AMD Radeon Pro 555X vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and the AMD Radeon Pro 555X represent two very different corners of the GPU market: one is a high-performance desktop part from the Pascal generation, while the other is a low-power mobile integrated GPU from AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture. The benchmark data shows a decisive performance gap, with the GTX 1070 Ti winning all three shared tests by margins ranging from 53.2% to 374.6%. This analysis walks through the architectural, benchmark, and specification data to explain exactly where each card stands.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti than the AMD Radeon Pro 555X in Geekbench Metal?

A: The GTX 1070 Ti scores 22,180 in Geekbench Metal, while the Radeon Pro 555X scores 14,479. The delta is 53.2%, meaning the NVIDIA card is roughly half again as fast in this test.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score, and by how much?

A: The GTX 1070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 14,277, while the Radeon Pro 555X averages 13,321. The difference is 956 points, a margin of roughly 7.2% in favor of the NVIDIA card.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between the two in any shared benchmark?

A: The largest gap occurs in Geekbench Vulkan, where the GTX 1070 Ti scores 61,006 versus the Radeon Pro 555X’s 12,855. This represents a 374.6% advantage for the NVIDIA card, making it over four times faster in that specific test.

Q: How do the two cards compare in their nearest rival groupings?

A: The GTX 1070 Ti sits within 0.7% of cards like the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics and AMD Radeon Vega 11, while the Radeon Pro 555X is within 0.4% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 and AMD FirePro M6100. Neither card leads its respective rival group by a wide margin.

Q: What are the transistor counts and die sizes for each GPU?

A: The GTX 1070 Ti packs 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, while the Radeon Pro 555X contains 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. The GTX 1070 Ti has more than double the transistors and a die roughly 2.5 times larger.

Q: Which card supports a higher DirectX version?

A: The GTX 1070 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the Radeon Pro 555X supports DirectX 12 (12_0). The NVIDIA card’s feature level is one step higher in the DirectX 12 specification.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design philosophies and process nodes. The GTX 1070 Ti is built on NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture using a 16 nm TSMC process, while the Radeon Pro 555X uses AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process. Despite the slightly larger process node, the GTX 1070 Ti uses a far larger GP104 chip at 314 mm², compared to the Radeon Pro 555X’s Polaris 21 die at 123 mm². This size difference translates directly into resource counts: the GTX 1070 Ti has 2,432 shading units, 152 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, while the Radeon Pro 555X has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and only 16 ROPs.

The memory subsystems also diverge sharply. The GTX 1070 Ti uses a 256-bit bus with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective), delivering 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 555X uses a 128-bit bus with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1470 MHz (5.9 Gbps effective), resulting in 94.08 GB/s. That is a 2.7x difference in raw memory bandwidth, which heavily impacts high-resolution and texture-heavy workloads.

Compute capabilities follow the same pattern. The GTX 1070 Ti delivers 8.186 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 107.7 GPixel/s pixel fill rate, while the Radeon Pro 555X offers 1,393.2 GFLOPS of FP32 and 14.51 GPixel/s. Interestingly, the Radeon Pro 555X has a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio (1,393.2 GFLOPS for both), whereas the GTX 1070 Ti has a 1:64 ratio, with FP16 performance of only 127.9 GFLOPS. This means the AMD card is better suited for workloads that leverage half-precision arithmetic, though the NVIDIA card’s raw FP32 output still dwarfs it.

The power envelope tells another story of design intent. The GTX 1070 Ti is a dual-slot card with an 8-pin power connector and a 180 W TDP, requiring a 450 W suggested PSU. The Radeon Pro 555X is an integrated GPU (IGP) with a 75 W TDP, no power connectors, and no specified PSU requirement. The GTX 1070 Ti also uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, whereas the Radeon Pro 555X uses a narrower PCIe 3.0 x8 link. Display outputs differ as well: the GTX 1070 Ti offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the Radeon Pro 555X is listed as “Portable Device Dependent,” reflecting its mobile laptop integration.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The shared benchmark suite contains only three tests, all from Geekbench, and the GTX 1070 Ti wins every one of them. In Geekbench Metal, the NVIDIA card scores 22,180 against the AMD card’s 14,479, a 53.2% advantage. This is the closest margin of the three, suggesting that Metal API overhead narrows the gap somewhat, but the NVIDIA card still leads by a substantial margin.

The Geekbench OpenCL test shows a much larger divergence. The GTX 1070 Ti scores 49,219, while the Radeon Pro 555X manages only 12,628. That works out to a 289.8% delta, meaning the NVIDIA card is nearly four times faster in this compute-oriented workload. The gap likely stems from the GTX 1070 Ti’s higher shading unit count and memory bandwidth, both of which are critical for OpenCL’s data-parallel tasks.

The most extreme difference appears in Geekbench Vulkan. The GTX 1070 Ti scores 61,006, and the Radeon Pro 555X scores 12,855. The delta here is 374.6%, the largest of any shared test. Vulkan is a low-overhead API that often rewards raw hardware resources, and the GTX 1070 Ti’s 2,432 shading units versus 768 on the AMD card provide a massive compute advantage. The Radeon Pro 555X’s narrower 128-bit memory bus and lower bandwidth also likely bottleneck its Vulkan performance.

Overall, the head-to-head record is 3 wins for the GTX 1070 Ti and 0 for the Radeon Pro 555X. The average delta across all three tests is roughly 239%, but that figure is skewed by the extreme Vulkan result. Even excluding that outlier, the NVIDIA card maintains a lead of over 50% in Metal and nearly 300% in OpenCL, making it the clear winner in every measured scenario.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The GTX 1070 Ti has a base clock of 1607 MHz and a boost clock of 1683 MHz, while the Radeon Pro 555X has no listed base or boost clocks. Memory speed also differs: the NVIDIA card runs at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective), while the AMD card runs at 1470 MHz (5.9 Gbps effective). Memory size and bus width are 8 GB and 256-bit versus 4 GB and 128-bit, respectively, with bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s versus 94.08 GB/s.

Shading units, TMUs, and ROPs all favor the GTX 1070 Ti: 2,432 versus 768 shading units, 152 versus 48 TMUs, and 64 versus 16 ROPs. Pixel rate is 107.7 GPixel/s versus 14.51 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 255.8 GTexel/s versus 43.54 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 8.186 TFLOPS versus 1,393.2 GFLOPS, and FP16 performance is 127.9 GFLOPS versus 1,393.2 GFLOPS, with the AMD card offering a 1:1 ratio and the NVIDIA card a 1:64 ratio.

Power consumption is a major differentiator: the GTX 1070 Ti draws 180 W TDP and requires a 450 W PSU, while the Radeon Pro 555X draws only 75 W TDP with no PSU requirement. The NVIDIA card is dual-slot with an 8-pin connector, while the AMD card is an IGP with no connectors. The GTX 1070 Ti uses PCIe 3.0 x16, and the Radeon Pro 555X uses PCIe 3.0 x8. DirectX support is 12_1 versus 12_0, while OpenGL is 4.6 for both, and Vulkan is 1.4 versus 1.3. The GTX 1070 Ti has dimensions of 267 mm x 112 mm x 40 mm, while the Radeon Pro 555X has no listed dimensions. The NVIDIA card was released on 2017-11-01, and the AMD card on 2018-07-15, with both marked as end-of-life.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear hierarchy: the GTX 1070 Ti is the superior performer in every shared benchmark, with wins across Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan. Its average benchmark score of 14,277 is 7.2% higher than the Radeon Pro 555X’s 13,321, and its percentile ranking of 56 versus 54 places it slightly higher among all GPUs. The NVIDIA card’s nearest rivals are all within 0.7% of its average score, while the AMD card’s nearest rivals are within 0.4%, indicating both are competitively positioned within their respective performance tiers.

However, the comparison is not apples-to-apples in terms of use case. The GTX 1070 Ti is a desktop card with a 180 W TDP, dual-slot cooler, and 8-pin power connector, designed for high-performance gaming and compute. The Radeon Pro 555X is an integrated mobile GPU with a 75 W TDP, no power connectors, and no dimensions, built for laptops where power efficiency and space are paramount. The GTX 1070 Ti’s launch MSRP was 399 USD, and it is now end-of-life, as is the Radeon Pro 555X.

For anyone building a desktop system with room for a dual-slot card, the GTX 1070 Ti is the obvious choice based on raw performance. For a laptop user who needs a GPU that fits into a portable chassis without external power, the Radeon Pro 555X is the only viable option between the two, despite its significantly lower scores. The verdict is not about which card is better in absolute terms—it is about which fits the intended hardware platform.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 1070 Ti wins in every benchmark category measured. In Geekbench Metal, it leads by 53.2%, making it the stronger choice for macOS or Metal-based applications on desktop systems. In Geekbench OpenCL, its 289.8% advantage makes it far superior for general-purpose compute tasks that rely on OpenCL, such as video encoding, physics simulations, and scientific calculations. In Geekbench Vulkan, its 374.6% lead makes it the clear winner for Vulkan-based games and applications, which benefit from its massive shading unit count and memory bandwidth.

The Radeon Pro 555X has no benchmark wins in the shared suite, so its strengths lie outside the measured metrics. Its 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio (1,393.2 GFLOPS for both) could provide an advantage in half-precision workloads, though the GTX 1070 Ti’s FP32 output is still nearly six times higher. Its 75 W TDP and IGP form factor make it the only choice for ultra-thin laptops that cannot accommodate a discrete card. The Radeon Pro 555X also supports Vulkan 1.3, which is one version behind the GTX 1070 Ti’s Vulkan 1.4, but that is unlikely to compensate for the raw performance deficit.

In practical terms, the GTX 1070 Ti wins in any scenario where performance is the priority and power draw is not a constraint. The Radeon Pro 555X wins in scenarios where integration, low power, and portability are the primary requirements, accepting a large trade-off in speed. The data shows no overlap in their competitive domains: the GTX 1070 Ti is a performance part, and the Radeon Pro 555X is an efficiency part, and neither infringes on the other’s territory.