AMD Radeon RX 550 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 550 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 occupy vastly different tiers of the graphics card market, as reflected in their core specifications and benchmark results. The RX 550 is a 50 W, entry-level part built on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the GTX 1070 is a 150 W, performance-oriented card using TSMC's 16 nm process with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory. Head-to-head testing shows the GTX 1070 winning three of four benchmarks, often by substantial margins, but the RX 550 claims a notable victory in one compute test, making the comparison more nuanced than a simple performance hierarchy.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the most head-to-head benchmark comparisons?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 wins three of the four head-to-head benchmarks, with victories in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, Geekbench OpenCL, and Geekbench Vulkan. The AMD Radeon RX 550 wins only one test, Geekbench Metal.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test?

A: The GTX 1070 scores 1082 points compared to the RX 550's 127 points, representing an 88.3% advantage for NVIDIA. This is the largest delta between the two cards across all tested workloads.

Q: Does the RX 550 outperform the GTX 1070 in any workload?

A: Yes, in the Geekbench Metal benchmark, the RX 550 scores 20838 points versus 18801 for the GTX 1070, a 10.8% advantage for AMD. This is the only head-to-head test where the RX 550 comes out ahead.

Q: What are the average benchmark scores for each card?

A: The RX 550 has an average benchmark score of 11075, placing it at the 50th percentile of all GPUs. The GTX 1070 has an average score of 9780, placing it at the 47th percentile.

Q: How do the cards compare in Geekbench Vulkan performance?

A: The GTX 1070 scores 22121 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the RX 550 scores 12270. NVIDIA leads by 44.5% in this API-specific test.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between the two cards?

A: The RX 550 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 112.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 1070 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 256.3 GB/s bandwidth.

The Verdict

The data supports a clear split in use cases. For gamers and users running DirectX or Vulkan workloads, the GTX 1070 is the unequivocal choice, with an 88.3% lead in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 and a 44.5% lead in Geekbench Vulkan. Its 8 GB memory capacity and 256.3 GB/s bandwidth also provide a substantial buffer for modern game assets. The RX 550, by contrast, is only competitive in the Geekbench Metal test, where its 10.8% lead over the GTX 1070 suggests a niche advantage in Apple's graphics API environment. Given that the GTX 1070 also ships with a higher launch MSRP of 379 USD versus 79 USD for the RX 550, the performance differential aligns with the price tier. However, for users specifically targeting Metal-based applications, the RX 550's win is notable but insufficient to recommend it as a general-purpose performer.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test delivers the most decisive result. The GTX 1070 scores 1082, dwarfing the RX 550's 127, a delta of -88.3% for AMD. This test stresses modern DirectX 12 rendering pipelines, where the GTX 1070's 1920 shading units and 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute provide a massive throughput advantage over the RX 550's 512 shading units and 1,211.4 GFLOPS. The gap is so large that the RX 550's score appears almost negligible by comparison, indicating a fundamental architectural and resource disparity.

Geekbench OpenCL shows a similar, though slightly less extreme, pattern. The GTX 1070 posts 44700 points against the RX 550's 11063, a 75.3% advantage for NVIDIA. This general-purpose compute test reflects the raw parallel processing capability of each card, and the GTX 1070's 7,200 million transistors and 120 TMUs deliver over four times the throughput of the RX 550's 2,200 million transistors and 32 TMUs. The RX 550's FP16 performance is rated at 1:1 with FP32 at 1,211.4 GFLOPS, but this does not translate into a competitive OpenCL result.

Geekbench Vulkan narrows the gap but still favors NVIDIA. The GTX 1070 scores 22121 versus 12270 for the RX 550, a 44.5% lead. Vulkan is a lower-overhead API that can sometimes benefit smaller GPUs, but the GTX 1070's superior texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s overwhelm the RX 550's 37.86 GTexel/s and 18.93 GPixel/s. The RX 550 does support Vulkan 1.3 in its API list, while the GTX 1070 lists Vulkan 1.4, but the extra specification version does not compensate for the hardware deficit.

The lone AMD victory comes in Geekbench Metal. The RX 550 scores 20838, beating the GTX 1070's 18801 by 10.8%. This is a curious result given the hardware imbalance, but it suggests that the RX 550's GCN 4.0 architecture handles Metal's compute and rendering paths more efficiently than the GTX 1070's Pascal design, at least in this specific benchmark. The GTX 1070 still has a higher absolute compute capability, yet the RX 550's driver and architecture optimizations for Metal produce a measurable win. Notably, the GTX 1070's average benchmark score of 9780 is actually lower than the RX 550's 11075, despite the GTX 1070 winning three head-to-head tests, because the GTX 1070's PassMark scores (e.g., 82 in DirectX 10, 100 in DirectX 11, 48 in DirectX 12) drag its average down relative to the RX 550's Geekbench-heavy result set.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification category. The RX 550 uses a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries with 2,200 million transistors on a 103 mm² die, while the GTX 1070 uses TSMC's 16 nm process with 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die. Transistor density is similar—21.4M per mm² for AMD versus 22.9M per mm² for NVIDIA—but the GTX 1070 packs over three times the total transistor count.

Clock speeds favor NVIDIA: the GTX 1070 runs at 1506 MHz base and 1683 MHz boost, compared to the RX 550's 1100 MHz base and 1183 MHz boost. Memory speeds also differ, with the GTX 1070 using 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective) versus the RX 550's 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). The RX 550 has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, while the GTX 1070 has 1920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs—a 3.75x, 3.75x, and 4x advantage, respectively.

Power and physical specifications diverge sharply. The RX 550 has a 50 W TDP with no power connectors and a suggested PSU of 250 W, while the GTX 1070 has a 150 W TDP, requires one 8-pin connector, and suggests a 450 W PSU. The RX 550 is 145 mm long (5.7 inches), whereas the GTX 1070 measures 267 mm (10.5 inches) in length, 112 mm (4.4 inches) in height, and 40 mm (1.6 inches) in width. Both are dual-slot cards. Display outputs are similar: both feature 1x DVI and 1x HDMI, but the GTX 1070 adds 3x DisplayPort versus the RX 550's single DisplayPort 1.4a.

Architecture Differences

The RX 550 is built on AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture, part of the Polaris generation (RX 500), using the Lexa chip. The GTX 1070 uses NVIDIA's Pascal architecture, part of the GeForce 10-series, based on the GP104 chip. These are fundamentally different designs: GCN 4.0 is a scalar-oriented architecture with a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio (1,211.4 GFLOPS for both), while Pascal uses a 1:64 FP16 to FP32 ratio, meaning the GTX 1070's FP16 performance is only 101.0 GFLOPS despite 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32. This makes the RX 550 more capable in half-precision compute relative to its full-precision throughput, though the GTX 1070's absolute FP32 power dwarfs it.

Both cards lack dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores, as indicated by null values for those fields. For API support, the RX 550 lists DirectX 12 (12_0) and OpenGL 4.6, while the GTX 1070 lists DirectX 12 (12_1) and OpenGL 4.6. Vulkan support differs: the RX 550 lists Vulkan 1.3, while the GTX 1070 lists Vulkan 1.4, giving NVIDIA a newer API version. Bus interface also differs, with the RX 550 using PCIe 3.0 x8 and the GTX 1070 using PCIe 3.0 x16, doubling the available bandwidth for the NVIDIA card.

The GTX 1070's predecessor is the GeForce 900 series, with its successor being the GeForce 20 series, while the RX 550's predecessor is Arctic Islands and its successor is Vega. Both cards are marked as end-of-life in production status. The RX 550 launched on April 19, 2017, with a launch MSRP of 79 USD, while the GTX 1070 launched on June 9, 2016, with a launch MSRP of 379 USD. These architectural and generational differences explain why the GTX 1070 dominates in most benchmarks, though the RX 550's GCN 4.0 design retains a niche edge in Metal-specific workloads.