AMD Radeon RX 6550M vs AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Comparison

# AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 vs AMD Radeon RX 6550M

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and AMD Radeon RX 6550M sit at opposite ends of the GPU spectrum—one is a 2017 desktop flagship built for raw throughput, the other a 2023 mobile part engineered for efficiency. The benchmark data shows the Vega 64 winning both shared tests decisively, but the 6550M counters with a modern feature set and a fraction of the power draw. This comparison breaks down what each card does best and where the older architecture still holds ground.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 leads with an average benchmark score of 50,001, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. The RX 6550M trails at 46,702, which still lands it in the 85th percentile—a narrower gap than the raw scores suggest.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the shared benchmarks?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the Vega 64 scores 62,552 against the 6550M’s 42,536, a 47.1% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the Vega 64 posts 67,032 versus 50,867, a 31.8% lead. The Vega 64 wins both head-to-head tests.

Q: What architectural generation does each GPU use?

A: The RX Vega 64 uses GCN 5.0 architecture on a 14 nm process with the Vega 10 chip. The RX 6550M uses RDNA 2.0 architecture on a 6 nm process with the Navi 24 chip, and it belongs to the Radeon RX 6000 series.

Q: Which GPU supports hardware ray tracing?

A: Only the RX 6550M includes 16 ray tracing cores. The RX Vega 64 has no RT cores listed, and its DirectX support is capped at 12 (12_1) while the 6550M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2).

Q: How do their power requirements compare?

A: The RX Vega 64 has a 295 W TDP with a suggested 600 W PSU and dual 8-pin connectors. The RX 6550M draws just 80 W, requires no power connectors, and is an integrated graphics package (IGP) for portable devices.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The Vega 64 ships with 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus, delivering 483.8 GB/s bandwidth. The 6550M has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, providing 144.0 GB/s. The Vega 64’s bandwidth advantage is roughly 3.4x.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different design philosophies. The RX Vega 64 is built on GCN 5.0, a 14 nm architecture from GlobalFoundries, using the Vega 10 chip with 12,500 million transistors on a 495 mm² die. The RX 6550M adopts RDNA 2.0, fabricated by TSMC on 6 nm, using the Navi 24 chip with 5,400 million transistors packed into a compact 107 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: the 6550M achieves 50.5 million transistors per mm² versus 25.3 million on the Vega 64—a direct result of the newer process node.

Shader configuration differs dramatically. The Vega 64 fields 4,096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The 6550M halves many of these: 1,024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Yet the 6550M adds 16 ray tracing cores, a feature the Vega 64 lacks entirely. Clock speeds flip the script. The Vega 64 runs a 1247 MHz base and 1546 MHz boost, while the 6550M starts at 2000 MHz base, boosts to 2840 MHz, and has a game clock of 2560 MHz. The 6550M’s higher frequencies compensate for fewer cores, though not fully.

Memory architecture is another fundamental split. The Vega 64 uses 8 GB of HBM2 across a 2048-bit interface, yielding 483.8 GB/s. The 6550M uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, capping at 144.0 GB/s. The Vega 64’s memory bus width is 32 times larger, though the 6550M’s faster effective speed (18 Gbps versus 1890 Mbps) narrows the bandwidth gap. The Vega 64 also uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, while the 6550M runs PCIe 4.0 x4—a tradeoff between lane count and protocol generation.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two shared benchmarks paint a consistent picture. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX Vega 64 scores 62,552 against the RX 6550M’s 42,536. That is a 47.1% delta, meaning the Vega 64 delivers nearly half again as much compute throughput in this API. The gap stems from the Vega 64’s 2.18x FP32 advantage (12.66 TFLOPS versus 5.816 TFLOPS) and its 2.18x texture rate advantage (395.8 GTexel/s versus 181.8 GTexel/s).

Geekbench Vulkan shows a tighter race but the same winner. The Vega 64 posts 67,032, while the 6550M manages 50,867—a 31.8% delta. Vulkan’s lower overhead helps the 6550M’s higher clocks close some ground, but the Vega 64’s raw resources still win out. Notably, the Vega 64’s Vulkan score is higher than its OpenCL score, while the 6550M also improves in Vulkan, suggesting both cards respond well to modern APIs.

The data shows two wins for the Vega 64 and zero for the 6550M. However, the 6550M’s closest rivals in the overall database—Intel Arc A530M and AMD Radeon RX 5600M—sit within 0.2% of its average score, indicating it is competitive with its peer group. The Vega 64, meanwhile, trades blows with much newer hardware: it sits 0.1% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 0.5% above the Intel Arc A550M, and 1.9% below the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, while running 3.1% ahead of the RX 6800 XT.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 | AMD Radeon RX 6550M |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | GCN 5.0 | RDNA 2.0 |

| Process Node | 14 nm | 6 nm |

| Transistors | 12,500 million | 5,400 million |

| Die Size | 495 mm² | 107 mm² |

| Base Clock | 1247 MHz | 2000 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1546 MHz | 2840 MHz |

| Game Clock | N/A | 2560 MHz |

| Memory Size | 8 GB | 4 GB |

| Memory Type | HBM2 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus | 2048 bit | 64 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 483.8 GB/s | 144.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 4096 | 1024 |

| TMUs | 256 | 64 |

| ROPs | 64 | 32 |

| RT Cores | N/A | 16 |

| FP32 | 12.66 TFLOPS | 5.816 TFLOPS |

| Pixel Rate | 98.94 GPixel/s | 90.88 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 395.8 GTexel/s | 181.8 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 295 W | 80 W |

| Slot Width | Dual-slot | IGP |

| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 600 W | N/A |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x4 |

| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.4 |

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | Portable Device Dependent |

| Production Status | End-of-life | Active |

| Release Date | 2017-08-06 | 2023-01-03 |

The pixel rate is surprisingly close—98.94 GPixel/s for the Vega 64 versus 90.88 GPixel/s for the 6550M—despite the Vega 64 having double the ROPs. The 6550M’s far higher clocks close that gap. Everything else favors one card or the other with clear separation: the Vega 64 dominates in compute, memory, and bandwidth, while the 6550M wins on efficiency, process technology, and modern API support.

Where Each One Wins

The RX Vega 64 wins in raw compute-heavy workloads. Its 12.66 TFLOPS FP32 performance is more than double the 6550M’s 5.816 TFLOPS, and its 395.8 GTexel/s texture rate similarly doubles the 6550M’s 181.8 GTexel/s. For OpenCL and Vulkan compute tasks—rendering, scientific workloads, or heavy GPGPU applications—the Vega 64’s lead is substantial, as shown by the 47.1% and 31.8% benchmark deltas. The 8 GB HBM2 frame buffer with 483.8 GB/s bandwidth also suits high-resolution textures and large datasets, where the 6550M’s 4 GB and 144.0 GB/s would bottleneck.

The RX 6550M wins on efficiency and modern features. Its 80 W TDP is less than a third of the Vega 64’s 295 W, making it suitable for thin-and-light laptops where the Vega 64’s dual-slot cooler and 280 mm length would never fit. The 16 ray tracing cores enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing in supported games, which the Vega 64 cannot do at all. DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 mean the 6550M is ready for current-generation game features, while the Vega 64 is capped at DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. The 6550M’s 2840 MHz boost clock also gives it an edge in lightly threaded or latency-sensitive workloads where clock speed matters more than core count.

In the overall percentile rankings, the two cards are nearly tied—86th for the Vega 64 versus 85th for the 6550M. That suggests that despite the Vega 64’s dominant win in shared benchmarks, the 6550M competes well in the broader GPU landscape, likely because newer architectures extract more performance per unit of compute. The Vega 64’s rivals include the RTX 5070 Ti (0.1% behind) and RX 6900 XT (1.9% ahead), while the 6550M’s rivals are the Arc A530M (0.2% behind) and RX 5600M (0.2% behind)—a different performance tier entirely.

The Verdict

Choose the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 if you need maximum compute throughput in a desktop system. The data is unambiguous: it wins both head-to-head benchmarks by margins of 47.1% and 31.8%, offers more than double the FP32 performance, and provides 8 GB of HBM2 memory with 483.8 GB/s bandwidth. Its 86th percentile ranking and proximity to modern cards like the RTX 5070 Ti (0.1% ahead) and RX 6900 XT (1.9% behind) show it still competes with much newer hardware in raw benchmarks. This is the card for GPU compute, high-resolution texture workloads, and users who have a 600 W PSU and dual 8-pin connectors ready.

Choose the AMD Radeon RX 6550M for a portable system where power efficiency and modern features matter more than raw throughput. Its 80 W TDP requires no power connectors and no dedicated cooling solution, and its 16 ray tracing cores plus DirectX 12 Ultimate support deliver features the Vega 64 cannot offer. The 6550M’s 85th percentile ranking is remarkably close to the Vega 64’s 86th, given the massive difference in power draw and die size. For gaming on the go with current API support, or for a compact device where every watt counts, the 6550M is the pragmatic choice—even if it loses every shared benchmark. The Vega 64 is end-of-life hardware; the 6550M is active and current. The right pick depends entirely on whether you value absolute performance or modern efficiency.