AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT represent two distinct generations of graphics hardware, and the benchmark data shows a clear split in their strengths. The RTX 2060 SUPER, built on Turing, leads in certain legacy and Vulkan workloads, while the RX 7600 XT, built on RDNA 3.0, dominates most modern DirectX and compute tests. Out of the ten head-to-head benchmarks, the AMD card claims eight wins, leaving the NVIDIA card with two. However, the margin of victory in those two wins is significant, making the choice between them heavily dependent on the specific application.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in the comparison is the Geekbench Vulkan test, where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER scores 77402 against the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT's 48366. This represents a 60% lead for the older NVIDIA card, a massive delta that suggests its Vulkan driver and architecture are exceptionally well-tuned for that API. This single result is the largest percentage difference in any benchmark between the two cards, showing that the RTX 2060 SUPER is not simply outclassed across the board.

The other win for the NVIDIA card comes in the Passmark DirectX 10 test, where it scores 111 versus the AMD's 85. That is a 30.6% advantage, reinforcing the pattern that the older architecture retains a significant edge in certain legacy DirectX workloads. These two wins, while few in number, are dominant in their respective categories and indicate that the RTX 2060 SUPER still has clear relevance for users running older games or Vulkan-based applications.

Conversely, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT's wins are numerous but often by smaller margins. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the AMD card scores 2348 against the NVIDIA's 2011, a 14.4% lead. This is a solid victory in a modern, demanding DX12 benchmark, pointing to better raw performance in current-generation titles. The Geekbench OpenCL result follows a similar trend, with the RX 7600 XT scoring 92426 versus 76957, a 16.7% advantage that highlights its superior compute throughput in general-purpose workloads.

The Passmark suite shows a mixed bag, with the AMD card winning five out of seven subtests. In DirectX 11, the RX 7600 XT scores 167 against 130, a 22.2% lead, which is its largest win in the Passmark suite. The margin narrows significantly in DirectX 12, where the AMD card scores 65 versus 61, a slim 6.2% advantage. In DirectX 9, the AMD card wins again, scoring 228 versus 218, a 4.4% lead. The two most important overall metrics, Passmark G3D and G2D, also favor AMD, with the RX 7600 XT scoring 17132 versus 16462 (a 3.9% lead) in G3D and 1030 versus 854 (a 17.1% lead) in G2D. Finally, the Passmark GPU Compute test shows a decisive 25.2% win for AMD, with scores of 8987 versus 6721. This collection of results shows that the RX 7600 XT is generally faster, but the NVIDIA card remains competitive in specific niches.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins the most benchmarks?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT wins 8 out of the 10 head-to-head benchmarks, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER wins 2.

Q: What is the largest single-benchmark victory?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER's 60% lead in the Geekbench Vulkan test is the largest margin, with a score of 77402 versus the AMD card's 48366.

Q: How do the cards compare in DirectX 12 performance?

A: In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT leads with a score of 2348, which is 14.4% higher than the RTX 2060 SUPER's 2011. In the Passmark DirectX 12 subtest, the AMD card also wins, but by a much smaller 6.2% margin (65 versus 61).

Q: Is the NVIDIA card better at any modern API?

A: Yes, the data shows a strong performance in Vulkan. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER scores 77402 in Geekbench Vulkan, which is 60% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT's score of 48366.

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER has a higher average benchmark score of 18093, compared to the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT's 17083. This places the NVIDIA card in the 62nd percentile of all GPUs, while the AMD card sits in the 60th percentile.

Q: What is the difference in compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is significantly stronger in compute, with a Passmark GPU Compute score of 8987, which is 25.2% higher than the RTX 2060 SUPER's 6721. It also leads in Geekbench OpenCL with a 16.7% advantage.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on vastly different architectures and manufacturing processes. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER uses the TU106 chip based on the Turing architecture, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. This chip contains 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 24.3 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT uses the Navi 33 chip based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, fabricated on a much more advanced 6 nm process, also at TSMC. This smaller chip packs 13,300 million transistors into a 204 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 65.2 million per square millimeter. The RDNA 3.0 architecture is a generational leap, offering nearly three times the transistor density of the older Turing design.

The compute resources also differ fundamentally. The RTX 2060 SUPER has 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. It also features 34 dedicated RT cores and 272 tensor cores, which are NVIDIA-specific hardware for ray tracing and AI workloads. The RX 7600 XT, on the other hand, has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It has 32 RT cores, but notably, it has no tensor cores, as that is an NVIDIA-specific feature. This architectural difference explains the divergent benchmark results, particularly in compute and API-specific workloads. The FP32 performance reflects this, with the RX 7600 XT delivering 22.57 TFLOPS compared to the RTX 2060 SUPER's 7.181 TFLOPS, a massive difference in raw floating-point throughput.

Specification Differences

The specifications reveal several key differences beyond the architecture. The most obvious is memory capacity: the NVIDIA card has 8 GB of GDDR6, while the AMD card has 16 GB of GDDR6. However, the RTX 2060 SUPER uses a 256-bit memory bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, whereas the RX 7600 XT uses a narrower 128-bit bus, resulting in lower bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The memory clock speeds also differ, with the NVIDIA card running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) and the AMD card at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective).

Clock speeds are another major differentiator. The RTX 2060 SUPER has a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz. The RX 7600 XT has a much higher base clock of 1980 MHz, a boost clock of 2755 MHz, and a specific game clock of 2470 MHz. The TDP also differs, with the NVIDIA card rated at 175 W and the AMD card at 190 W. Both use a single 8-pin power connector and have a suggested PSU of 450 W. The interface differs as well, with the NVIDIA card using PCIe 3.0 x16 and the AMD card using the newer PCIe 4.0 x8. Display outputs vary, with the RTX 2060 SUPER featuring 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 2x DisplayPort 1.4a, and 1x USB Type-C, while the RX 7600 XT offers 1x HDMI 2.1a and 3x DisplayPort 2.1. The NVIDIA card is longer at 229 mm, while the AMD card is 204 mm.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the clear winner for users prioritizing Vulkan performance. Its 60% lead in the Geekbench Vulkan benchmark is a decisive advantage that cannot be ignored for applications or games that rely heavily on this API. Additionally, its 30.6% win in Passmark DirectX 10 makes it the better choice for older legacy titles that use that API. Its higher average benchmark score of 18093, which places it in the 62nd percentile, also suggests slightly better overall consistency across a broad range of tests compared to the AMD card's 60th percentile ranking.

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the better choice for almost everything else. Its 16.7% lead in OpenCL and 25.2% lead in Passmark GPU Compute make it a superior option for compute-heavy tasks like rendering or scientific workloads. In modern gaming, its 14.4% win in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 shows a clear performance advantage in current DirectX 12 titles. The RX 7600 XT also wins in DirectX 11, DirectX 9, and the overall Passmark G3D metric, making it the more versatile card for a standard gaming library. Its 16 GB of memory, double that of the NVIDIA card, provides a significant capacity advantage for modern games and high-resolution textures, even if the bandwidth is lower. With 8 wins out of 10 benchmarks, the RX 7600 XT is the default recommendation for most users, except for those specifically needing Vulkan or legacy DirectX 10 performance.