphics processor with a 75 W TDP, no power connectors, and no suggested PSU, making it far less demanding on the host system.