AMD Radeon R9 M395X vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data contains one direct head-to-head benchmark between these two mobile graphics solutions: Geekbench OpenCL. This is a decisive result. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,420, while the AMD Radeon R9 M395X scores 17,829. That gives the NVIDIA part an 80.1% advantage, meaning the RTX 4060 Mobile delivers roughly five times the OpenCL compute performance of the older AMD chip. There are no benchmark tests in the database where the Radeon R9 M395X comes out ahead. The win count is 1 for NVIDIA and 0 for AMD in direct comparisons.

Looking at broader database results, the average benchmark score for the RTX 4060 Mobile is 22,729, which places it at the 67th percentile among all GPUs. The R9 M395X has a higher average score of 25,891, placing it at the 71st percentile. That is an unusual situation: the older card has a higher aggregate score across all tests in the database, yet it loses the one direct head-to-head compute test by a massive margin. The explanation lies in the test mix. The R9 M395X was measured on Geekbench Metal (33,953) and Geekbench OpenCL (17,829), while the RTX 4060 Mobile was measured across nine tests including PassMark DirectX 9, 10, 11, 12, G2D, G3D, and compute. The RTX 4060 Mobile's OpenCL and Vulkan scores (89,420 and 89,569 respectively) are far higher than anything the AMD card produced, but its PassMark scores are relatively modest, pulling the average down.

The nearest rivals in the database help contextualize each card. The R9 M395X sits within 0.6% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile (25,740), within 0.2% of the AMD FirePro D700 (25,842), and within 0.1% of the AMD FirePro W7100 (25,856). It is 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (26,011). That clustering suggests the R9 M395X, despite its age, produces competitive aggregate scores in the database's legacy test suite. The RTX 4060 Mobile, by contrast, is 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (22,895), 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (22,549), 1.3% behind the Intel Arc B580 (23,021), and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (22,435). The RTX 4060 Mobile's average is thus bracketed by a previous-generation desktop card and a newer mobile part, which is typical for a mid-range mobile GPU.

The OpenCL delta of 80.1% is the single largest gap in any direct comparison. It reflects not just architectural age but also driver maturity and compute feature support. The R9 M395X's OpenCL score is closer to its Metal score (17,829 vs 33,953), suggesting its compute performance is consistent but limited. The RTX 4060 Mobile's OpenCL and Vulkan scores are nearly identical (89,420 vs 89,569), indicating strong cross-API compute behavior.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon R9 M395X uses the Amethyst chip built on GCN 3.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 5,000 million transistors into a 366 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 13.7 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile uses the AD107 chip on Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 18,900 million transistors in a 159 mm² die, for a density of 118.9 million per square millimeter. The density difference is nearly 9-fold, which explains how NVIDIA fits far more transistors into less than half the silicon area.

The R9 M395X has 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation units. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 3,072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. So the NVIDIA part has 50% more shaders and 50% more ROPs, but 25% fewer TMUs. The RTX 4060 Mobile also includes 24 ray tracing cores and 96 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the GCN 3.0 part. Those dedicated hardware units enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-assisted features like DLSS, which the R9 M395X cannot match through any driver update.

Memory configurations differ substantially. Both cards have 8 GB of VRAM, but the R9 M395X uses GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 4060 Mobile uses GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 256.0 GB/s. The newer card achieves 60% more bandwidth despite half the bus width, thanks to much faster memory clocks. The R9 M395X runs memory at 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective), while the RTX 4060 Mobile runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). Clock speeds for the core also differ: the R9 M395X has no recorded base or boost clock in the database, while the RTX 4060 Mobile has a 1545 MHz base and 1890 MHz boost.

Pixel and texture rates reflect the architectural differences. The R9 M395X produces 23.14 GPixel/s and 92.54 GTexel/s. The RTX 4060 Mobile produces 90.72 GPixel/s and 181.4 GTexel/s. That is roughly 3.9 times the pixel throughput and 1.96 times the texture throughput. FP32 compute follows the same pattern: the R9 M395X delivers 2.961 TFLOPS, while the RTX 4060 Mobile delivers 11.61 TFLOPS, a 3.92x advantage. Both cards have 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratios, so the FP16 figures match their FP32 figures exactly.

Power and interface specs also differ. The R9 M395X is rated at 75 W TDP and comes as an MXM Module with no power connectors required. The RTX 4060 Mobile is rated at 115 W TDP and is an IGP (integrated graphics package) with no power connectors listed. The bus interface on the AMD card is PCIe 3.0 x16, while the NVIDIA card uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The newer PCIe 4.0 standard, even at half the lanes, offers more bandwidth per lane, so the effective transfer capacity is similar or better on the RTX 4060 Mobile. API support also diverges: the R9 M395X supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The RTX 4060 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The DirectX 12_2 feature level enables mesh shaders, variable rate shading, and other modern rendering features that the 12_0 part cannot use.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous for compute workloads. The RTX 4060 Mobile is 80.1% faster in OpenCL, which is the only direct benchmark available. Its FP32 throughput is 3.92 times higher, pixel rate is 3.92 times higher, and texture rate is 1.96 times higher. If you are choosing between these two for any modern gaming, rendering, or compute task, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the clear pick. The R9 M395X's higher aggregate database score comes from a different test mix, not from superior performance in any shared test.

The R9 M395X is an end-of-life product released in May 2015, with a successor named Polaris Mobile. The RTX 4060 Mobile is an active product released in January 2023, with a successor already named as GeForce 50 Mobile. The older card belongs to the Gem System generation (R9 M300), while the newer one is GeForce 40 Mobile. The predecessor to the RTX 4060 Mobile is GeForce 30 Mobile. The architectural gap is enormous: 28 nm GCN 3.0 versus 5 nm Ada Lovelace. The RTX 4060 Mobile also supports ray tracing and tensor operations, which the R9 M395X cannot do in hardware.

For someone building or upgrading a laptop today, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the only rational choice from a performance standpoint. The R9 M395X might still be found in older MXM-based systems, but its compute and rendering capabilities are dramatically lower. The RTX 4060 Mobile's 67th percentile ranking versus the R9 M395X's 71st percentile is a statistical artifact of the different benchmark suites used; the direct head-to-head result is what matters.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 89,420 versus 17,829 for the AMD Radeon R9 M395X, an 80.1% difference.

Q: Do both cards have the same amount of memory?

A: Yes, both have 8 GB. The R9 M395X uses GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the RTX 4060 Mobile uses GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Does the R9 M395X support ray tracing?

A: No. The R9 M395X has no ray tracing cores or tensor cores. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 24 ray tracing cores and 96 tensor cores.

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

A: The R9 M395X has 13.7 million transistors per square millimeter on a 28 nm process, while the RTX 4060 Mobile has 118.9 million per square millimeter on a 5 nm process.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score in the database?

A: The R9 M395X has a higher average score of 25,891 versus 22,729 for the RTX 4060 Mobile. However, this is based on different test suites, and the direct OpenCL comparison heavily favors the RTX 4060 Mobile.

Q: What are the TDP ratings?

A: The R9 M395X is rated at 75 W, and the RTX 4060 Mobile is rated at 115 W.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4060 Mobile wins in every measurable compute and rendering metric from the database. Its OpenCL score is 80.1% higher. Its FP32 throughput is 11.61 TFLOPS versus 2.961 TFLOPS. Its pixel rate is 90.72 GPixel/s versus 23.14 GPixel/s. Its texture rate is 181.4 GTexel/s versus 92.54 GTexel/s. It also has higher memory bandwidth (256.0 GB/s vs 160.0 GB/s), higher memory clock (2000 MHz vs 1250 MHz), and higher base and boost clocks (1545 MHz and 1890 MHz, respectively, versus no recorded clocks for the R9 M395X). It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, while the older card is limited to DirectX 12_0 and Vulkan 1.2.170.

The R9 M395X has no recorded wins in any direct benchmark. Its only advantage in the database is the higher aggregate average score (25,891 vs 22,729) and the higher percentile ranking (71st vs 67th), both of which stem from the different benchmark distributions rather than any superior performance in a shared test. It also has a wider memory bus (256-bit vs 128-bit), which is an architectural specification but does not translate into higher bandwidth in practice. Its 75 W TDP is lower than the RTX 4060 Mobile's 115 W, which could matter in extremely power-constrained systems, but the database does not include power efficiency benchmarks to quantify that trade-off.

For use cases: the RTX 4060 Mobile is the pick for modern gaming at high settings, ray-traced titles, AI-accelerated workloads, and any compute task using Vulkan or OpenCL. The R9 M395X is only defensible in legacy systems where the MXM form factor and older driver stack are required, and where the user accepts roughly one-fifth the OpenCL compute performance.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification field in the database. The process node is 28 nm for AMD versus 5 nm for NVIDIA. Transistor count is 5,000 million versus 18,900 million. Die size is 366 mm² versus 159 mm². Transistor density is 13.7M / mm² versus 118.9M / mm². The R9 M395X has no recorded base or boost clock, while the RTX 4060 Mobile has a 1545 MHz base and 1890 MHz boost. Memory clock is 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective) versus 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). Memory type is GDDR5 versus GDDR6. Bus width is 256-bit versus 128-bit. Bandwidth is 160.0 GB/s versus 256.0 GB/s. Shading units are 2,048 versus 3,072. TMUs are 128 versus 96. ROPs are 32 versus 48. The RTX 4060 Mobile adds 24 ray tracing cores and 96 tensor cores; the R9 M395X has none. Pixel rate is 23.14 GPixel/s versus 90.72 GPixel/s. Texture rate is 92.54 GTexel/s versus 181.4 GTexel/s. FP32 is 2.961 TFLOPS versus 11.61 TFLOPS. FP16 matches FP32 on both. TDP is 75 W versus 115 W. Slot width is MXM Module versus IGP. Bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 4.0 x8. DirectX support is 12 (12_0) versus 12 Ultimate (12_2). Vulkan support is 1.2.170 versus 1.4. Production status is end-of-life versus active. Release dates are May 2015 versus January 2023. The R9 M395X's predecessor is Solar System, and its successor is Polaris Mobile. The RTX 4060 Mobile's predecessor is GeForce 30 Mobile, and its successor is GeForce 50 Mobile.