AMD Radeon Pro W5700X vs AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data splits these two AMD GPUs into sharply different roles. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE wins both shared benchmark tests outright: Geekbench OpenCL (69,229 vs. 43,810) and Geekbench Vulkan (72,428 vs. 45,246). That is a 58% and 60.1% lead respectively, making the RX 6600 LE the clear compute and graphics workload champion in every test both cards appear in.

However, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X holds one unique advantage: it is the only card of the pair with a Geekbench Metal score of 75,427. This matters because Metal is the native GPU API on Apple platforms, and the W5700X is explicitly part of the "Radeon Pro Mac" generation. The RX 6600 LE has no recorded Metal benchmark in the database, so for macOS-specific workflows that rely on Metal acceleration, the W5700X is the only option with direct evidence of performance.

The use-case split is therefore not about raw speed, but about ecosystem fit. The RX 6600 LE dominates in cross-platform OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, while the W5700X offers a Metal-optimized path with a higher peak score than the RX 6600 LE’s OpenCL result (75,427 vs. 69,229). For Windows or Linux users running Vulkan-based games or OpenCL compute, the RX 6600 LE is the obvious pick. For Mac Pro users with Thunderbolt displays and Metal-accelerated creative suites, the W5700X is the only one of the two with a demonstrated Metal advantage.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE averages 70,829 across its recorded tests, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X averages 54,828. That places the RX 6600 LE 29.2% higher in aggregate.

Q: Does the W5700X outperform the RX 6600 LE in any benchmark?

A: Yes, in the Geekbench Metal test, the W5700X scores 75,427. The RX 6600 LE has no Metal benchmark recorded, so the W5700X is the only card with a verified Metal performance number.

Q: How large is the RX 6600 LE’s OpenCL advantage?

A: The RX 6600 LE scores 69,229 in OpenCL versus 43,810 for the W5700X, a 58% difference. In Vulkan, the RX 6600 LE leads by 60.1% (72,428 vs. 45,246).

Q: What are the nearest rivals for each card?

A: For the RX 6600 LE, the closest competitor is the NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile (average 70,140, within 1%), followed by the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (69,870, 1.4% behind). For the W5700X, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (54,247, 1.1% behind) and RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209, 1.1% behind) are the nearest, with the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698) sitting 1.6% ahead.

Q: Which card holds a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RX 6600 LE is in the 91st percentile, while the W5700X is in the 87th percentile. The RX 6600 LE ranks above roughly four percentage points more of the GPU population.

Q: Why does the W5700X have a higher single-test score but a lower average?

A: The W5700X’s Metal score of 75,427 is its best, but its OpenCL (43,810) and Vulkan (45,246) scores are much lower, dragging the average down. The RX 6600 LE’s two scores are tightly clustered (69,229 and 72,428), producing a higher average with less variance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two direct comparisons in the database both go to the RX 6600 LE, and the margins are substantial. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6600 LE posts 69,229 against the W5700X’s 43,810. That is a 58% gap, meaning the RX 6600 LE delivers roughly one and a half times the OpenCL throughput of the W5700X. This is a compute-oriented test, so the difference reflects raw shader and memory performance under a standard workload.

The Vulkan test shows an even wider spread: 72,428 for the RX 6600 LE versus 45,246 for the W5700X, a 60.1% advantage. Vulkan is a low-level graphics and compute API, and the RX 6600 LE’s near-identical scores across OpenCL and Vulkan (69,229 vs. 72,428) indicate consistent performance regardless of API. The W5700X, by contrast, scores lower in Vulkan than in OpenCL (45,246 vs. 43,810 is roughly similar, but both are far below its Metal result).

The W5700X’s lone bright spot is its Metal score of 75,427, which exceeds the RX 6600 LE’s best recorded score (72,428 in Vulkan) by 4.1%. However, since the RX 6600 LE has no Metal test in the database, this cannot be treated as a head-to-head victory. The database records 2 wins for the RX 6600 LE and 0 for the W5700X in direct comparisons. The Metal score is an isolated data point, not a comparative result.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge significantly in their memory and power configurations. The RX 6600 LE uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The W5700X doubles memory capacity to 16 GB GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, doubling bandwidth to 448.0 GB/s. This is a major difference: the W5700X offers twice the memory size and twice the bandwidth, which matters for large datasets or high-resolution textures that exceed 8 GB.

Clock speeds tell a different story. The RX 6600 LE has a base clock of 1626 MHz and a boost clock of 2495 MHz, with a game clock of 2045 MHz. The W5700X runs much lower at 1243 MHz base and 2040 MHz boost, with no game clock listed. Despite the lower clocks, the W5700X has more shading units (2560 vs. 1792), more TMUs (160 vs. 112), and the same 64 ROPs. It also has higher theoretical throughput: 10.44 TFLOPS FP32 versus 8.942 TFLOPS, and 20.89 TFLOPS FP16 versus 17.88 TFLOPS. The W5700X’s texture rate is 326.4 GTexel/s versus 279.4 GTexel/s, but its pixel rate is lower at 130.6 GPixel/s versus 159.7 GPixel/s.

Power and physical design are starkly different. The RX 6600 LE has a TDP of 132 W, requires a 300 W suggested PSU, and uses a single 8-pin connector in a dual-slot form factor. The W5700X draws 205 W, needs a 550 W PSU, has no power connector listed (likely relying on its Apple MPX bus interface), and occupies a quad-slot design. The RX 6600 LE is 190 mm long, 110 mm tall, and 40 mm wide; the W5700X is 305 mm long with no height or width listed. The RX 6600 LE uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the W5700X uses Apple MPX, a proprietary Apple bus.

Display outputs also differ: the RX 6600 LE offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the W5700X provides 1x HDMI 2.0b and 4x Thunderbolt ports. The RX 6600 LE supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), whereas the W5700X only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is generational. The RX 6600 LE uses the Navi 23 chip on RDNA 2.0 architecture, part of the Navi II (RX 6000) generation. The W5700X uses Navi 10 on RDNA 1.0, from the Radeon Pro Mac (Navi Series) generation. Both are built on TSMC’s 7 nm process, but the transistor counts differ: the RX 6600 LE packs 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die (density 46.7M / mm²), while the W5700X has 10,300 million on a larger 251 mm² die (density 41.0M / mm²). The RX 6600 LE’s smaller die and higher density reflect the more advanced RDNA 2.0 design.

RDNA 2.0 brings hardware ray tracing, and the RX 6600 LE includes 28 RT cores. The W5700X, based on RDNA 1.0, has no RT cores listed. This is a defining feature difference: the RX 6600 LE can accelerate ray-traced effects in games and supported applications, while the W5700X cannot. The RX 6600 LE also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which mandates ray tracing and variable rate shading, whereas the W5700X’s DirectX 12 (12_1) lacks those requirements.

The shading and texture pipelines favor the W5700X in raw count, but the RX 6600 LE compensates with higher clocks and the newer architecture. The RX 6600 LE’s boost clock of 2495 MHz is 22.3% higher than the W5700X’s 2040 MHz, which helps close the gap in shader count. The RX 6600 LE’s pixel rate of 159.7 GPixel/s exceeds the W5700X’s 130.6 GPixel/s, despite the latter having more TMUs and a higher texture rate. The RX 6600 LE is also listed as "Active" production, while the W5700X is "End-of-life," and the RX 6600 LE released in December 2023 versus the W5700X’s December 2019 launch.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the recorded data, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE is the superior performer for OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. It wins both head-to-head tests by margins of 58% and 60.1%, has a higher average score (70,829 vs. 54,828), and sits in the 91st percentile versus the W5700X’s 87th. It also features a newer architecture with ray tracing support, higher clock speeds, active production status, and a far more compact dual-slot design with lower power requirements. Anyone running Vulkan-based games, OpenCL compute, or general Windows/Linux workloads should choose the RX 6600 LE without hesitation.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is the pick only for a narrow but real niche: Apple Mac Pro systems that require the Apple MPX bus interface and Metal API acceleration. Its Geekbench Metal score of 75,427 is the highest single-test result in this comparison, and its 16 GB memory with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth doubles the RX 6600 LE’s capacity and throughput. For creative professionals working with large 3D scenes, high-resolution video, or GPU-accelerated rendering in macOS, the W5700X’s memory advantage and native Thunderbolt outputs are tangible benefits. However, its end-of-life status, quad-slot footprint, and 205 W TDP make it a less flexible choice.

The data implies a clear trade-off: the RX 6600 LE is a faster, more efficient, and more modern GPU for cross-platform tasks, while the W5700X is a specialized Mac-centric card with a unique Metal score and doubled memory. If the workload is platform-agnostic, the RX 6600 LE wins every measurable test. If the workload is exclusively macOS with Metal, the W5700X is the only one of the two with verified performance in that API, and its 16 GB frame buffer provides headroom that the 8 GB RX 6600 LE cannot match. The verdict is not about which is universally better, but which fits the intended environment: the RX 6600 LE for general compute and gaming, the W5700X for Apple ecosystems.