AMD Radeon R5 M255 vs AMD Radeon RX 560 Comparison
AMD Radeon R5 M255
Radeon RX 560
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
Analysis: AMD Radeon R5 M255 vs AMD Radeon RX 560
The AMD Radeon RX 560 is the decisive winner in this comparison, delivering a 254% higher Geekbench OpenCL score than the AMD Radeon R5 M255, making it the only choice for any compute or graphics workload. The R5 M255, an older and less capable part, offers no benchmark wins and is only suitable for basic display output, while the RX 560, despite its lower overall percentile ranking, provides a massive performance advantage that justifies its existence as a discrete GPU.
The Verdict
Choose the AMD Radeon RX 560 without hesitation. The data shows a single head-to-head benchmark result where the RX 560 scores 16,472 versus the R5 M255's 4,650, a 71.8% delta that favors the newer card. This is not a close contest; the RX 560 is in a completely different performance class. The R5 M255's 28th percentile ranking among all GPUs is misleadingly close to the RX 560's 26th percentile, but that average includes a wide range of workloads, and the only direct comparison available shows a massive gap. The RX 560 has a 75 W TDP, a dual-slot cooler, and requires no power connectors, making it a straightforward drop-in upgrade for any system with a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot. The R5 M255 is end-of-life and offers no compelling reason for selection beyond legacy system compatibility. For any user needing actual graphics or compute performance, the RX 560 is the only rational pick.
Architecture Differences
The two GPUs come from different generations of AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. The R5 M255 uses GCN 3.0, built on TSMC's 28 nm process, while the RX 560 uses the newer GCN 4.0, fabricated by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm node. This process shrink is significant, allowing the RX 560 to pack 3,000 million transistors into a 123 mm² die, nearly double the R5 M255's 1,550 million transistors on a 125 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: the RX 560 achieves 24.4 million transistors per square millimeter versus the R5 M255's 12.4 million. The RX 560's chip is codenamed Polaris 21, while the R5 M255 uses the Topaz chip. The R5 M255 belongs to the Gem System generation (R5 M200 series), whereas the RX 560 is part of the Polaris (RX 500) generation. The RX 560's predecessor is Arctic Islands, succeeded by Vega, while the R5 M255's predecessor is Solar System and its successor is Polaris Mobile, showing the generational gap between them.
Where Each One Wins
The AMD Radeon RX 560 wins the only benchmark category where both were tested: Geekbench OpenCL, scoring 16,472 versus the R5 M255's 4,650. This represents a 71.8% margin, and it is the sole head-to-head result, meaning the R5 M255 has zero wins. The RX 560 also shows strength in other tests not run on the R5 M255, including a Geekbench Metal score of 18,941, a PassMark G3D score of 3,671, and a PassMark GPU Compute score of 1,437. Its DirectX 11 score of 25 and DirectX 9 score of 57 indicate solid legacy API performance. The R5 M255 has no comparable wins in any category. In terms of use cases, the RX 560's higher texture rate of 81.60 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 20.40 GPixel/s, combined with 2.611 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, make it suitable for gaming and compute tasks. The R5 M255's 22.56 GTexel/s texture rate and 7.520 GPixel/s pixel rate are far lower, making it only fit for light 2D workloads or basic media playback.
FAQ
Q: Which GPU is faster in compute workloads?
A: The AMD Radeon RX 560 is dramatically faster, scoring 16,472 in Geekbench OpenCL versus the R5 M255's 4,650, a 71.8% delta in favor of the RX 560.
Q: What are the memory differences between the two cards?
A: The RX 560 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 112.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the R5 M255 has 2 GB of DDR3 on the same 128-bit bus but only 32.00 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 560's memory clock is 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) versus 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective) for the R5 M255.
Q: Do both cards support the same APIs?
A: No. While both support DirectX 12 (12_0) and OpenGL 4.6, the RX 560 supports Vulkan 1.3, whereas the R5 M255 is limited to Vulkan 1.2.170.
Q: What is the power requirement for the RX 560?
A: The RX 560 has a 75 W TDP, a dual-slot cooler, and requires no power connectors. The suggested PSU is 250 W. The R5 M255's TDP is not listed in the data.
Q: How does the RX 560's overall average score compare to its rivals?
A: The RX 560's average benchmark score is 4,569, which is 0.2% lower than the Intel HD Graphics P530's 4,560 and 1.1% lower than the NVIDIA Quadro M3000M's 4,621. It is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon R5 M230's 4,577.
Q: Is the R5 M255 still in production?
A: No, the R5 M255 is marked as end-of-life, as is the RX 560. The R5 M255 was released on 2014-10-11, while the RX 560 was released on 2017-04-17.
Head-to-Head Benchmarks
The only direct benchmark comparison between the two cards is Geekbench OpenCL, and the result is lopsided. The RX 560 scores 16,472, while the R5 M255 manages just 4,650, giving the RX 560 a 71.8% advantage. This is the largest and only margin recorded in the head-to-head data. To put the R5 M255's score in context, its average benchmark score of 4,788 places it just 0.1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB (4,791) and 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon R5 M335 (4,752), but those are average scores across multiple tests, not direct comparisons. The RX 560's average score of 4,569 puts it in a similar range, but its OpenCL result is far above that average, indicating it excels in compute tasks. The RX 560 also has additional benchmark results that are not shared with the R5 M255, including a Geekbench Metal score of 18,941 and a PassMark G3D score of 3,671, which further illustrate its superiority. The R5 M255 has no such results, so the OpenCL test is the only statistical evidence of their relative performance, and it is conclusive.
Specification Differences
The two cards differ across nearly every specification. The RX 560 has 1,024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 16 render output units (ROPs), compared to the R5 M255's 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. Clock speeds are higher on the RX 560: its base clock is 1175 MHz and boost clock is 1275 MHz, versus 925 MHz base and 940 MHz boost on the R5 M255. The memory subsystem is also different, with the RX 560 using 4 GB GDDR5 at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) and the R5 M255 using 2 GB DDR3 at 1000 MHz (2 Gbps effective). Bandwidth is 112.0 GB/s for the RX 560 versus 32.00 GB/s for the R5 M255. The RX 560's process node is 14 nm from GlobalFoundries, while the R5 M255 uses TSMC's 28 nm. The RX 560's die is 123 mm² with 3,000 million transistors, while the R5 M255's die is 125 mm² with 1,550 million transistors. The RX 560 is a dual-slot card with a 170 mm (6.7 inches) length, no power connectors, and display outputs of 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a. The R5 M255 has no listed dimensions, power connectors, or display outputs. The RX 560 has a launch MSRP of 99 USD. The RX 560 supports Vulkan 1.3, while the R5 M255 supports Vulkan 1.2.170. Both use PCIe 3.0 x8 interfaces, but the RX 560's TDP is 75 W with a suggested PSU of 250 W, while the R5 M255's TDP is not listed.