AMD Radeon RX 9070 vs NVIDIA GeForce MX550 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive sweep in the two shared benchmark tests. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 wins both head-to-head comparisons, and the margins are substantial. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 9070 scores 131,539 against the MX550’s 20,372. That is a delta of 84.5% in favor of the RX 9070, meaning the AMD part delivers roughly six and a half times the raw compute throughput in this workload. The MX550 trails by a wide margin, and no interpretation of the numbers can soften that gap.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 9070 again takes the win, scoring 58,705 versus 32,469 for the MX550. The delta here is 44.7%, a smaller but still commanding advantage. The MX550’s Vulkan result is closer to the RX 9070 than its OpenCL result, which suggests that the older Turing architecture handles the Vulkan API relatively better than OpenCL, but it still loses by nearly half. The data records 0 wins for the MX550 and 2 wins for the RX 9070 across these shared tests.

Looking at the broader database averages, the MX550’s average benchmark score is 26,421, while the RX 9070’s is 23,877. That is an inversion of the head-to-head results: the MX550 actually posts a higher average score across all recorded benchmarks, despite losing both shared tests. This happens because the RX 9070’s benchmark pool includes several Passmark subtests with very low scores, such as Passmark DirectX 12 at 74 and Passmark DirectX 10 at 141, which drag down its average. The MX550, by contrast, only has two recorded benchmarks, both of which are Geekbench tests where it performs relatively well for its class.

The percentile rankings reinforce this oddity. The MX550 sits at the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 9070 sits at the 69th percentile. That means the MX550 ranks higher relative to the entire database, even though it loses every direct comparison to the RX 9070. The nearest rivals for the MX550 include the AMD Radeon 860M (0.1% higher average score), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (0.3% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary (0.5% lower). For the RX 9070, its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (0.6% higher average score) and the AMD Radeon RX 6800S (0.8% lower). These rival deltas show that both cards sit in dense performance clusters, but the clusters are very different in absolute terms.

Where Each One Wins

The use-case split is stark. The RX 9070 dominates in every shared benchmark, so for any workload that uses OpenCL or Vulkan, the AMD card is the clear choice. The 84.5% lead in OpenCL and 44.7% lead in Vulkan mean that compute-heavy tasks, rendering, or modern game engines that leverage Vulkan will all favor the RX 9070 by a wide margin. The RX 9070 also has a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,290, a Passmark G3D score of 25,381, and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 14,737, none of which the MX550 has recorded results for, but these numbers indicate strong performance in DX12 gaming and general compute workloads.

The MX550’s wins are not in raw performance but in efficiency and portability. Its 25 W TDP is a fraction of the RX 9070’s 220 W, and it is listed as an IGP (integrated graphics processor) slot width, meaning it is designed for thin-and-light laptops where power draw and heat are critical constraints. The MX550’s 72nd percentile ranking versus the RX 9070’s 69th percentile also suggests that, within its own performance class, the MX550 is better positioned relative to its peers. For users who need a discrete GPU for light gaming or acceleration tasks inside a compact notebook, the MX550 is the only one of these two that fits that physical profile. The RX 9070 is a dual-slot card with two 8-pin power connectors and a recommended 550 W power supply, so it belongs in a desktop tower, not a portable chassis.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two is enormous. The MX550 uses the TU117SB chip on NVIDIA’s Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It packs 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 23.5 million per square millimeter. The RX 9070 uses the Navi 48 chip on AMD’s RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, for a density of 151.0 million per square millimeter. That is more than six times the transistor density of the MX550, and over eleven times the total transistor count. The RX 9070’s die is larger in absolute terms, but the 4 nm node allows AMD to pack far more logic into that space.

The MX550 has 1,024 shading units, 32 texture mapping units, and 16 raster operation pipelines. It has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RX 9070 has 3,584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, plus 56 dedicated ray tracing cores. The RX 9070’s shading unit count is 3.5 times higher, its TMU count is 7 times higher, and its ROP count is 8 times higher. The pixel rate tells the story: the RX 9070 delivers 322.6 GPixel/s versus 21.12 GPixel/s for the MX550. Texture rate is 564.5 GTexel/s versus 42.24 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 36.13 TFLOPS versus 2.703 TFLOPS, a 13.4x difference. Both cards have a 1:1 FP16 ratio, so their FP16 numbers match their FP32 numbers.

The MX550 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 9070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 9070’s DirectX 12 Ultimate feature level includes hardware ray tracing support, which the MX550 lacks entirely. Both use GDDR6 memory, but the RX 9070 has 56 ray tracing cores and the MX550 has none, so any ray-traced workload simply will not run properly on the MX550.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets diverge on nearly every line. The MX550 has 2 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, delivering 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 9070 has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. That is 8 times the memory capacity and roughly 6.7 times the bandwidth. The RX 9070’s base clock is 1330 MHz, its game clock is 2070 MHz, and its boost clock is 2520 MHz. The MX550’s base clock is 1065 MHz and its boost clock is 1320 MHz. The RX 9070’s memory runs at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective), while the MX550’s memory runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective).

The MX550’s TDP is 25 W, while the RX 9070’s is 220 W. The MX550 has no power connectors and is listed as an IGP slot width, while the RX 9070 is dual-slot with two 8-pin connectors and a suggested 550 W PSU. The bus interface differs as well: the MX550 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the RX 9070 uses PCIe 5.0 x16. Display outputs are portable-device dependent for the MX550, while the RX 9070 offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a. The MX550 is end-of-life with a release date of December 2021, while the RX 9070 is active and was released in March 2025. The RX 9070 has a launch MSRP of 549 USD. The MX550 has no recorded launch MSRP. The RX 9070’s predecessor is listed as Navi III, while the MX550 has no predecessor or successor listed.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance in OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 scores 131,539 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 scores 20,372. The RX 9070 leads by 84.5%.

Q: Does the MX550 have any ray tracing capability?

A: No. The MX550 has no ray tracing cores. The RX 9070 has 56 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes hardware ray tracing features.

Q: How much memory bandwidth does each card provide?

A: The MX550 provides 96.00 GB/s over a 64-bit bus with 2 GB of GDDR6. The RX 9070 provides 644.6 GB/s over a 256-bit bus with 16 GB of GDDR6.

Q: Which card is more suitable for a thin laptop?

A: The MX550, with a 25 W TDP, no power connectors, and an IGP slot width, is designed for portable devices. The RX 9070 is a dual-slot desktop card with a 220 W TDP and two 8-pin connectors.

Q: What are the average benchmark scores for each GPU?

A: The MX550 has an average benchmark score of 26,421, and the RX 9070 has an average benchmark score of 23,877. The MX550 ranks at the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 9070 ranks at the 69th percentile.

Q: Which GPU has a higher boost clock?

A: The RX 9070 boosts to 2520 MHz, while the MX550 boosts to 1320 MHz. The RX 9070 also has a higher base clock at 1330 MHz versus 1065 MHz.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous for anyone building a desktop system. The RX 9070 wins every shared benchmark by large margins, offers 16 GB of memory versus 2 GB, delivers over 13 times the FP32 compute, and includes hardware ray tracing. The 84.5% lead in OpenCL and 44.7% lead in Vulkan translate directly to faster rendering, smoother gaming, and better compute throughput in any application that uses those APIs. The RX 9070’s 220 W TDP and dual-slot cooler are appropriate for a desktop, and its 550 W suggested PSU is a reasonable requirement for a modern gaming rig. Its 69th percentile ranking, while lower than the MX550’s 72nd, reflects the fact that its benchmark pool includes many low-scoring Passmark subtests; the actual head-to-head results tell the real story.

The MX550 is not a competitor in the same class. It is an end-of-life mobile chip with 2 GB of memory and no ray tracing, designed for light workloads in compact laptops. Its 25 W TDP and IGP form factor make it the only viable choice among these two for ultraportable systems, and its 72nd percentile ranking shows it performs well within that niche. The MX550’s average benchmark score of 26,421 actually exceeds the RX 9070’s 23,877, but that is an artifact of benchmark selection, not a sign of real performance parity.

Choose the RX 9070 if you need desktop-class performance, ray tracing, large memory capacity, or high-bandwidth compute. Choose the MX550 if you need a low-power discrete GPU for a thin laptop and absolute performance is secondary to portability. There is no middle ground between these two products; the architecture gap is too wide. The RX 9070 is the clear performance winner, and the MX550 is the clear efficiency and portability winner.