AMD Radeon RX 7600S vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 7600S and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M represent two distinct eras of mobile graphics. The RX 7600S is a modern, power-efficient part from the Radeon RX 7000 series, while the GTX 965M is an older, end-of-life solution from the GeForce 900M generation. The database shows a decisive performance gap, with the RX 7600S winning every recorded head-to-head benchmark, but the comparison still reveals interesting architectural and generational differences worth examining.

Where Each One Wins

The performance split is unambiguous. The AMD Radeon RX 7600S wins in every single benchmark category where both products have recorded data. The RX 7600S holds wins in both compute and graphics API workloads, specifically in Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan tests. The GTX 965M does not win any recorded benchmark in this comparison.

The RX 7600S excels in modern compute-heavy tasks. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 68012 shows a massive advantage over the GTX 965M's 14509, indicating the AMD part handles general-purpose GPU compute workloads far more effectively. The Vulkan result is even more lopsided: the RX 7600S scores 73868 versus the GTX 965M's 14299. This suggests the AMD card is better suited for modern games and applications that leverage Vulkan's low-overhead API.

The GTX 965M, by contrast, has no competitive advantage in the recorded data. Its only benchmark results are the two Geekbench tests, and it loses both by overwhelming margins. The GTX 965M's 56th percentile among all GPUs places it just below the RX 7600S's 60th percentile, but the absolute score difference is what matters here. The older NVIDIA card simply cannot keep pace with the newer AMD solution in any measurable way.

For use-case segmentation, the RX 7600S is the clear choice for anyone running modern Vulkan-based games or OpenCL compute workloads. The GTX 965M, with its 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and Maxwell 2.0 architecture, would struggle with contemporary titles and is best relegated to legacy applications or very light gaming.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the AMD Radeon RX 7600S than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M in OpenCL?

A: The RX 7600S scores 68012 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 368.8% higher than the GTX 965M's score of 14509.

Q: Does the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M win any benchmark in this comparison?

A: No. The database records zero wins for the GTX 965M. The AMD Radeon RX 7600S wins both head-to-head benchmarks.

Q: What is the performance difference in Vulkan workloads?

A: The RX 7600S achieves 73868 in Geekbench Vulkan, a 416.6% advantage over the GTX 965M's 14299.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in overall market position?

A: The RX 7600S sits at the 60th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 16696, while the GTX 965M sits at the 56th percentile with an average score of 14404.

Q: Which GPU has more memory, and does it matter?

A: The RX 7600S has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the GTX 965M has 2 GB of GDDR5. The 8 GB capacity gives the AMD card a significant advantage for modern textures and higher resolutions.

Q: Are these GPUs from the same generation?

A: No. The RX 7600S is from the Radeon RX 7000 series (released in 2023), while the GTX 965M is from the GeForce 900M generation (released in 2015).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data consists of two Geekbench tests, and both show overwhelming dominance for the AMD Radeon RX 7600S.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 7600S posts a score of 68012 against the GTX 965M's 14509. This is a delta of 368.8%, meaning the AMD card is nearly four times faster in this compute workload. OpenCL performance is critical for productivity applications, video encoding, and certain scientific workloads, so this gap has real-world implications beyond gaming.

The Geekbench Vulkan test shows an even larger margin. The RX 7600S scores 73868, while the GTX 965M manages only 14299. The delta here is 416.6%. Vulkan is the modern cross-platform graphics API used by many contemporary game engines, and this result indicates the RX 7600S will handle current titles with far greater ease.

Looking at the broader benchmark suite, the RX 7600S has additional scores that further contextualize its performance. In Passmark G3D, it scores 15408, and in Passmark GPU Compute it scores 6520. The GTX 965M has no recorded scores for these tests in the database, so a direct comparison is not possible, but the RX 7600S's results place it in the 60th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA T400 4 GB (average score 16792, delta -0.6%) and the NVIDIA T400 (16508, delta 1.1%), showing the RX 7600S is competitive with professional-grade workstation cards.

The GTX 965M, with its average benchmark score of 14404, sits near the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14385, delta 0.1%) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (14373, delta 0.2%). This places the GTX 965M in the company of integrated graphics and a decade-old desktop flagship, underscoring its dated performance profile.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ dramatically across nearly every specification category. The RX 7600S uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 965M has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD card has four times the memory capacity and over three times the bandwidth.

Clock speeds show a similar gap. The RX 7600S runs at a base clock of 1500 MHz, a game clock of 1865 MHz, and a boost clock of 2200 MHz. The GTX 965M operates at a base of 924 MHz and a boost of 950 MHz. The memory clock also differs: the RX 7600S uses 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), while the GTX 965M uses 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective).

Compute resources are heavily skewed toward the RX 7600S. The AMD card has 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines, and 28 ray tracing cores. The GTX 965M has 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with no ray tracing cores. The RX 7600S also has a massive lead in pixel rate (140.8 GPixel/s versus 30.40 GPixel/s) and texture rate (246.4 GTexel/s versus 60.80 GTexel/s).

The RX 7600S supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 965M is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The bus interface also differs: the RX 7600S uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 965M uses the older MXM-B (3.0) form factor.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs spans nearly a decade of development. The RX 7600S is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, using the Navi 33 chip codenamed "Hotpink Bonefish." It is manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC, packing 13,300 million transistors into a 204 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 65.2 million per square millimeter.

The GTX 965M uses the Maxwell 2.0 architecture with the GM204 chip. It is built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, containing 5,200 million transistors across a 398 mm² die. The transistor density is just 13.1 million per square millimeter. The smaller process node allows the RX 7600S to pack more than twice the transistors into roughly half the die area, explaining its superior performance.

The RX 7600S features 28 dedicated ray tracing cores, a technology absent from the GTX 965M. This gives the AMD card hardware acceleration for ray-traced lighting and effects in supported games. The RX 7600S also supports FP16 compute at 31.54 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the GTX 965M has no recorded FP16 capability.

Power and form factor differences are notable. The RX 7600S has a TDP of 75 W and is an integrated GPU (IGP) with no power connectors, designed for thin-and-light laptops. The GTX 965M is an MXM Module, also with no power connectors, but its TDP is not recorded in the database. The RX 7600S is an active production part released in 2023, while the GTX 965M is end-of-life, released in 2015 with the GeForce 10 Mobile as its successor.

The RX 7600S's predecessor was Polaris Mobile, while the GTX 965M's predecessor was the GeForce 800M. The production status difference is stark: the RX 7600S is still active in the market, whereas the GTX 965M has been discontinued. The architectural advancements in the RX 7600S, including the smaller process node, higher transistor count, and ray tracing support, make it a fundamentally more capable and future-proof part.