AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT vs NVIDIA P102-100 Comparison

The Verdict

The recorded benchmark data presents a clear hierarchy between these two very different products. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT is the decisive winner in the only shared test, the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark, scoring 76,904 points against the NVIDIA P102-100's 49,602 points. That is a 55% advantage for the AMD part. The database places the AMD in the 91st percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA sits at the 88th percentile, a difference that understates just how wide the performance gap is in this specific workload, given that the AMD's average score is 76,904 versus the NVIDIA's average of 58,528.

For anyone selecting a part strictly from this data, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT is the obvious choice for general compute tasks that leverage OpenCL. The NVIDIA P102-100, however, has its own niche. It is a mining-oriented card with no display outputs, so it is only relevant for compute or mining workloads where a display connection is irrelevant. The data shows it is closer to a mid-range card like the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (within 0.2% in average score) than to the AMD RX 6650M XT. Therefore, the verdict is simple: choose the AMD for raw compute performance and flexibility in a portable form factor; choose the NVIDIA only if the workload specifically benefits from its unique memory interface and you do not require video output, though it will be significantly slower in OpenCL.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and process nodes. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT uses the Navi 23 chip built on RDNA 2.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. The NVIDIA P102-100 uses the GP102 chip on the older Pascal architecture, also from TSMC but on a 16 nm process. This node difference is substantial. The AMD chip packs 11,060 million transistors into a 237 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 46.7 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA chip has 11,800 million transistors on a much larger 471 mm² die, for a density of only 25.1 million per square millimeter. The data indicates the AMD part is the more modern, denser design.

Further differences emerge in the memory subsystem. The AMD card features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA card offers 5 GB of GDDR5X memory on a wider 320-bit bus, achieving 440.3 GB/s. The NVIDIA has a massive bandwidth advantage, 72% higher than the AMD, which is notable for memory-bound workloads. The AMD uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the NVIDIA is limited to PCIe 1.0 x4, a legacy interface that could bottleneck data transfers in some scenarios. The AMD supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the NVIDIA only supports DirectX 12 (12_1), and the NVIDIA lacks any ray tracing cores, while the AMD includes 32 RT cores. The NVIDIA also has no tensor cores, and neither does the AMD.

Where Each One Wins

Based on the recorded benchmarks, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT wins decisively in the Geekbench OpenCL test. This is the only head-to-head comparison available, and the AMD leads by 55%. This suggests the AMD is better suited for general-purpose GPU compute, such as OpenCL acceleration in productivity applications, scientific simulations, or any workload that relies on the GPU's FP32 or FP16 throughput. The AMD also has a significant advantage in raw FP32 compute, rated at 9.896 TFLOPS versus 10.77 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA, but the AMD's FP16 performance is dramatically higher at 19.79 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) compared to the NVIDIA's 168.3 GFLOPS (1:64 ratio). That makes the AMD vastly superior for half-precision workloads, such as certain machine learning inference tasks.

The NVIDIA P102-100, however, may win in scenarios that are heavily memory-bandwidth constrained. Its 440.3 GB/s bandwidth is far above the AMD's 256.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA also has more shading units (3200 vs 2048), more TMUs (200 vs 128), and more ROPs (80 vs 64), which gives it a higher theoretical texture rate (336.6 GTexel/s vs 309.2 GTexel/s) and a higher pixel rate (134.6 GPixel/s vs 154.6 GPixel/s, actually the AMD leads in pixel rate). The NVIDIA's wider 320-bit bus and larger 5 GB frame buffer could be advantageous for certain mining algorithms that are memory-bound, which is the intended use case for this "Mining GPUs" generation. However, the benchmark data does not include any mining-specific tests, so this remains an inference from the specifications, not a measured result.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher OpenCL benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT scores 76,904 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 55% higher than the NVIDIA P102-100's score of 49,602.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference between the two?

A: The NVIDIA P102-100 has 440.3 GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT has 256.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA offers roughly 72% more bandwidth.

Q: Which card supports ray tracing?

A: Only the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT has dedicated ray tracing cores (32 RT cores). The NVIDIA P102-100 has no RT cores listed in the database.

Q: What are the power consumption differences?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT has a TDP of 120 W, while the NVIDIA P102-100 has a TDP of 250 W. The NVIDIA also requires two 8-pin power connectors and a 600 W power supply, whereas the AMD uses no external power connectors and is an IGP (integrated GPU) form factor.

Q: Which GPU has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT ranks in the 91st percentile, while the NVIDIA P102-100 ranks in the 88th percentile.

Q: Can the NVIDIA P102-100 be used for display output?

A: No, the NVIDIA P102-100 has no display outputs listed, making it unsuitable for standard desktop use. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT has display outputs that are described as "Portable Device Dependent."

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison in the database is the Geekbench OpenCL test. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT scores 76,904 points, while the NVIDIA P102-100 scores 49,602 points. This results in a delta of 55% in favor of the AMD. To put this in context, the AMD's nearest rival in the database is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, which scores 77,712, a mere 1% higher than the AMD. The AMD also sits just 2.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940) and 3.1% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396). This places the AMD in the upper echelon of mobile and desktop GPUs in this test.

The NVIDIA P102-100, on the other hand, sits much lower. Its average benchmark score is 58,528, which is only 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (58,657), 0.2% below the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (58,392), 0.5% above the Intel Arc A570M (58,239), and 0.8% above the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM (58,085). The NVIDIA's individual OpenCL score of 49,602 is far below its own average, indicating that the average is pulled up by other tests, likely the Vulkan score of 67,454. The AMD's average score equals its single OpenCL score, as that is its only benchmark in the database. The data shows that the AMD is not just faster, it is in a completely different performance class in OpenCL, while the NVIDIA's Vulkan performance (67,454) is still below the AMD's OpenCL score, but closer.

Specification Differences

The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT and NVIDIA P102-100 differ in nearly every core specification. The AMD uses 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, plus 32 ray tracing cores. The NVIDIA uses 3200 shading units, 200 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, with no RT cores. The AMD has a base clock of 2068 MHz, a boost clock of 2416 MHz, and a game clock of 2162 MHz. The NVIDIA has a base clock of 1582 MHz and a boost clock of 1683 MHz, with no game clock listed. The AMD's memory runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) while the NVIDIA's runs at 1376 MHz (11 Gbps effective). The AMD has 8 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus; the NVIDIA has 5 GB GDDR5X on a 320-bit bus.

The AMD's FP32 performance is 9.896 TFLOPS and FP16 is 19.79 TFLOPS (2:1). The NVIDIA's FP32 is 10.77 TFLOPS and FP16 is 168.3 GFLOPS (1:64). The AMD has a pixel rate of 154.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 309.2 GTexel/s. The NVIDIA has a pixel rate of 134.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 336.6 GTexel/s. The AMD's TDP is 120 W and it is an IGP with no power connectors. The NVIDIA's TDP is 250 W, it is dual-slot, requires two 8-pin power connectors, and a 600 W power supply. The AMD uses PCIe 4.0 x8, the NVIDIA uses PCIe 1.0 x4. The AMD has display outputs, the NVIDIA has none. The AMD is 7 nm, the NVIDIA is 16 nm. The AMD die is 237 mm², the NVIDIA is 471 mm². The AMD has 11,060 million transistors, the NVIDIA has 11,800 million. The AMD supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, the NVIDIA supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The AMD is from the Radeon RX 6000 series, RDNA 2.0, Navi 23, released in January 2022. The NVIDIA is from the Mining GPUs generation, Pascal, GP102, released in February 2018. Both are end-of-life products.