AMD Radeon Pro W5500 vs AMD Radeon RX 9060 Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is decisively the stronger GPU, winning 8 of 9 head-to-head benchmarks and delivering an average score of 16,014 versus 15,679 for the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. The RX 9060 leads by 2.1% in average score, but that aggregate figure hides massive swings in individual tests, where the newer card wins by margins ranging from 12.8% to 225%. The Pro W5500’s sole victory comes in Vulkan, where it edges ahead by 6.1% (42,021 vs 39,476), but this is a narrow, API-specific win against a broad and often overwhelming RX 9060 advantage. For gaming and most compute tasks, the RX 9060 is the clear choice; the Pro W5500 only makes sense for workloads that specifically favor its legacy Vulkan path or its single-slot professional form factor.

The Verdict

Pick the AMD Radeon RX 9060 if you prioritize raw performance across DirectX and OpenCL workloads. Its PassMark G3D score of 17,631 is 96.4% higher than the Pro W5500’s 8,978, and its PassMark GPU compute score of 9,919 is 106.5% higher than 4,804. The RX 9060 also wins the OpenCL test decisively, scoring 88,183 against 45,615, a 93.3% advantage. In legacy DirectX titles, the margin is even starker: the RX 9060 posts 225% higher PassMark DX11 scores (182 vs 56) and 121.3% higher DX10 scores (104 vs 47). This card is the verdict for anyone running modern or backward-compatible Windows games, particularly those using DX12, where it leads 44 to 39 (a 12.8% win).

Pick the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 only if your specific application relies on Vulkan performance or demands a single-slot, low-profile physical design. The Pro W5500’s Vulkan score of 42,021 beats the RX 9060’s 39,476, a 6.1% edge that could matter in Vulkan-only renderers. It is also the only card of the two with a single-slot bracket and a listed length of 241 mm (9.5 inches), versus the RX 9060’s dual-slot design. However, this is a narrow use case: the Pro W5500 loses every other head-to-head test, and its production status is end-of-life, meaning it offers no upgrade path. The data does not support choosing it for general-purpose performance.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16,014, which is 2.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500’s 15,679. The RX 9060 sits at the 59th percentile of all GPUs, while the Pro W5500 is at the 58th percentile.

Q: How big is the performance gap in DirectX 11?

A: The RX 9060 leads by 225% in PassMark DirectX 11, scoring 182 versus the Pro W5500’s 56. This is the largest single delta in the entire head-to-head set.

Q: Does the Pro W5500 win any benchmark?

A: Yes, the Pro W5500 wins the Geekbench Vulkan test, scoring 42,021 against the RX 9060’s 39,476, a 6.1% margin. It loses all other eight head-to-head contests.

Q: What are the physical size differences?

A: The RX 9060 is a dual-slot card, while the Pro W5500 is single-slot. The Pro W5500 has specified dimensions of 241 mm (9.5 inches) in length and 111 mm (4.4 inches) in height; the RX 9060’s dimensions are not listed in the data.

Q: Which card has better OpenCL compute performance?

A: The RX 9060 scores 88,183 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 93.3% higher than the Pro W5500’s 45,615. Its PassMark GPU compute score of 9,919 is 106.5% higher than 4,804.

Q: Are both cards from the same architecture generation?

A: No. The RX 9060 uses RDNA 4.0 on a 4 nm node, while the Pro W5500 uses RDNA 1.0 on a 7 nm node. The RX 9060 is based on the Navi 44 chip, and the Pro W5500 uses Navi 14.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different ends of AMD’s design timeline. The RX 9060 is built on RDNA 4.0, fabricated on a 4 nm process at TSMC, and uses the Navi 44 chip with a codename of Strix Point. The Pro W5500 is RDNA 1.0, built on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC, with the Navi 14 chip. The transistor counts reflect the generational leap: the RX 9060 packs 29,700 million transistors on a 199 mm² die, yielding a density of 149.2 million transistors per mm². The Pro W5500 has 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die, for a density of 40.5 million per mm². That is a 3.7x density advantage for the RX 9060, explaining how it achieves far higher throughput despite a similar power envelope.

Ray tracing is a major architectural split. The RX 9060 includes 28 dedicated ray tracing cores, while the Pro W5500 lists none. This means the RX 9060 can handle hardware-accelerated ray tracing workloads, whereas the Pro W5500 cannot. Shader and texture resources also differ: the RX 9060 has 1,792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, versus 1,408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs on the Pro W5500. The RX 9060’s ROP count is double, which contributes to its 191.4 GPixel/s pixel rate versus 59.36 GPixel/s.

API support further separates them. The RX 9060 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Pro W5500 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the RX 9060’s newer architecture is designed for the full feature set of modern DirectX. The Pro W5500’s FP16 rate of 10.45 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) is actually higher than its FP32 rate of 5.224 TFLOPS, whereas the RX 9060 delivers 21.43 TFLOPS for both FP16 and FP32 at a 1:1 ratio, indicating a more balanced compute design.

Specification Differences

The most striking differences are in clock speeds and memory bandwidth. The RX 9060 has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a boost clock of 2990 MHz, and a game clock of 2400 MHz. The Pro W5500’s base clock is 1744 MHz and its boost is 1855 MHz, with no game clock listed. The RX 9060’s boost is 61% higher, which directly feeds its higher pixel and texture rates. Memory clocks also favor the RX 9060: its GDDR6 runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) versus 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) on the Pro W5500. Both have 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, but the RX 9060 achieves 288.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 224.0 GB/s — a 28.6% advantage.

Power and physical design differ as well. The RX 9060 has a TDP of 132 W and uses a 1x 8-pin power connector, while the Pro W5500 has a 125 W TDP and a 1x 6-pin connector. Both recommend a 300 W power supply. The RX 9060 is dual-slot, the Pro W5500 is single-slot. The bus interface is a major differentiator: the RX 9060 uses PCIe 5.0 x16, while the Pro W5500 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, which halves the available lanes for the older card.

Display outputs also diverge. The RX 9060 offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 2x DisplayPort 2.1a, while the Pro W5500 has 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. The Pro W5500 has a launch MSRP of 399 USD, while the RX 9060 has no launch MSRP listed. The RX 9060 was released on 2025-08-04 and is active in production; the Pro W5500 was released on 2020-02-09 and is end-of-life.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The RX 9060 dominates the PassMark suite. In DirectX 11, the RX 9060 scores 182 versus 56, a 225% lead — the largest delta of any test. DirectX 10 shows a 121.3% win (104 vs 47), and DirectX 9 shows a 122.2% win (280 vs 126). DirectX 12 is closer but still a clear win: 44 vs 39, a 12.8% margin. The 2D performance gap is smaller but consistent: 1,002 vs 806, a 24.3% win for the RX 9060. The 3D score is the headline: 17,631 vs 8,978, a 96.4% improvement.

Compute benchmarks follow the same pattern. Geekbench OpenCL shows the RX 9060 at 88,183 versus 45,615, a 93.3% win. PassMark GPU compute shows 9,919 vs 4,804, a 106.5% win. These results indicate that the RX 9060 is not just faster in graphics but also in raw compute throughput, likely due to its higher shader count and 1:1 FP32/FP16 ratio.

The Pro W5500’s only win is in Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 42,021 against the RX 9060’s 39,476. That is a 6.1% margin, and it is the sole data point in its favor. Interestingly, the Pro W5500 also has a Geekbench Metal score of 54,302, but the RX 9060 has no comparable Metal result in the head-to-head set, so this cannot be directly compared. The Vulkan win may reflect driver maturity on the older RDNA 1.0 architecture, but it does not offset the RX 9060’s victories across nine other metrics.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 9060 wins in every category that matters for modern gaming and general compute. It takes all four PassMark DirectX tests (DX9, DX10, DX11, DX12), with the largest margins in older APIs (225% in DX11, 122.2% in DX9). It wins 2D and 3D performance, making it the better choice for desktop rendering, video playback, and game engines. Its OpenCL and GPU compute wins make it superior for OpenCL-based workloads like physics simulation, image processing, and general-purpose GPGPU tasks. The 28 ray tracing cores give it a hardware capability that the Pro W5500 lacks entirely, which is decisive for any ray-traced game or renderer.

The Pro W5500 wins in exactly one scenario: Vulkan API workloads. If an application is Vulkan-only and not bottlenecked by other factors, its 6.1% lead in Geekbench Vulkan (42,021 vs 39,476) is the only measurable advantage. It also has a single-slot design, which is an advantage in dense multi-GPU systems or small form factor chassis where the RX 9060’s dual-slot footprint cannot fit. The Pro W5500’s 4x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs exceed the RX 9060’s 1x HDMI 2.1b and 2x DisplayPort 2.1a, making it potentially more suitable for multi-monitor professional setups, though the RX 9060’s DisplayPort 2.1a supports higher bandwidth per connection. Finally, the Pro W5500’s end-of-life status means it is a legacy option; the RX 9060 is active and current. For any user who does not specifically require single-slot mounting or Vulkan-only performance, the RX 9060 is the data-backed winner.