AMD Radeon RX 6600S vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M Comparison

AMD Radeon RX 6600S vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M: the data shows a generational chasm between a modern RDNA 2 part and a Maxwell-era laptop GPU. The RX 6600S lands in the 49th percentile of all GPUs, while the GTX 960M sits at the 46th, but that narrow percentile gap hides a massive performance gulf. The only shared benchmark tells the story: in Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6600S scores 66,435 against the GTX 960M’s 11,045, a 501.5% advantage. That is not an incremental upgrade; it is a completely different performance class.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single head-to-head data point is decisive. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD Radeon RX 6600S delivers 66,435 points, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M manages just 11,045. The delta of 501.5% means the RX 6600S is roughly six times faster in this compute-oriented workload. For context, the RX 6600S’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score — the AMD Radeon R9 M275X at 10,582 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti at 10,690 — sit within 1.4% of its own average of 10,629. That is a tight cluster, but the RX 6600S still edges ahead of all four listed rivals, beating the R9 M275X by 0.4% and the GTX 560 Ti by 0.6%. The GTX 960M, meanwhile, averages 9,645, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA Quadro K5000 at 9,637 (0.1% slower) and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 2100 at 9,653 (0.1% faster). So while both cards are near the middle of the pack historically, the RX 6600S’s OpenCL result is an outlier that dwarfs the comparison.

Look at the other benchmark entries for the RX 6600S to see where that average comes from. Its Passmark G3D score is 12,649, which is strong, but its Passmark DirectX 9 score is 176, DirectX 10 is 81, DirectX 11 is 105, and DirectX 12 is 56. Those low legacy API scores are typical of a modern architecture that prioritizes newer pipelines. The GTX 960M has no Passmark entries in the data, only Geekbench OpenCL (11,045) and Vulkan (8,245). The RX 6600S has no Vulkan score listed, so the only apples-to-apples comparison is OpenCL, and that is a blowout. If you rely on the Passmark G2D score, the RX 6600S posts 647, indicating solid 2D performance, but the GTX 960M offers no comparable figure.

Where Each One Wins

Based strictly on benchmark wins, the RX 6600S wins the only head-to-head test, so it takes the compute crown outright. Its Geekbench OpenCL result of 66,435 is not just a win; it is a category-defining margin that suggests the card is built for heavy parallel workloads. The GTX 960M wins no head-to-head tests in this data, but it does have a Vulkan score of 8,245, which is its strongest showing — and the RX 6600S has no Vulkan data to compare against. That means for Vulkan-specific titles, the GTX 960M at least has a measurable baseline, while the RX 6600S’s capability in that API is unverified in this pack.

For gaming, the RX 6600S’s Passmark G3D score of 12,649 is the relevant figure, and it is substantially higher than the GTX 960M’s average benchmark score of 9,645. The RX 6600S also has modern API support with DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), whereas the GTX 960M only reaches DirectX 12 (11_0), meaning the AMD card can handle feature sets like ray tracing via its 28 RT cores. The GTX 960M has no RT cores at all. For compute tasks, the RX 6600S’s FP32 throughput of 7.168 TFLOPS versus the GTX 960M’s 1.505 TFLOPS is a 4.76x gap, so any GPU-accelerated rendering or machine learning workload will heavily favor the AMD part. The GTX 960M’s only potential edge is its lower TDP of 75 W versus 80 W, but that 5 W difference is negligible for real-world thermals.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in raw compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600S, by a massive margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 66,435 versus the GTX 960M’s 11,045, a 501.5% difference. Its FP32 rating is 7.168 TFLOPS against 1.505 TFLOPS.

Q: Do these GPUs support the same DirectX version?

A: No. The RX 6600S supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 960M is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: How do their memory specifications compare?

A: Both have 4 GB of memory and a 128-bit bus width. The RX 6600S uses GDDR6 with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the GTX 960M uses GDDR5 with 80.19 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card has more shading units and texture units?

A: The RX 6600S has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The GTX 960M has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs.

Q: Is the GTX 960M more power efficient?

A: The GTX 960M has a lower TDP of 75 W versus the RX 6600S’s 80 W, but the RX 6600S delivers far more performance per watt given its 4.76x higher FP32 throughput.

Q: What are the production statuses of these cards?

A: Both are end-of-life. The RX 6600S was released on 2022-01-03, and the GTX 960M on 2015-03-12.

Specification Differences

The most striking difference is the process node and transistor count. The RX 6600S uses a 7 nm process from TSMC with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 46.7M per mm². The GTX 960M uses a 28 nm process with 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die, for a density of 12.6M per mm². That is a 3.7x density advantage for AMD. Clock speeds also differ significantly: the RX 6600S has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a boost of 2000 MHz, and a game clock of 1881 MHz, while the GTX 960M runs at 1097 MHz base and 1176 MHz boost. Memory clocks are equally divergent — the RX 6600S’s GDDR6 runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus the GTX 960M’s GDDR5 at 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective).

Pixel and texture rates underline the gap. The RX 6600S posts 128.0 GPixel/s and 224.0 GTexel/s, while the GTX 960M manages only 18.82 GPixel/s and 47.04 GTexel/s. That is a 6.8x pixel rate difference and a 4.8x texture rate difference. The RX 6600S also has 28 RT cores, a feature absent from the GTX 960M. The bus interface differs as well: the RX 6600S uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the GTX 960M uses MXM-B (3.0). The RX 6600S is listed as an IGP slot width, whereas the GTX 960M is an MXM Module. Both have no power connectors and portable-device-dependent display outputs.

Architecture Differences

The RX 6600S is built on RDNA 2.0 architecture, part of the Radeon RX 6000 series with the Navi 23 chip. It features 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 28 dedicated ray tracing cores. Its FP16 performance is 14.34 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), meaning it can handle half-precision workloads at double the rate of FP32. The GTX 960M uses the older Maxwell architecture with the GM107 chip, offering 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs — no ray tracing cores and no FP16 data listed. The RX 6600S supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes features like ray tracing and mesh shaders, while the GTX 960M is capped at DirectX 12 (11_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not a differentiator beyond the DirectX tier.

The manufacturing technology is the root cause of the performance gap. The 7 nm process allows the RX 6600S to pack 11,060 million transistors, nearly six times the GTX 960M’s 1,870 million, into a die that is only 60% larger by area (237 mm² vs 148 mm²). That density enables higher clock speeds (2000 MHz boost vs 1176 MHz) and far more compute units. The RX 6600S’s memory subsystem is also architecturally superior — GDDR6 at 224.0 GB/s versus GDDR5 at 80.19 GB/s — which directly feeds its higher texture and pixel rates. The GTX 960M is a product of its era, and the architecture simply cannot compete with a card designed six years later.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 6600S is the superior GPU in every measurable way except one narrow metric. It wins the only head-to-head benchmark by 501.5%, has 4.76x the FP32 throughput, 6.8x the pixel rate, and 4.8x the texture rate. Its 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth versus 80.19 GB/s means texture-heavy games and compute workloads will run dramatically smoother. The GTX 960M’s only advantage is a 5 W lower TDP (75 W vs 80 W) and a Vulkan score of 8,245, which has no RX 6600S counterpart to compare.

Choose the RX 6600S if you need modern gaming features like ray tracing (28 RT cores), DirectX 12 Ultimate support, or compute performance for content creation. Its 7.168 TFLOPS FP32 and 14.34 TFLOPS FP16 make it a viable entry-level workstation GPU. Choose the GTX 960M only if you are working with legacy MXM modules or specifically need a 75 W TDP for an ultra-thin chassis — but be prepared for 1.505 TFLOPS of compute and 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth to be the bottleneck in any demanding task. The percentile rankings (49th vs 46th) undersell the gap; the RX 6600S sits at the top of its rivalry cluster, while the GTX 960M sits near the bottom of a similar cluster. For any new build, the RX 6600S is the only rational pick.