AMD Radeon RX 6600 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Comparison

# NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 vs AMD Radeon RX 6600

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the decisive winner in this comparison, taking all three head-to-head benchmark victories with an average benchmark score of 19036 versus the GTX 780's 19164 — a near-total statistical tie overall, yet the per-test deltas reveal a generational gap that is anything but even. The RX 6600 leads by 88.6% in Geekbench Metal, 63.7% in Geekbench Vulkan, and 20.8% in Geekbench OpenCL, making the GTX 780's aggregate parity a product of benchmark weighting rather than actual competitiveness. In terms of percentile ranking, the GTX 780 sits at the 64th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 6600 ranks at the 63rd — both cards land in the same performance tier, but the RX 6600 achieves this with far less power, a smaller die, and nearly a decade of architectural advancement.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 6600 wins every single benchmark that was run on both cards. In Geekbench Metal, the RX 6600 scores 88398 against the GTX 780's 10114 — a staggering 88.6% advantage that reflects not just raw compute but also the modern API support and driver optimizations built into RDNA 2.0. The Vulkan test tells a similar story: the RX 6600 posts 67623 versus 24514, a 63.7% lead that demonstrates how poorly the Kepler architecture handles modern low-level graphics APIs. Even in OpenCL, the closest of the three contests, the RX 6600 wins with 28850 against 22863, a 20.8% margin that still represents a clear, consistent victory.

The GTX 780's only "win" is the aggregate average benchmark score — 19164 versus 19036, a 0.7% edge that comes from its nearest rival positioning. But this is misleading. The GTX 780's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA TITAN Xp at 19177 (0.1% ahead), the Tesla K20m at 19089 (0.4% behind), and the RTX 4050 Mobile at 19049 (0.6% behind), placing it in a cluster of professional and mobile parts. The RX 6600's nearest rivals are similarly clustered: the Quadro K6000 at 19030 (0% delta), the RTX 4050 Mobile at 19049 (0.1% ahead), and the RTX 2000 Ada Generation at 18954 (0.4% behind). Both cards are statistically indistinguishable in aggregate, but the RX 6600's wins are in the benchmarks that matter for modern workloads, while the GTX 780's aggregate score is propped up by legacy test weighting.

Architecture Differences

The architectural chasm between these two cards is enormous. The GTX 780 uses the GK110 chip built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, packing 7,080 million transistors into a massive 561 mm² die with a transistor density of 12.6 million per square millimeter. The RX 6600 uses the Navi 23 chip on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC, with 11,060 million transistors in just 237 mm² — a density of 46.7 million per square millimeter. That is a 3.7x density improvement and a 58% reduction in die size while carrying 56% more transistors.

The GTX 780 runs Kepler architecture with 2,304 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. The RX 6600 runs RDNA 2.0 with 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs — fewer shading units and TMUs, but more ROPs, and crucially, 28 ray tracing cores that the GTX 780 lacks entirely. Clock speeds tell the rest of the story: the GTX 780's base clock is 863 MHz with a boost of 902 MHz, while the RX 6600 runs at a 1626 MHz base, 2044 MHz game clock, and 2491 MHz boost. That higher frequency, combined with architectural efficiency, yields 8.928 TFLOPS of FP32 performance against the GTX 780's 4.156 TFLOPS — a 2.1x raw compute advantage.

Memory is another generational leap. The GTX 780 has 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s. The RX 6600 has less bandwidth but more capacity and faster memory (14 Gbps effective versus 6 Gbps effective). The pixel rate favors the RX 6600 at 159.4 GPixel/s versus 43.30 GPixel/s, and the texture rate favors it at 279.0 GTexel/s versus 173.2 GTexel/s. API support is also split: the GTX 780 supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175, while the RX 6600 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, plus hardware ray tracing.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the RX 6600 is the superior card for every modern workload. It wins all three head-to-head benchmarks by margins ranging from 20.8% to 88.6%, offers more than double the FP32 compute (8.928 TFLOPS versus 4.156 TFLOPS), has nearly triple the memory capacity (8 GB versus 3 GB), and does it all at 132 W TDP versus the GTX 780's 250 W. The GTX 780's aggregate benchmark score is essentially tied with the RX 6600 (19164 versus 19036, a 0.7% difference), but that parity is an artifact of which tests are included — the moment you look at Metal, Vulkan, or OpenCL individually, the RX 6600 dominates.

Who should pick the GTX 780? Only someone with a legacy application that specifically requires Kepler-era driver behavior or a 384-bit memory bus, and even then, the 3 GB frame buffer is a hard limitation for modern content. The RX 6600 is the pick for anyone running contemporary games, compute workloads, or API-heavy applications. Its ray tracing cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility make it future-proof in ways the GTX 780 cannot match. The GTX 780's launch MSRP was 649 USD; the RX 6600's was 329 USD — but the performance data alone makes the RX 6600 the clear choice regardless of price considerations.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 has an average benchmark score of 19164, while the AMD Radeon RX 6600 scores 19036 — a difference of just 0.7% in favor of the GTX 780.

Q: How much faster is the RX 6600 in Vulkan?

A: The RX 6600 scores 67623 in Geekbench Vulkan versus the GTX 780's 24514, a 63.7% advantage for the AMD card.

Q: Does the GTX 780 support ray tracing?

A: No. The GTX 780 has no ray tracing cores, while the RX 6600 includes 28 ray tracing cores.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The GTX 780 has 3 GB of GDDR5, while the RX 6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 — a 5 GB difference in favor of the RX 6600.

Q: Which card consumes more power?

A: The GTX 780 has a TDP of 250 W, while the RX 6600 has a TDP of 132 W — the GTX 780 draws nearly twice as much power.

Q: What process nodes are used?

A: The GTX 780 uses a 28 nm process, while the RX 6600 uses a 7 nm process, both fabricated by TSMC.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The largest margin of victory comes in Geekbench Metal, where the RX 6600 scores 88398 against the GTX 780's 10114 — an 88.6% lead. This is the clearest possible demonstration of the architectural gap: Metal is a modern, low-level API, and the Kepler architecture was never designed for it, while RDNA 2.0 handles it natively with efficiency. The RX 6600's score is more than eight times higher, which is not a marginal improvement but a complete generational reset.

Geekbench Vulkan shows a 63.7% advantage for the RX 6600, with scores of 67623 versus 24514. Vulkan's low-level nature exposes driver overhead and hardware scheduling inefficiencies, and the GTX 780's older driver stack and lack of dedicated hardware features put it at a severe disadvantage. The RX 6600's Vulkan 1.4 support versus the GTX 780's Vulkan 1.2.175 is a further indicator of how much newer the AMD card's software ecosystem is.

The closest head-to-head result is Geekbench OpenCL, where the RX 6600 wins 28850 to 22863, a 20.8% margin. OpenCL is a compute-oriented API that scales more predictably across architectures, which is why the gap is smaller — but it is still a decisive win for the RX 6600. The GTX 780's 4.156 TFLOPS of FP32 simply cannot match the RX 6600's 8.928 TFLOPS, and the AMD card's higher memory bandwidth per clock and modern instruction set close the gap further. In all three tests, the winner is the same, and the margins are consistent with the architectural advantages: the RX 6600 is faster in every measurable way, and the GTX 780's only consolation is a 0.7% aggregate score edge that disappears under scrutiny.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The GTX 780 uses the GK110 chip with Kepler architecture, while the RX 6600 uses Navi 23 with RDNA 2.0. Process nodes are 28 nm versus 7 nm, with transistor counts of 7,080 million versus 11,060 million, and die sizes of 561 mm² versus 237 mm². Transistor density is 12.6M per mm² versus 46.7M per mm².

Clock speeds: the GTX 780 runs at 863 MHz base and 902 MHz boost, while the RX 6600 runs at 1626 MHz base, 2044 MHz game, and 2491 MHz boost. Memory: 3 GB GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 288.4 GB/s bandwidth versus 8 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. Effective memory speed is 6 Gbps versus 14 Gbps.

Compute units: the GTX 780 has 2,304 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, while the RX 6600 has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, plus 28 RT cores. Pixel rate is 43.30 GPixel/s versus 159.4 GPixel/s; texture rate is 173.2 GTexel/s versus 279.0 GTexel/s; FP32 is 4.156 TFLOPS versus 8.928 TFLOPS, with the RX 6600 also offering 17.86 TFLOPS FP16.

Power and physical specs: the GTX 780 has a 250 W TDP, a 600 W suggested PSU, and uses 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin connectors; the RX 6600 has a 132 W TDP, a 300 W suggested PSU, and a single 8-pin connector. The GTX 780 is 267 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 38 mm wide; the RX 6600 is 190 mm long, 110 mm tall, and 40 mm wide. Bus interfaces are PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 4.0 x8. Display outputs: the GTX 780 has 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2; the RX 6600 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. API support: DirectX 12 (11_0) versus DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6 on both, Vulkan 1.2.175 versus 1.4.