AMD Radeon RX 6550M vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 6550M and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile are two compact mobile GPUs aimed at thin-and-light workstations and gaming laptops, but the benchmark data shows they are not interchangeable. The RX 6550M holds a clear performance lead in the available tests, while the RTX A500 Mobile counters with a dramatically lower power draw and a different feature set. This analysis breaks down the numbers from the FACT PACK to show where each GPU makes sense.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data contains exactly two benchmark entries, and the AMD Radeon RX 6550M wins both. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 6550M scores 42,536 against the RTX A500 Mobile’s 41,263, a 3.1% advantage. That is a modest lead, but it is consistent. The bigger gap appears in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RX 6550M posts 50,867 versus the RTX A500 Mobile’s 37,873. That is a 34.3% difference — a decisive victory for AMD. In Vulkan, the RX 6550M’s architecture appears to scale far better, likely due to its higher clock speeds and RDNA 2.0 design.

Looking at the average benchmark scores tells a similar story. The RX 6550M has an average benchmark score of 46,702, while the RTX A500 Mobile sits at 39,568. That puts the AMD part roughly 18% ahead on average, even though the individual OpenCL gap is small. The Vulkan result drags the NVIDIA part down significantly. For context, the RX 6550M’s nearest rivals include the Intel Arc A530M at 46,614 (0.2% behind), the AMD Radeon RX 5600M at 46,601 (0.2% behind), and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 at 46,043 (1.4% behind). The RTX A500 Mobile, meanwhile, sits near the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39,555, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon Pro 575X (39,116, 1.2% behind). The RTX A500 Mobile’s average is closer to older workstation parts than to the RX 6550M’s tier.

The percentile rankings reinforce this. The RX 6550M lands in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX A500 Mobile is in the 82nd. That three-point gap may sound small, but it reflects the fact that the RX 6550M outperforms a larger share of the GPU pool. In raw terms, the RX 6550M’s FP32 throughput is 5.816 TFLOPS versus the RTX A500 Mobile’s 6.296 TFLOPS — the NVIDIA part actually has a higher theoretical FP32 number. Yet the real-world benchmark scores tell the opposite story. This suggests the RX 6550M’s higher boost clock (2840 MHz versus 1537 MHz) and more efficient RDNA 2.0 implementation translate better into actual compute tasks, at least in these tests.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 6550M wins in every measured benchmark, so its strengths are straightforward. It dominates in Vulkan, where its 34.3% lead over the RTX A500 Mobile is the single largest margin in the data. If you are running Vulkan-based games or compute workloads, the RX 6550M is the clear choice. It also edges out the RTX A500 Mobile in OpenCL, though the 3.1% margin is small enough that most users would not notice a difference in day-to-day tasks. The RX 6550M’s higher pixel rate (90.88 GPixel/s versus 49.18 GPixel/s) and texture rate (181.8 GTexel/s versus 98.37 GTexel/s) point to better rasterization performance, which aligns with its gaming-oriented Radeon RX 6000 series lineage.

The RTX A500 Mobile’s wins are not in performance but in efficiency and features. Its TDP is 30 W versus the RX 6550M’s 80 W — a 50 W difference that is enormous for mobile designs. That means the RTX A500 Mobile can fit into thinner, cooler, and quieter laptops with smaller batteries, while the RX 6550M will demand more thermal headroom and power delivery. The RTX A500 Mobile also has 64 tensor cores, a feature the RX 6550M lacks entirely. For workloads that leverage NVIDIA’s tensor core ecosystem (such as AI inference or DLSS-style upscaling), the RTX A500 Mobile offers hardware that the AMD part simply does not have. Additionally, the RTX A500 Mobile uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, double the lane width of the RX 6550M’s PCIe 4.0 x4, which could matter for data-transfer-heavy tasks despite the lower raw compute scores.

The FP16 comparison is also notable. The RX 6550M delivers 11.63 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio), while the RTX A500 Mobile offers 6.296 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio). In workloads that use FP16, the AMD part has a hard advantage. But the RTX A500 Mobile’s 1:1 FP16 ratio means no penalty for switching precision, which some compute stacks prefer.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6550M has an average benchmark score of 46,702, compared to the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile’s 39,568. The RX 6550M also sits in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, versus the RTX A500 Mobile’s 82nd.

Q: How much faster is the RX 6550M in Vulkan?

A: In the Geekbench Vulkan test, the RX 6550M scores 50,867 against the RTX A500 Mobile’s 37,873, a 34.3% lead. That is the largest performance gap in the head-to-head data.

Q: Does the RTX A500 Mobile have any advantage in power draw?

A: Yes. The RTX A500 Mobile has a TDP of 30 W, while the RX 6550M has a TDP of 80 W. That 50 W difference makes the NVIDIA part significantly easier to cool and power in thin laptops.

Q: Which GPU has tensor cores?

A: Only the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile has tensor cores, with 64 of them. The AMD Radeon RX 6550M has no tensor cores listed in its specifications.

Q: Is the RTX A500 Mobile still in production?

A: No. The RTX A500 Mobile is marked as end-of-life, with a successor listed as Ada-MW. The RX 6550M is still listed as active in production.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RX 6550M has 144.0 GB/s of bandwidth, while the RTX A500 Mobile has 96.00 GB/s. Both use 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs share several core specifications but diverge sharply on others. Both have 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, a 64-bit memory bus, 64 texture mapping units, 32 raster operating units, and 16 ray tracing cores. Both also support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The similarities end there.

The RX 6550M has 1024 shading units, while the RTX A500 Mobile has 2048. That is a significant difference — the NVIDIA part has twice the shader count. However, the RX 6550M compensates with much higher clocks: a base of 2000 MHz and a boost of 2840 MHz, versus the RTX A500 Mobile’s 832 MHz base and 1537 MHz boost. The RX 6550M also has a "game" clock of 2560 MHz, a figure the RTX A500 Mobile does not list. The result is that the RX 6550M’s pixel rate (90.88 GPixel/s) and texture rate (181.8 GTexel/s) are roughly double the RTX A500 Mobile’s (49.18 GPixel/s and 98.37 GTexel/s, respectively). The FP32 numbers are closer — 5.816 TFLOPS for AMD versus 6.296 TFLOPS for NVIDIA — but the AMD part’s FP16 output (11.63 TFLOPS) is nearly double.

The memory clock differs too: the RX 6550M runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), while the RTX A500 Mobile runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). That drives the bandwidth gap (144.0 GB/s versus 96.00 GB/s). The bus interface also differs, with the RX 6550M using PCIe 4.0 x4 and the RTX A500 Mobile using PCIe 4.0 x8. Power draw is starkly different: 80 W for the AMD part versus 30 W for the NVIDIA part. Both are listed as IGP (integrated into the motherboard) with no power connectors and portable-device-dependent display outputs.

Architecture Differences

The architecture story is a contrast between process node efficiency and feature specialization. The RX 6550M uses AMD’s RDNA 2.0 architecture on a 6 nm TSMC process, with a chip called Navi 24. It packs 5,400 million transistors into a die size of 107 mm², yielding a transistor density of 50.5M per mm². The RTX A500 Mobile uses NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture on an 8 nm Samsung process, with a GA107S chip. It has 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, for a density of 43.5M per mm². The AMD part is smaller, denser, and built on a newer process, which helps explain its higher clock speeds and lower transistor count achieving competitive or better performance.

The RX 6550M belongs to the Navi Mobile (RX 6000M) generation and has a predecessor of Polaris Mobile. The RTX A500 Mobile is from the Ampere-MW (Ax000) generation, with a predecessor of Quadro Turing-M and a successor of Ada-MW. The RX 6550M’s RDNA 2.0 architecture provides 16 ray tracing cores, matching the RTX A500 Mobile’s 16, but the NVIDIA part adds 64 tensor cores for AI workloads. The RX 6550M offers FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, meaning it can double the throughput for half-precision work, while the RTX A500 Mobile runs FP16 at 1:1, matching its FP32 rate. The RTX A500 Mobile is end-of-life, while the RX 6550M remains active in production, with a release date of January 3, 2023, versus March 21, 2022, for the NVIDIA part.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear performance winner: the AMD Radeon RX 6550M. It beats the RTX A500 Mobile in both head-to-head benchmarks, with a 3.1% OpenCL lead and a 34.3% Vulkan lead. Its average benchmark score is roughly 18% higher, and it sits three percentile points higher in the overall GPU ranking. For anyone prioritizing raw compute or gaming performance in Vulkan or OpenCL, the RX 6550M is the logical pick. Its higher clock speeds, greater memory bandwidth, and double the FP16 throughput make it the stronger all-around performer in these tests.

However, the RTX A500 Mobile is not without a niche. Its 30 W TDP is a fraction of the RX 6550M’s 80 W, making it far more suitable for ultra-portable laptops where thermal and power constraints dominate. The 64 tensor cores are a unique asset that the RX 6550M cannot match, which matters for AI inference or other tensor-accelerated software. The PCIe 4.0 x8 interface also provides more bandwidth to the host system than the RX 6550M’s x4 link. If your workload relies on tensor cores or if you need a GPU that sips power, the RTX A500 Mobile is the better fit despite lower benchmark scores.

The verdict from the data: choose the RX 6550M for performance, gaming, and FP16-heavy compute. Choose the RTX A500 Mobile for efficiency, tensor-core workloads, and systems where 30 W is the hard ceiling. The RX 6550M is still in production, so it is the more future-proof option, while the RTX A500 Mobile’s end-of-life status makes it a legacy choice.