AMD Radeon RX 6650M vs AMD Radeon RX 7900M Comparison

AMD Radeon RX 7900M and AMD Radeon RX 6650M are two mobile GPUs from different generations, and the benchmark data shows a clear performance hierarchy. The RX 7900M, built on RDNA 3.0, sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 6650M, using RDNA 2.0, lands in the 91st percentile. Their average benchmark scores tell the story: the RX 7900M averages 97487, while the RX 6650M averages 71768, a gap of roughly 36%. This is not a close contest, but the specifics of where and how the RX 7900M wins matter for anyone choosing between them.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data contains two benchmark comparisons, and the RX 7900M wins both decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 7900M scores 129499 against the RX 6650M’s 65800, a delta of 96.8%. That is nearly double the compute throughput, reflecting the massive difference in raw shading power. The RX 7900M’s 4608 shading units and 38.52 TFLOPS FP32 performance dwarf the RX 6650M’s 1792 shading units and 8.659 TFLOPS. The OpenCL result confirms that for compute-heavy workloads, the RX 7900M is in a different league.

The Vulkan benchmark shows an even larger relative gap. The RX 7900M scores 158760, while the RX 6650M manages 77735, a delta of 104.2%. Vulkan tends to scale well with hardware resources, and the RX 7900M’s 72 ray tracing cores, 288 texture mapping units, and 192 raster output pipelines overwhelm the RX 6650M’s 28 RT cores, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. A score over double the rival’s in Vulkan indicates that the RX 7900M will maintain its advantage in modern graphics APIs where draw calls and geometry throughput are heavily stressed.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the RX 7900M also has a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4201, a test the RX 6650M does not appear in for this comparison. That single score, combined with its average of 97487, places the RX 7900M close to the AMD Radeon Pro VII (97131, deltaPct 0.4) and just 4.3% behind the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (101872). Meanwhile, the RX 6650M’s average of 71768 puts it within 0.5% of the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal (72098) and 0.8% of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 (72379). The RX 7900M is competing against professional workstation cards, while the RX 6650M trades blows with older high-end desktop parts.

The delta percentages in the head-to-head are stark. A 96.8% lead in OpenCL and a 104.2% lead in Vulkan mean the RX 7900M does not just edge ahead—it doubles the RX 6650M’s performance in these tests. For any application that leans on OpenCL or Vulkan, the RX 7900M is the only rational choice from a pure performance standpoint. The RX 6650M’s wins column is empty, with 0 wins against 2 for the RX 7900M in this direct comparison.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 7900M is the faster GPU by a wide margin. If you need maximum performance in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, the RX 7900M delivers roughly double the scores of the RX 6650M. Its average benchmark score of 97487 is 36% higher than the RX 6650M’s 71768, and it ranks in the 94th percentile versus the 91st. The RX 7900M also has a 3DMark Steel Nomad result (4201) that the RX 6650M cannot match, given the latter has no such score in the data.

However, the RX 6650M is not without context. It is an end-of-life product from the Radeon RX 6000 series, while the RX 7900M is active in the RX 7000 series. The RX 6650M’s 91st percentile still puts it ahead of the vast majority of GPUs, and its average score is competitive with the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal (deltaPct -0.5) and Radeon Pro Vega 64 (deltaPct -0.8). For someone who already owns an RX 6650M laptop, the data does not suggest an urgent upgrade unless those specific workloads demand more throughput. But for a new purchase, the RX 7900M’s 94th percentile and its 104.2% Vulkan lead make it the clear pick when performance is the only criterion.

The RX 7900M also carries a 16 GB GDDR6 memory configuration with a 256-bit bus and 576.0 GB/s bandwidth, versus the RX 6650M’s 8 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus at 224.0 GB/s. That is a 2.57x bandwidth advantage, which will show up in texture-heavy scenes and large data sets. The RX 7900M’s 180 W TDP versus 120 W for the RX 6650M explains some of the gap, but the architectural leap from RDNA 2.0 to RDNA 3.0 is the larger factor.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 7900M wins everywhere in the provided benchmarks. There is no test in the head-to-head where the RX 6650M comes out ahead. The closest the RX 6650M gets is in OpenCL, where it trails by 96.8%, and in Vulkan, where it trails by 104.2%. For use cases like GPU compute in OpenCL—think rendering, physics simulation, or machine learning inference—the RX 7900M’s 129499 score is the target. For Vulkan-based gaming or applications that use Vulkan for compute, the RX 7900M’s 158760 score is nearly unreachable for the RX 6650M.

The RX 6650M still has a role for lighter workloads. Its 8.659 TFLOPS FP32 and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 1080p-class gaming in many titles, and its 91st percentile ranking means it outperforms most integrated graphics and older discrete GPUs. But the data shows no scenario where the RX 6650M beats the RX 7900M. If you are on a strict power budget, the RX 6650M’s 120 W TDP is 60 W lower than the RX 7900M’s 180 W, which could extend battery life in a laptop, but that is a power efficiency consideration, not a performance win. The RX 7900M’s 72 RT cores versus 28 give it a clear advantage in ray-traced workloads, and its 601.9 GTexel/s texture rate versus 270.6 GTexel/s means texture-heavy scenes will run much smoother.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RX 7900M in OpenCL?

A: The RX 7900M scores 129499 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the RX 6650M scores 65800, making the RX 7900M 96.8% faster.

Q: Does the RX 6650M win any benchmark against the RX 7900M?

A: No. In the head-to-head benchmarks, the RX 7900M wins both Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, with 2 wins to 0 for the RX 6650M.

Q: What is the average benchmark score difference?

A: The RX 7900M averages 97487, while the RX 6650M averages 71768, a difference of roughly 36% in favor of the RX 7900M.

Q: Which GPU has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 7900M has 576.0 GB/s bandwidth from its 256-bit bus and 16 GB GDDR6, compared to the RX 6650M’s 224.0 GB/s from a 128-bit bus and 8 GB GDDR6.

Q: How do these GPUs compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The RX 7900M is 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro VII and 4.3% behind the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000. The RX 6650M is 0.5% behind the NVIDIA TITAN X Pascal and 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64.

Q: What is the Vulkan performance gap?

A: The RX 7900M scores 158760 in Geekbench Vulkan, versus 77735 for the RX 6650M, a lead of 104.2%.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations. The RX 7900M uses RDNA 3.0 with the Navi 31 chip, codenamed Plum Bonito, while the RX 6650M uses RDNA 2.0 with the Navi 23 chip. The process node is a major differentiator: the RX 7900M is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, while the RX 6650M uses a 7 nm process, also at TSMC. This node shrink allows the RX 7900M to pack 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 109.1M per mm². The RX 6650M has only 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, with a density of 46.7M per mm². That is a 5.2x difference in transistor count and a 2.3x difference in density, explaining much of the performance gap.

The compute resources differ substantially. The RX 7900M has 4608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, versus 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs for the RX 6650M. Ray tracing hardware follows the same pattern: 72 RT cores on the RX 7900M versus 28 on the RX 6650M. The RX 7900M’s pixel rate is 401.3 GPixel/s and texture rate is 601.9 GTexel/s, while the RX 6650M manages 154.6 GPixel/s and 270.6 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 38.52 TFLOPS versus 8.659 TFLOPS, a 4.4x difference. FP16 is 77.05 TFLOPS versus 17.32 TFLOPS, both using a 2:1 ratio.

Both GPUs support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API feature sets are identical. The RX 7900M’s generation is listed as Navi Mobile (RX 7000M), while the RX 6650M is Navi Mobile (RX 6000M). The RX 7900M’s predecessor is Polaris Mobile, and so is the RX 6650M’s, but the RX 7900M is active while the RX 6650M is end-of-life. The RX 7900M launched on 2023-10-18, while the RX 6650M launched on 2022-01-03, roughly 21 months earlier.

Specification Differences

The key specification differences between the two are stark. Clock speeds favor the RX 6650M in raw frequency: its base clock is 2068 MHz, boost is 2416 MHz, and game clock is 2222 MHz, while the RX 7900M has a base of 1825 MHz and boost of 2090 MHz, with no game clock listed. Despite lower clocks, the RX 7900M’s massive shader count makes it far faster. Memory speed also differs: the RX 7900M runs at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective, while the RX 6650M runs at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective.

Memory configuration is a major split. The RX 7900M has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, giving 576.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 6650M has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, giving 224.0 GB/s. That is double the capacity and 2.57x the bandwidth. The bus interface also differs: the RX 7900M uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the RX 6650M uses PCIe 4.0 x8, which can matter in bandwidth-sensitive scenarios with external devices or certain workloads.

Power consumption differs by 60 W: the RX 7900M is rated at 180 W TDP, the RX 6650M at 120 W TDP. Both are IGP slot width with no power connectors and portable device dependent display outputs, so physical dimensions are not specified for either. The RX 7900M has no 3DMark Steel Nomad score for the RX 6650M to compare, but its 4201 score in that test stands alone. The RX 6650M’s average benchmark score of 71768 is its primary metric, while the RX 7900M’s 97487 average is supplemented by the OpenCL, Vulkan, and Steel Nomad results. Neither has a launch MSRP listed, so no pricing data is available. In every measurable spec that affects performance—shaders, memory, bandwidth, transistor count—the RX 7900M is decisively ahead, with the only advantages for the RX 6650M being lower power draw and higher clock speeds that cannot compensate for its smaller architecture.