AMD Radeon R7 M360 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data splits these two mobile and desktop era cards into very different usage profiles. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti wins the only shared benchmark test, Geekbench OpenCL, with a score of 5731 against the AMD Radeon R7 M360's 4638. That translates to a 23.6% lead for the NVIDIA card. The GTX 550 Ti also holds a 33rd percentile position across all GPUs in the database, while the R7 M360 sits at the 29th percentile. The AMD card does have a separate Vulkan result of 5223, which the NVIDIA card lacks entirely, so if your workload targets Vulkan specifically, the R7 M360 is the only one of the two with recorded data to support it.

Looking at the nearest rivals, the GTX 550 Ti's score of 5731 places it just 0.2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670MX (5721) and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300 (5712). It is also 0.7% above the AMD Radeon HD 8790M (5691). However, the AMD Radeon R7 M465 scores 5841, which is 1.9% higher than the GTX 550 Ti, meaning the NVIDIA card sits slightly below that particular competitor. The R7 M360, with an average score of 4931, is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon R7 M265 (4929, 0% delta), 0.6% ahead of the AMD FirePro W5130M (4904) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (4901, both 0.6%), and 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 (4893).

For practical use, the GTX 550 Ti is the stronger choice for OpenCL compute tasks, which many older games and productivity applications rely on. The R7 M360, despite its lower raw OpenCL score, benefits from a newer feature set for API support, which we will detail later. If the only metric is the recorded Geekbench OpenCL score, the NVIDIA card wins outright. If you need Vulkan support, the AMD card is the only one with a measured result in that API.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti scores 5731, while the AMD Radeon R7 M360 scores 4638. The NVIDIA card leads by 23.6% in this test.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon R7 M360 support Vulkan?

A: Yes, the R7 M360 has a recorded Geekbench Vulkan score of 5223 and lists Vulkan 1.2.170 API support. The GTX 550 Ti has no Vulkan score and no Vulkan version listed in the database.

Q: How does the GTX 550 Ti compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 550 Ti is 0.2% ahead of the GTX 670MX and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300. It trails the AMD Radeon R7 M465 by 1.9%.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The GTX 550 Ti uses 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus with 98.50 GB/s bandwidth. The R7 M360 uses 2 GB of DDR3 on a 64-bit bus with 14.40 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The AMD Radeon R7 M360 has a pixel rate of 9.000 GPixel/s, which is higher than the GTX 550 Ti's 7.200 GPixel/s.

Q: Are both GPUs end-of-life products?

A: Yes, both the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti and the AMD Radeon R7 M360 are listed with end-of-life production status in the database.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct head-to-head benchmark recorded is Geekbench OpenCL. In this test, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti scores 5731 against the AMD Radeon R7 M360's 4638. The delta is 23.6% in favor of the NVIDIA card. This is a substantial margin, indicating that for OpenCL compute workloads, the older Fermi architecture still delivers noticeably more throughput than the GCN 3.0 part in this specific test.

Looking at the broader context, the GTX 550 Ti's score of 5731 puts it in a cluster with the GTX 670MX (5721, 0.2% slower), the Iris Pro P6300 (5712, 0.3% slower), and the HD 8790M (5691, 0.7% slower). The R7 M465 (5841) is the only nearby rival that beats it, by 1.9%. The R7 M360, with an average score of 4931 across its two benchmarks, sits in a lower performance tier. Its closest comparable is the R7 M265 (4929, 0% delta), followed by the FirePro W5130M (4904, 0.6% faster), the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (4901, 0.6% faster), and the GTS 450 (4893, 0.8% faster). This means the R7 M360 is effectively at the bottom of its own rival group, while the GTX 550 Ti is near the top of its group.

The biggest win for the GTX 550 Ti is the raw OpenCL score, where it outperforms the R7 M360 by over a fifth. The biggest win for the R7 M360 is its Vulkan capability, where it posts a score of 5223; no such data exists for the GTX 550 Ti, making it the only card with a recorded result in that API. For any application that leverages Vulkan, the R7 M360 is the only option with measured performance.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every core specification. The GTX 550 Ti has 192 shading units, 32 texture mapping units, and 24 ROPs. The R7 M360 has 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. Despite having half the shading units, the NVIDIA card has more TMUs and three times the ROPs. The pixel rate favors AMD at 9.000 GPixel/s versus 7.200 GPixel/s for NVIDIA, but the texture rate is close: 28.80 GTexel/s for the GTX 550 Ti and 27.00 GTexel/s for the R7 M360. Floating-point performance (FP32) is higher on the AMD card at 864.0 GFLOPS versus 691.2 GFLOPS for the NVIDIA card. The R7 M360 also lists FP16 at 864.0 GFLOPS (1:1), while the GTX 550 Ti has no FP16 data.

Memory is a major difference. The GTX 550 Ti uses 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus, yielding 98.50 GB/s of bandwidth. The R7 M360 uses 2 GB of DDR3 on a 64-bit bus, yielding only 14.40 GB/s. The NVIDIA card has far higher memory bandwidth, while the AMD card has double the capacity. Clock speeds also differ: the GTX 550 Ti's memory runs at 1026 MHz (4.1 Gbps effective), while the R7 M360's memory runs at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective). The R7 M360 has a base clock of 1100 MHz and a boost clock of 1125 MHz, whereas the GTX 550 Ti has no base or boost clock listed.

The GTX 550 Ti has a TDP of 116 W, a dual-slot cooler, one 6-pin power connector, and a suggested power supply of 300 W. The R7 M360 has no TDP, slot width, power connector, or PSU recommendation listed. The GTX 550 Ti is 210 mm (8.3 inches) long, while the R7 M360 has no dimensions recorded. The bus interface differs: the GTX 550 Ti uses PCIe 2.0 x16, and the R7 M360 uses PCIe 3.0 x8. Display outputs are only listed for the NVIDIA card: 2x DVI and 1x mini-HDMI 1.3a.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti is built on the GF116 chip using the Fermi 2.0 architecture, manufactured on a 40 nm process at TSMC. It uses 1,170 million transistors on a 238 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 4.9M per mm². The AMD Radeon R7 M360 uses the Meso chip with GCN 3.0 architecture, also made by TSMC but on a 28 nm process. It packs 1,550 million transistors onto a smaller 125 mm² die, resulting in a much higher density of 12.4M per mm². The R7 M360 is from the Gem System (R7 M300) generation, while the GTX 550 Ti is from the GeForce 500 generation.

The GTX 550 Ti supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6, but has no Vulkan support listed. The R7 M360 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA card's predecessor is the GeForce 400 series and its successor is the GeForce 600 series. The AMD card's predecessor is the Solar System series and its successor is Polaris Mobile. The GTX 550 Ti was released in March 2011, while the R7 M360 was released in May 2015, a gap of over four years. The GTX 550 Ti has a launch MSRP of 149 USD; the R7 M360 has no launch MSRP recorded.

The Verdict

From the recorded data, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the stronger performer in the only common benchmark. Its OpenCL score of 5731 beats the R7 M360's 4638 by 23.6%, and it sits at the 33rd percentile versus the AMD card's 29th. If your priority is OpenCL compute performance, the choice is clear: the GTX 550 Ti delivers significantly more throughput. Its memory subsystem, with GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus, provides 98.50 GB/s of bandwidth, which is over six times the R7 M360's 14.40 GB/s. That bandwidth advantage likely explains the large OpenCL gap despite the AMD card having more shading units and higher FP32 output.

The AMD Radeon R7 M360, however, is not without merit. It offers Vulkan support, which the GTX 550 Ti lacks entirely, and it has a recorded Vulkan score of 5223. If you intend to run Vulkan-based applications, the R7 M360 is the only one of these two with measured performance in that API. It also has double the memory capacity at 2 GB, which can help with larger textures, although the narrow 64-bit bus and DDR3 type severely limit bandwidth. The R7 M360 also has a higher pixel rate (9.000 GPixel/s) and higher FP32 compute (864.0 GFLOPS), so for tasks that are not memory-bandwidth-bound, it can be competitive.

The GTX 550 Ti is the better choice for legacy DirectX workloads and any OpenCL compute task, given its 23.6% lead. The R7 M360 is the better choice if you specifically need Vulkan support or require more than 1 GB of VRAM. Based on the database measurements, the GTX 550 Ti wins the head-to-head with 1 win and 0 losses. The R7 M360's only unique advantage is its Vulkan benchmark result and API support, which is a real but narrow use case. For a general-purpose pick, the GTX 550 Ti's higher OpenCL score and superior memory bandwidth make it the more capable card in most scenarios.