AMD Radeon R7 M460 vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M Comparison

The AMD Radeon R7 M460 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M represent two distinct eras of mobile graphics, separated by five years of architectural evolution. The benchmark data shows a narrow victory for the newer AMD part, with a 1.8% lead in the sole Geekbench OpenCL test, but the underlying specifications reveal a more complex story about how each GPU achieves its performance.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the provided benchmark data?

A: The AMD Radeon R7 M460 wins the head-to-head Geekbench OpenCL comparison, scoring 6612 against the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M’s 6493, a 1.8% advantage.

Q: How does the R7 M460 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The R7 M460 sits within a tight cluster of competitors. It is 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 7730M (6581) and 0.9% ahead of the Intel UHD Graphics P750 (6554), but it trails the NVIDIA GeForce GT 1010 by 1.3% (6698) and beats the GTX 670M by 1.5% (6513).

Q: Where does the GT 555M rank among its nearest competitors?

A: The GT 555M’s score of 6493 places it just 0.2% above the NVIDIA Quadro M5000M (6481) and 0.3% above the AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile (6476). It falls behind the GTX 670M by 0.3% (6513) and the Intel UHD Graphics P750 by 0.9% (6554).

Q: What are the respective launch dates for these two mobile GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon R7 M460 was released in May 2016, while the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M is an older part, having launched in July 2011.

Q: Do these GPUs support modern graphics APIs?

A: Both support DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.6. The R7 M460 additionally supports Vulkan 1.2.170, while the GT 555M has no Vulkan support listed. The R7 M460’s DirectX support is at feature level 12_0, compared to the GT 555M’s 11_0.

Q: What is the transistor density difference between the two chips?

A: The R7 M460’s 28 nm process packs 12.4 million transistors per square millimeter, while the GT 555M’s older 40 nm node achieves only 4.9 million per square millimeter.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon R7 M460 claims victory in the single available benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a 1.8% margin. This suggests that in compute-oriented workloads, the newer architecture holds a slight edge. The R7 M460’s higher shading unit count and dramatically higher clock speeds likely contribute to this result.

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M, despite losing the compute test, possesses structural advantages that could favor other workloads. Its 128-bit memory bus is twice as wide as the R7 M460’s 64-bit interface, and its 16 ROPs double the AMD part’s 8. These features typically benefit fill-rate-bound scenarios like traditional rasterization at lower resolutions. The GT 555M’s wider bus also provides more headroom for memory-intensive operations, even though its raw bandwidth is lower.

The data suggests a generational trade-off: the R7 M460 wins on raw compute throughput and efficiency, while the GT 555M retains a design better suited for pixel-heavy tasks. Without additional benchmarks, the compute win is the only confirmed victory, but the specification differences point to distinct strengths.

Architecture Differences

The R7 M460 is built on Graphics Core Next (GCN) 3.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. Its chip, codenamed Meso, contains 1,550 million transistors on a 125 mm² die. This yields a high transistor density of 12.4 million per square millimeter, reflecting the more modern manufacturing process.

The GT 555M uses NVIDIA’s Fermi architecture, based on the GF106 chip. It is also manufactured by TSMC but on an older 40 nm node. The die is significantly larger at 238 mm², yet houses fewer transistors—1,170 million—resulting in a much lower density of 4.9 million per square millimeter. This larger, less dense die indicates a less efficient design.

The R7 M460 features 384 shading units, 24 texture mapping units, and 8 ROPs. The GT 555M counters with 144 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. While the AMD part has 2.67 times more shaders, the NVIDIA part has twice the ROP count. The R7 M460’s compute capabilities are further enhanced by its boost clock of 1024 MHz, compared to the GT 555M’s lack of specified boost and base clocks. The R7 M460 supports a broader API set, including Vulkan 1.2.170, and its DirectX 12 feature level is 12_0 versus the GT 555M’s 11_0.

Specification Differences

The most striking differences lie in memory configuration and clock speeds. The R7 M460 uses 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 64-bit bus, achieving 36.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The GT 555M uses 1024 MB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus, with lower bandwidth at 28.80 GB/s. Despite the narrower bus, the R7 M460’s faster GDDR5 memory delivers 25% more bandwidth.

Clock speeds diverge significantly. The R7 M460 operates at a base of 730 MHz and boosts to 1024 MHz, with memory running at 1125 MHz (4.5 Gbps effective). The GT 555M has no listed base or boost clocks, but its memory runs at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective). These differences drive the compute metrics: the R7 M460 achieves 786.4 GFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the GT 555M manages only 339.8 GFLOPS. Pixel rates are 8.192 GPixel/s for AMD versus 3.540 GPixel/s for NVIDIA, and texture rates are 24.58 GTexel/s versus 14.16 GTexel/s.

Other differences include the R7 M460’s PCIe 3.0 x8 interface versus the GT 555M’s PCIe 2.0 x16, and the GT 555M’s listed 35 W TDP, for which the R7 M460 has no specified value. The R7 M460’s generation is “Gem System (R7 M400)” with a predecessor of “Solar System,” while the GT 555M belongs to “GeForce 500M,” preceded by “GeForce 400M” and succeeded by “GeForce 600M.”

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the AMD Radeon R7 M460 scores 6612 against the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M’s 6493. This 119-point difference translates to a 1.8% win for AMD. While this is a modest margin, it is consistent with the R7 M460’s overall percentile ranking of 38 versus the GT 555M’s 37.

The R7 M460’s victory appears rooted in its compute architecture. Its 384 shading units, running at up to 1024 MHz, generate 786.4 GFLOPS of FP32 throughput. The GT 555M’s 144 shaders, even at unspecified clocks, can only produce 339.8 GFLOPS. This 2.3x raw compute advantage aligns with the OpenCL result, where the newer AMD part leverages its parallel processing strength.

However, the GT 555M is not without merit in other hypothetical tests. Its 16 ROPs and 128-bit memory bus give it superior fill-rate potential per clock, even though its pixel rate of 3.540 GPixel/s is lower than the R7 M460’s 8.192 GPixel/s. The NVIDIA chip’s bandwidth limitation (28.80 GB/s vs 36.00 GB/s) would likely hurt it in memory-heavy scenarios, but its wider bus could offer latency advantages in certain workloads. The benchmark data confirms a compute win for AMD, but the specification sheet hints that NVIDIA’s part might perform closer in rasterization-focused tasks.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the data, the AMD Radeon R7 M460 is the better choice for compute-intensive applications. Its 1.8% lead in Geekbench OpenCL, combined with more than double the FP32 throughput, makes it the clear pick for tasks like OpenCL acceleration or general-purpose GPU computing. The R7 M460 also offers superior memory bandwidth (36.00 GB/s vs 28.80 GB/s) and double the VRAM capacity (2 GB vs 1024 MB), which are tangible advantages for modern workloads.

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M should be selected only in scenarios where its unique traits matter. Its 128-bit memory bus and 16 ROPs suggest a design optimized for traditional graphics rendering, particularly at lower resolutions where fill rate dominates. The GT 555M also has a specified 35 W TDP, which may be relevant for power-constrained systems, though the R7 M460’s power draw is not listed for comparison.

For most users, the R7 M460 is the superior part. It is newer, faster in compute, more memory-efficient, and supports modern APIs like Vulkan. The GT 555M is a legacy component whose only theoretical advantages are its wider memory bus and higher ROP count, neither of which translate to a benchmark win in the available data. The verdict is clear: the R7 M460 wins the compute benchmark and offers the better feature set, making it the logical choice for any workload the data covers.