AMD Radeon RX 550X vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 and AMD Radeon RX 550X occupy vastly different tiers of the graphics card market, as evidenced by their respective average benchmark scores of 11,680 and 10,481. While the RX 550X sits near the 49th percentile of all GPUs, the GTX 1660 lands at the 51st percentile, but this narrow gap in percentiles masks a chasm in raw performance. The data shows that in the two head-to-head benchmarks available, the GTX 1660 delivers scores that are 395.2% and 343.7% higher than the RX 550X in OpenCL and Vulkan respectively, making the comparison less about competition and more about contrasting performance classes.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 1660 is the clear winner across every benchmark category where both cards have been tested, taking 2 wins out of 2 head-to-head tests. Its strongest advantage appears in compute-heavy workloads, where the Geekbench OpenCL score of 47,850 dwarfs the RX 550X’s 9,662, a gap of 395.2%. This suggests the GTX 1660 is suited for tasks like GPU-accelerated rendering, scientific computing, or any application that leverages OpenCL for parallel processing. The Vulkan result follows the same pattern, with the GTX 1660 scoring 50,137 versus 11,299, a 343.7% advantage, indicating superior performance in modern game engines that use Vulkan for low-level API access.

The RX 550X, by contrast, has no benchmark wins in this comparison. Its strengths lie not in performance but in its physical and power characteristics. With a TDP of 50 W and no power connectors required, it can operate in systems with a 250 W suggested PSU, making it suitable for low-power builds or office machines where the GTX 1660’s 120 W TDP and 1x 8-pin connector would be prohibitive. The RX 550X also measures just 145 mm in length, compared to the GTX 1660’s 229 mm, allowing it to fit in compact chassis where the longer card would not. For users prioritizing minimal power draw and small form factor over frame rates, the RX 550X has a clear role.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 has an average benchmark score of 11,680, while the AMD Radeon RX 550X averages 10,481, giving the GTX 1660 an 11.4% higher average score.

Q: How much faster is the GTX 1660 in OpenCL?

A: The GTX 1660 scores 47,850 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 395.2% higher than the RX 550X’s 9,662, meaning it is nearly five times faster in this compute test.

Q: Does the RX 550X win in any direct benchmark comparison?

A: No. The head-to-head data shows the GTX 1660 winning both Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan tests, with the RX 550X recording zero wins in the available comparisons.

Q: What is the power consumption difference between the two cards?

A: The GTX 1660 has a TDP of 120 W and requires a 300 W suggested PSU, while the RX 550X has a TDP of 50 W and a 250 W suggested PSU, making the RX 550X significantly more power-efficient.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The GTX 1660 offers 192.1 GB/s of bandwidth from its 192-bit bus and 6 GB GDDR5 memory, compared to the RX 550X’s 96.00 GB/s from a 128-bit bus and 4 GB GDDR5.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No, both the GTX 1660 and RX 550X are marked as "End-of-life" in production status, meaning neither is currently manufactured.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only two benchmarks where both cards have direct scores are Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the GTX 1660 dominates both. In OpenCL, the GTX 1660 posts 47,850 against the RX 550X’s 9,662, a delta of 395.2%. This result is not merely a marginal victory but a fundamental difference in compute capability, driven by the GTX 1660’s 1,408 shading units versus the RX 550X’s 512, and its 5.027 TFLOPS FP32 throughput against the RX 550X’s 1,211.4 GFLOPS. The Vulkan test shows a similar story: the GTX 1660 scores 50,137, which is 343.7% higher than the RX 550X’s 11,299. This consistent margin across two different APIs indicates that the performance gap is not workload-specific but rather a broad architectural advantage.

The RX 550X’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance tier. Its average score of 10,481 puts it within 1% of the NVIDIA Tesla C2075 (10,400, 0.8% delta) and within 1.4% of the AMD Radeon RX 6600S (10,629). These are older or lower-end parts, and the RX 550X’s position among them confirms its entry-level status. Meanwhile, the GTX 1660’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (11,627, 0.5% delta) and RX 6500 XT (11,842, -1.4% delta), showing that the GTX 1660 punches at a much higher weight class, trading blows with cards from a later generation.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The GTX 1660 uses a 12 nm process node from TSMC, while the RX 550X uses a 14 nm node from GlobalFoundries. The GTX 1660 packs 6,600 million transistors on a 284 mm² die, compared to the RX 550X’s 2,200 million transistors on a 103 mm² die, resulting in transistor densities of 23.2M / mm² and 21.4M / mm² respectively. Clock speeds favor the GTX 1660 with a 1530 MHz base and 1785 MHz boost, versus the RX 550X’s 1100 MHz base and 1183 MHz boost. Memory configurations are also disparate: the GTX 1660 has 6 GB GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus with 192.1 GB/s bandwidth, while the RX 550X has 4 GB GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 96.00 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 1660’s memory runs at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective) compared to the RX 550X’s 1500 MHz (6 Gbps effective).

The compute resources show a 2.75x difference in shading units (1,408 vs 512), 2.75x in TMUs (88 vs 32), and 3x in ROPs (48 vs 16). Pixel and texture rates follow suit: the GTX 1660 achieves 85.68 GPixel/s and 157.1 GTexel/s, while the RX 550X manages 18.93 GPixel/s and 37.86 GTexel/s. Power requirements differ substantially, with the GTX 1660 at 120 W TDP and the RX 550X at 50 W. The GTX 1660 needs a 1x 8-pin power connector and a 300 W PSU, while the RX 550X requires no external power and only a 250 W PSU. The bus interface also differs: PCIe 3.0 x16 for the GTX 1660 versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for the RX 550X. Display outputs are similar but not identical, with the GTX 1660 offering HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RX 550X has HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a.

Architecture Differences

The GTX 1660 is built on NVIDIA’s Turing architecture, specifically the TU116 chip, and belongs to the GeForce 16 generation. It uses a 12 nm process and supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Notably, it has no RT cores or tensor cores, meaning it lacks the ray tracing and AI acceleration features found in higher-end Turing cards. Its FP16 performance is 10.05 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, indicating it can double throughput for half-precision workloads. The card’s predecessor is the GeForce 10 series, and its successor is the GeForce 20 series, placing it as a transitional product that adopted the newer architecture without the dedicated hardware features.

The RX 550X uses AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture, built on the Lexa chip, and is part of the Polaris (RX 500X) generation. It uses a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries and supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. Its FP16 performance is 1,211.4 GFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, meaning there is no FP16 acceleration advantage over FP32. The architecture is older, deriving from the Polaris design, with its predecessor being Polaris and its successor being Vega. The RX 550X also uses a narrower PCIe 3.0 x8 interface, which can be a bottleneck in some systems, and its memory runs at a lower effective speed of 6 Gbps versus the GTX 1660’s 8 Gbps. The architectural generational gap explains the massive performance delta: Turing’s improved scheduling and execution efficiency, combined with more than double the shading units and a wider memory bus, give the GTX 1660 a decisive edge in every measured workload.