NVIDIA GeForce MX550 vs NVIDIA RTX A4000 Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A4000 and NVIDIA GeForce MX550 occupy opposite ends of the GPU spectrum, and the benchmark data reflects that chasm. The A4000, a workstation part built on Ampere, is pitted against the MX550, a Turing-based laptop chip. While both cards achieve the same 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, their average benchmark scores—26683 for the A4000 and 26421 for the MX550—are remarkably close, differing by just 1%. This near-parity in aggregate scoring, however, masks a dramatic divergence in individual workload performance, particularly in compute-heavy tests.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison is a one-sided affair, with the RTX A4000 winning both available tests decisively. The most striking disparity appears in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark, where the A4000 scores 105739 against the MX550’s 20372. That translates to a 419% advantage for the workstation card—a monumental lead that underscores the A4000’s compute-oriented design. This is not a marginal victory; it is a generational and architectural gap made visible. The A4000’s massive shading unit count and memory bandwidth allow it to crush the MX550 in raw parallel processing, which OpenCL leverages heavily.

The second test, Geekbench Vulkan, shows a similar but slightly less extreme gap. The A4000 posts a score of 127645, while the MX550 manages 32469. The delta here is 293.1%, still a landslide victory for the A4000. Vulkan’s lower-level API overhead benefits the A4000’s more robust hardware implementation, but the sheer compute throughput difference remains the dominant factor. Across both tests, the RTX A4000 wins 2-0, with no benchmark where the MX550 takes the lead.

Contextualizing these results with their nearest rivals adds another layer. The A4000’s average score of 26683 places it just 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary (26553) and a mere 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (26331). Meanwhile, the MX550’s 26421 average puts it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon 860M (26401) and 0.3% ahead of the RTX 5060. The data suggests that while the A4000 is clearly the superior card in direct comparison, its overall standing is closely contested by a cluster of rivals, including the MX550 itself. The 1% delta between the two cards in aggregate is within the noise of their competitive set, yet the head-to-head tests reveal that this closeness is an artifact of averaging, not a reflection of comparable performance in any specific task.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear directive for potential buyers. The NVIDIA RTX A4000 is the definitive choice for anyone prioritizing raw compute performance, particularly in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. Its 419% lead in OpenCL and 293.1% lead in Vulkan over the MX550 are not just numbers—they represent the difference between a professional-grade tool and a mobile convenience chip. Professionals running compute-heavy applications, rendering tasks, or any workload that leverages GPGPU acceleration should unequivocally select the A4000.

Conversely, the GeForce MX550’s role is defined by its constraints, not its performance ceiling. With a 25 W TDP and an IGP form factor, it is designed for portability and efficiency in thin-and-light laptops. The data shows it holds its own in aggregate scoring, matching the A4000’s 72nd percentile and sitting within 1% of the A4000’s average score. However, this parity is misleading for compute tasks. The MX550 is suitable for users who need basic graphics acceleration and occasional light GPU work in a power-constrained environment, but it is not a workstation replacement. The A4000, with its 140 W TDP and single-slot design, is the answer for desktop systems where performance is the sole priority. There is no scenario in the data where the MX550 is the better pick for demanding compute; the only reason to choose it is the form factor and power envelope.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA RTX A4000 than the GeForce MX550 in OpenCL?

A: The RTX A4000 scores 105739 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 419% higher than the MX550’s 20372.

Q: What is the average benchmark score difference between the two cards?

A: The RTX A4000 has an average benchmark score of 26683, while the GeForce MX550 scores 26421, putting the A4000 just 1% ahead.

Q: Do both GPUs rank at the same percentile among all GPUs?

A: Yes, both the NVIDIA RTX A4000 and the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 are listed at the 72nd percentile versus all GPUs.

Q: Which card performs better in Vulkan, and by how much?

A: The RTX A4000 wins in Geekbench Vulkan with a score of 127645 against the MX550’s 32469, a 293.1% advantage.

Q: How many head-to-head benchmark wins does each card have?

A: The RTX A4000 wins 2 benchmarks, while the GeForce MX550 wins 0 in their direct comparison.

Q: What is the delta percentage between the MX550 and its closest rival, the AMD Radeon 860M?

A: The GeForce MX550 has an average score of 26421, which is 0.1% higher than the AMD Radeon 860M’s 26401.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets for these two cards reveal stark contrasts in nearly every category. The RTX A4000 is built on a 392 mm² die with 17,400 million transistors, while the MX550 uses a much smaller 200 mm² die with 4,700 million transistors. The A4000’s transistor density is 44.4M per mm², compared to the MX550’s 23.5M per mm². Memory is another major divide: the A4000 offers 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, whereas the MX550 has just 2 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, yielding 96.00 GB/s. Clock speeds also differ, with the A4000 running at a 735 MHz base and 1560 MHz boost, while the MX550 has a higher base of 1065 MHz but a lower boost of 1320 MHz. The A4000’s memory clock is 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), while the MX550 runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective).

The compute pipelines are where the A4000 pulls away decisively. It features 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, along with 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores. The MX550 has only 1024 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, with no RT or tensor cores listed. This translates to a pixel rate of 149.8 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 299.5 GTexel/s for the A4000, versus 21.12 GPixel/s and 42.24 GTexel/s for the MX550. FP32 performance is 19.17 TFLOPS for the A4000, dwarfing the MX550’s 2.703 TFLOPS. Power requirements reflect their roles: the A4000 draws 140 W and requires a 300 W PSU with a 1x 6-pin connector, while the MX550 sips 25 W with no power connectors needed. The A4000 is a single-slot card using PCIe 4.0 x16, whereas the MX550 is an IGP using PCIe 4.0 x8. Display outputs also differ, with the A4000 offering 4x DisplayPort 1.4a and the MX550 being portable-device dependent.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is fundamental. The RTX A4000 is built on the Ampere architecture using Samsung’s 8 nm process node, while the MX550 uses the older Turing architecture on TSMC’s 12 nm node. This process advantage gives the A4000 a significant efficiency and density lead, as evidenced by its 44.4M transistors per mm² versus the MX550’s 23.5M. The A4000’s GA104 chip includes dedicated ray tracing cores (48) and tensor cores (192), enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI features. The MX550’s TU117SB chip lacks both, with no RT cores or tensor cores listed, limiting its feature set to traditional rasterization. The A4000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the MX550 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1), a difference that affects advanced rendering features. Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the A4000’s superior hardware foundation means these APIs are likely to perform far better. The A4000 belongs to the Workstation Ampere generation, succeeding Quadro Turing, while the MX550 is part of the GeForce MX 5xx lineup with no predecessor or successor listed. The A4000’s 16 GB memory pool and 256-bit bus are designed for large datasets and professional workloads, while the MX550’s 2 GB and 64-bit bus are adequate for basic laptop display tasks. The release dates also reflect their positions: the A4000 launched in April 2021, while the MX550 arrived in December 2021, both now end-of-life.