AMD Radeon RX 6550M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 6550M and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile occupy opposite ends of the mobile graphics spectrum, as the data shows a decisive performance gap in every measured benchmark. The RX 6550M, a 6 nm RDNA 2.0 part, delivers an average benchmark score of 46,702, placing it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 4090 Mobile, built on 5 nm Ada Lovelace, posts an average score of 43,667, sitting in the 84th percentile. Despite the RTX 4090 Mobile’s lower average score—a metric that includes a wide range of DirectX and compute tests—its raw compute wins in the head-to-head benchmarks are overwhelming, with the RX 6550M failing to secure a single victory across the two shared tests. This analysis breaks down the specific numbers, architectural roots, and use-case outcomes from the data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison contains only two shared benchmark tests: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. In both, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile wins by a massive margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4090 Mobile scores 180,831 against the RX 6550M’s 42,536, a delta of -76.5% from the AMD part’s perspective. That means the NVIDIA GPU delivers roughly 4.25 times the OpenCL score. The Vulkan test shows a similar story: RTX 4090 Mobile achieves 170,774, while the RX 6550M scores 50,867, with a delta of -70.2%. Here, the NVIDIA part is about 3.36 times faster.

These deltas are not marginal differences; they represent a full performance tier separation. The RX 6550M’s own benchmark data—42,536 in OpenCL and 50,867 in Vulkan—shows that its Vulkan score is actually higher than its OpenCL result, a pattern that suggests the RDNA 2.0 architecture handles Vulkan workloads more efficiently relative to its own OpenCL output. The RTX 4090 Mobile, by contrast, shows the opposite relationship in the head-to-head: its OpenCL score (180,831) exceeds its Vulkan score (170,774), indicating a slight OpenCL advantage. The absolute gap, however, dwarfs any architectural nuance.

Looking at the RTX 4090 Mobile’s broader benchmark suite, its Passmark G3D score of 27,212 and GPU compute score of 12,347 further illustrate its compute-heavy design, though these tests have no RX 6550M counterpart in the data. The RX 6550M’s nearest rivals—Intel Arc A530M (46,614, delta 0.2%), AMD Radeon RX 5600M (46,601, delta 0.2%), NVIDIA RTX A2000 (46,043, delta 1.4%), and NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation (45,972, delta 1.6%)—are all within 1.6% of its average score, confirming that the RX 6550M sits in a tightly contested mid-range cluster. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s rivals, including NVIDIA Quadro M6000 (43,301, delta 0.8%), GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (43,268, delta 0.9%), and RTX A6000 (44,075, delta -0.9%), show that its average score is actually slightly below some professional workstation parts, yet its head-to-head dominance over the RX 6550M is unambiguous.

Architecture Differences

The architectural chasm between these two GPUs explains the benchmark results. The RX 6550M uses the Navi 24 chip on RDNA 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC with 5,400 million transistors on a 107 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 50.5 million per mm². The RTX 4090 Mobile uses the AD103 chip on Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process also at TSMC, with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die, for a density of 121.1 million per mm². The RTX 4090 Mobile has over 8.5 times the transistor count and a density more than double, which directly correlates with its larger compute resources.

Compute unit counts show a similar divide. The RX 6550M has 1,024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 32 render output units (ROPs), plus 16 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 4090 Mobile has 9,728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, along with 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores. That is 9.5 times the shading units, 4.75 times the TMUs, 3.5 times the ROPs, and 4.75 times the ray tracing cores. The tensor cores on the NVIDIA part are a notable feature absent from the AMD GPU, indicating AI-accelerated workloads are a differentiator. The pixel rate for the RTX 4090 Mobile is 189.8 GPixel/s versus 90.88 GPixel/s for the RX 6550M, and texture rates are 515.3 GTexel/s versus 181.8 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 32.98 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 5.816 TFLOPS for AMD, and FP16 is 32.98 TFLOPS (1:1) versus 11.63 TFLOPS (2:1), showing the NVIDIA part does not halve its FP16 rate.

Memory subsystems are equally divergent. The RX 6550M has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 144.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the RTX 4090 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth—exactly four times the capacity and four times the bandwidth. Both run memory at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), but the bus width difference dictates the bandwidth gap. The PCIe interface also differs: RX 6550M uses PCIe 4.0 x4, while RTX 4090 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, offering four times the lane count for host communication. Both are integrated (IGP) with no power connectors and portable-device-dependent display outputs, and both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 6550M’s TDP is 80 W versus 120 W for the RTX 4090 Mobile, a 40 W difference that is modest compared to the performance gap.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the RTX 4090 Mobile wins every measured head-to-head category, so the use-case split is not about which GPU wins a particular test but rather where each GPU’s profile fits. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s 180,831 OpenCL score and 170,774 Vulkan score make it the clear choice for compute-heavy applications like OpenCL-based rendering or Vulkan gaming, where its 32.98 TFLOPS FP32 and 32.98 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1) throughput can be fully utilized. Its 16 GB memory and 576.0 GB/s bandwidth also support large datasets and high-resolution textures, a practical advantage in modern workloads.

The RX 6550M, despite losing both head-to-head tests, has its own niche. Its 50,867 Vulkan score exceeds its 42,536 OpenCL score, suggesting Vulkan-optimized titles may run relatively better on this GPU than OpenCL-based compute. With 4 GB of memory and 144.0 GB/s bandwidth, it is suited for lighter loads, such as esports titles or older games, where its 5.816 TFLOPS FP32 is sufficient. Its 80 W TDP is lower, which may appeal to thin-and-light laptops, though the data does not include thermal or battery metrics. The RX 6550M’s nearest rivals, all within 1.6% of its average score, indicate it competes directly with the Intel Arc A530M and AMD Radeon RX 5600M, so a buyer choosing between those mid-range parts would see negligible performance differences—but comparing it to the RTX 4090 Mobile is not a contest.

For the RTX 4090 Mobile, the Passmark scores provide additional context: G3D at 27,212 and GPU compute at 12,347 are strong, while DirectX 9 (310), DirectX 10 (173), DirectX 11 (262), and DirectX 12 (107) scores show it handles legacy APIs well but peaks in modern compute. The RX 6550M has no Passmark data, so its legacy API behavior is unknown. The absence of tensor cores on the RX 6550M means AI workloads, which would leverage the RTX 4090 Mobile’s 304 tensor cores, are a clear differentiator in favor of NVIDIA.

The Verdict

The data is unequivocal: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile is in a different performance class than the AMD Radeon RX 6550M. In the only two shared benchmarks, the RTX 4090 Mobile leads by 76.5% in OpenCL and 70.2% in Vulkan, with absolute scores roughly four and three times higher, respectively. The architectural underpinnings—9.5 times the shading units, 4 times the memory capacity, 4 times the memory bandwidth, and over 8.5 times the transistors—make this outcome predictable. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s 84th percentile ranking and average score of 43,667, while lower than the RX 6550M’s 85th percentile and 46,702, are misleading because the RX 6550M’s average is boosted by a narrower benchmark set; the head-to-head tests are the only direct comparison, and NVIDIA dominates there.

For a user prioritizing maximum compute performance, ray tracing (76 cores versus 16), or AI acceleration (304 tensor cores versus none), the RTX 4090 Mobile is the only rational choice from this data. Its 120 W TDP is higher, but the performance return is substantial. For a user constrained to the RX 6550M’s class, the data shows it is a capable mid-range part, competitive with the Intel Arc A530M (delta 0.2%) and AMD Radeon RX 5600M (delta 0.2%), but it cannot handle the workloads the RTX 4090 Mobile is designed for. The verdict is simple: these GPUs target different segments, and the benchmark results reflect that separation clearly.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4090 Mobile than the RX 6550M in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile scores 180,831 versus the RX 6550M’s 42,536, a delta of -76.5% from the AMD side, meaning the NVIDIA GPU is roughly 4.25 times faster.

Q: Does the RX 6550M win any benchmark against the RTX 4090 Mobile?

A: No. In the head-to-head data, the RX 6550M has zero wins, while the RTX 4090 Mobile wins both Geekbench OpenCL (180,831 vs 42,536) and Geekbench Vulkan (170,774 vs 50,867).

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between these two GPUs?

A: The RX 6550M has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 144.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the RTX 4090 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth—four times the capacity and bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units, and by how much?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile has 9,728 shading units compared to the RX 6550M’s 1,024, a 9.5-fold difference that directly explains its higher FP32 throughput of 32.98 TFLOPS versus 5.816 TFLOPS.

Q: Are there any architectural features unique to one GPU?

A: Yes. The RTX 4090 Mobile has 304 tensor cores and 76 ray tracing cores, while the RX 6550M has 16 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 4090 Mobile also uses a 5 nm process versus 6 nm for the RX 6550M.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The RX 6550M’s average score of 46,702 is within 0.2% of the Intel Arc A530M (46,614) and AMD Radeon RX 5600M (46,601). The RTX 4090 Mobile’s average of 43,667 is within 0.9% of the GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (43,268) and 0.8% of the Quadro M6000 (43,301).