AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 and AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT are separated by over six years of GPU architecture, yet their average benchmark scores land within a hair of each other. The GTX 770 averages 14,747 points, while the RX 5500 XT averages 14,692 points, a mere 0.4% difference. Both cards sit at the 57th percentile of all GPUs. However, the data shows this is not a tie in practice. The RX 5500 XT wins every single head-to-head benchmark, and its margin of victory in compute-heavy and modern API tests is enormous. The GTX 770’s only saving grace is its legacy API performance and raw rasterization throughput, which keeps its average score competitive. The verdict is straightforward: the RX 5500 XT is the better card for nearly all modern workloads, while the GTX 770 is a historical artifact that only makes sense for very specific, older use cases.

The Verdict

Pick the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT if you are building a system today or upgrading from a card that struggles with modern games. The data is unambiguous: it wins all three head-to-head benchmarks against the GTX 770. Its Geekbench Vulkan score of 44,191 is 56.6% higher than the GTX 770’s 19,166. Its OpenCL score of 46,965 is 66.6% higher than the GTX 770’s 15,707. For compute tasks or any application that leverages these APIs, the RX 5500 XT is not just faster; it is in a different class entirely.

Pick the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 only if you are a collector, need a card for a legacy system that requires its specific display outputs (2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 1x DisplayPort 1.2), or are running software that is optimized for Kepler-era NVIDIA hardware. Its average score of 14,747 is technically 0.4% higher than the RX 5500 XT’s 14,692, but this is entirely due to its performance in older benchmark suites. The data shows it has zero wins in the head-to-head tests, so any advantage is confined to legacy workloads. Its 230W TDP and dual-slot cooler make it a poor choice for modern builds where efficiency matters.

Architecture Differences

The GTX 770 is built on NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It uses the GK104 chip, which contains 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 12.0 million per mm². The RX 5500 XT uses AMD’s RDNA 1.0 architecture, built on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC. Its Navi 14 chip packs 6,400 million transistors onto a much smaller 158 mm² die, achieving a density of 40.5 million per mm². This process advantage is fundamental to the performance gap.

The RX 5500 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the GTX 770 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the RX 5500 XT supports Vulkan 1.4 compared to the GTX 770’s Vulkan 1.2.175. The RX 5500 XT also has a faster boost clock of 1845 MHz versus the GTX 770’s 1085 MHz, and its memory runs at 14 Gbps effective versus 7 Gbps effective. The RX 5500 XT uses GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, while the GTX 770 uses GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus. Interestingly, their memory bandwidth is nearly identical: 224.0 GB/s for the RX 5500 XT and 224.4 GB/s for the GTX 770.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 5500 XT wins decisively in every modern API workload. Its Geekbench Vulkan score of 44,191 crushes the GTX 770’s 19,166, a 56.6% advantage. This makes it the clear choice for any game or application using Vulkan. Its Geekbench Metal score of 54,842 is even more dominant, 82.9% higher than the GTX 770’s 9,369. For OpenCL compute, the RX 5500 XT’s 46,965 score is 66.6% higher than the GTX 770’s 15,707. The RX 5500 XT also has 4 GB of VRAM versus 2 GB, which is a practical advantage for modern games and larger textures.

The GTX 770’s only wins are not shown in the head-to-head data, but its average score of 14,747 slightly edges out the RX 5500 XT’s 14,692. This suggests it performs relatively better in older benchmark suites that do not leverage modern APIs. Its 256-bit memory bus and higher pixel rate of 34.72 GPixel/s versus the RX 5500 XT’s 59.04 GPixel/s are irrelevant in practice, as the RX 5500 XT is faster there too. The GTX 770’s advantage is purely historical, rooted in software that predates RDNA 1.0.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher raw compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT. It delivers 5.196 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, compared to the GTX 770’s 3.333 TFLOPS. The RX 5500 XT also has FP16 performance of 10.39 TFLOPS (2:1), while the GTX 770 lists no FP16 capability.

Q: Are these cards comparable in overall benchmark averages?

A: Yes, nearly identical. The GTX 770 has an average benchmark score of 14,747, and the RX 5500 XT averages 14,692. The GTX 770 is just 0.4% ahead in this metric, but this is misleading because the RX 5500 XT wins all three head-to-head tests.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient?

A: The RX 5500 XT by a wide margin. It has a 130W TDP and requires a 300W suggested PSU, while the GTX 770 has a 230W TDP and requires a 550W suggested PSU. The RX 5500 XT also uses a single 8-pin power connector versus the GTX 770’s 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin.

Q: Do both cards support modern APIs equally?

A: No. The RX 5500 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4, while the GTX 770 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both support OpenGL 4.6. This explains the RX 5500 XT’s massive lead in Vulkan benchmarks.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RX 5500 XT has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, while the GTX 770 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus. Their bandwidth is nearly equal, at 224.0 GB/s and 224.4 GB/s respectively, but the RX 5500 XT has double the capacity.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data is a clean sweep for the RX 5500 XT, but the margins vary wildly by test. In Geekbench Metal, the RX 5500 XT scores 54,842 versus the GTX 770’s 9,369. That is a delta of -82.9% from the RX 5500 XT’s perspective, meaning the GTX 770 achieves less than one-fifth of the RX 5500 XT’s score. This test is likely optimized for modern GPU architectures, and the Kepler-based GTX 770 simply cannot compete with RDNA 1.0’s compute capabilities.

The Geekbench OpenCL test shows a similar story, but with a slightly smaller gap. The RX 5500 XT scores 46,965, while the GTX 770 scores 15,707. The delta is -66.6%, meaning the GTX 770 is roughly one-third as fast. This is a compute-oriented workload, and the RX 5500 XT’s 5.196 TFLOPS FP32 performance versus the GTX 770’s 3.333 TFLOPS is a decisive factor.

The Geekbench Vulkan test is the closest of the three, but still a landslide. The RX 5500 XT scores 44,191, and the GTX 770 scores 19,166, a delta of -56.6%. The GTX 770’s Vulkan support is limited to version 1.2.175, while the RX 5500 XT supports Vulkan 1.4, which explains why the RX 5500 XT more than doubles the GTX 770’s score here. Across these three tests, the wins are 3-0 in favor of the RX 5500 XT. The GTX 770’s average score advantage of 0.4% is entirely a product of legacy benchmarks that are not included in this head-to-head comparison.

Specification Differences

The most striking difference is the process node and resulting chip characteristics. The GTX 770 uses a 28 nm process with 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, while the RX 5500 XT uses a 7 nm process with 6,400 million transistors on a 158 mm² die. The RX 5500 XT has nearly double the transistors on half the die area. Clock speeds also differ significantly: the GTX 770 has a base clock of 1046 MHz and boost of 1085 MHz, while the RX 5500 XT has a base of 1607 MHz, boost of 1845 MHz, and a game clock of 1717 MHz.

Memory is a major differentiator. The GTX 770 has 2 GB of GDDR5, while the RX 5500 XT has 4 GB of GDDR6. The GTX 770 uses a 256-bit bus, and the RX 5500 XT uses a 128-bit bus, but their bandwidth is nearly identical. The RX 5500 XT has more shading units (1408 vs 1536 is actually fewer), but the GTX 770 has more TMUs (128 vs 88) and the same number of ROPs (32). The RX 5500 XT has higher pixel rate (59.04 GPixel/s vs 34.72 GPixel/s) and texture rate (162.4 GTexel/s vs 138.9 GTexel/s). Power requirements are vastly different: the GTX 770 has a 230W TDP and needs a 550W PSU, while the RX 5500 XT has a 130W TDP and a 300W PSU suggestion. The GTX 770 is also physically longer at 267 mm versus the RX 5500 XT’s 180 mm. The RX 5500 XT uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the GTX 770 uses PCIe 3.0 x16.