AMD Radeon RX 6600 vs NVIDIA Quadro M4000M Comparison

The NVIDIA Quadro M4000M and AMD Radeon RX 6600 are separated by six years of GPU architecture, and the benchmark data reflects that gap clearly. The Quadro M4000M, a 2015-era mobile workstation part, averages 20,480 across its two OpenCL and Vulkan tests, while the RX 6600, a 2021 desktop card, averages 19,036 across a broader suite of eleven benchmarks. The RX 6600 wins both head-to-head tests decisively — 30.7% ahead in OpenCL and 69% ahead in Vulkan — but the M4000M holds a 65th percentile ranking versus the RX 6600's 63rd, meaning the older card sits slightly higher against all GPUs in the database. That paradox — an older card with a better percentile but fewer outright wins — stems from the different benchmark suites each card was tested with, not from raw performance equality.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 6600 dominates every direct comparison available. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 28,850 against the M4000M's 19,989, a 30.7% gap. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RX 6600 posts 67,623 versus 20,971, a 69% margin that dwarfs the OpenCL difference. These are not close contests; the RX 6600's modern RDNA 2 architecture simply outclasses the Maxwell-based M4000M in compute-heavy and API-modern workloads.

The M4000M's only statistical advantage is its aggregate percentile. It sits at the 65th percentile of all GPUs, two points above the RX 6600's 63rd. Its nearest rivals include the GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (average score 20,534, just 0.3% higher) and the Intel Arc B570 (20,556, 0.4% higher), placing it in a surprisingly competitive band for a card from 2015. The RX 6600's nearest rivals tell a different story: the Quadro K6000 matches it exactly at 19,030 (0% delta), the RTX 4050 Mobile trails by 0.1%, and the RTX 2000 Ada Generation is 0.4% behind. Both cards are clustered tightly with their peers, but the M4000M's cluster sits at a higher absolute average — 20,480 versus 19,036 — despite losing the head-to-head.

The practical takeaway is straightforward. For Vulkan-based workloads, the RX 6600 is in a different league — 69% is not a marginal improvement, it is a generational leap. For OpenCL, the RX 6600 still wins decisively but the gap narrows to under a third. The M4000M's percentile ranking suggests it remains viable in certain legacy or driver-optimized scenarios, but no benchmark in the data shows it winning a single test against the RX 6600.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are products of vastly different design philosophies and manufacturing eras. The M4000M uses NVIDIA's GM204 chip on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 5,200 million transistors into a 398 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.1 million per square millimeter. The RX 6600 uses AMD's Navi 23 chip on RDNA 2.0, also fabricated by TSMC but on a 7 nm node. It contains 11,060 million transistors in a 237 mm² die, achieving 46.7 million transistors per square millimeter — more than 3.5 times the density of the M4000M.

Memory configurations diverge sharply. The M4000M offers 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 160.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 6600 doubles capacity to 8 GB of GDDR6 but narrows the bus to 128-bit; despite the narrower interface, its 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is 40% higher. Clock speeds also favor the newer card: the RX 6600's base clock of 1626 MHz and boost of 2491 MHz dwarf the M4000M's 975 MHz base and 1013 MHz boost. The RX 6600 also lists a game clock of 2044 MHz, a metric the M4000M does not define.

Compute resources follow the same trend. The M4000M has 1,280 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The RX 6600 increases shading units to 1,792 and TMUs to 112 while keeping 64 ROPs. Crucially, the RX 6600 adds 28 ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the Maxwell-based M4000M. Pixel and texture rates reflect the clock and unit advantages: the RX 6600 achieves 159.4 GPixel/s and 279.0 GTexel/s, versus 64.83 GPixel/s and 81.04 GTexel/s for the M4000M. FP32 throughput is 8.928 TFLOPS for the RX 6600, more than 3.4 times the M4000M's 2.593 TFLOPS. The RX 6600 also supports FP16 at 17.86 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), a capability the M4000M does not list.

API support reveals the generational gap. The M4000M supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 6600 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 — the 12_2 feature level enables hardware ray tracing and other DX12 Ultimate features. Power and physical specs also differ: the M4000M draws 100 W and uses an MXM module form factor with no power connectors, while the RX 6600 draws 132 W, requires a single 8-pin connector, and occupies a dual-slot design with a suggested 300 W PSU. The RX 6600 measures 190 mm by 110 mm by 40 mm, while the M4000M's dimensions are listed as portable-device dependent. The M4000M uses PCIe 3.0 x16; the RX 6600 uses PCIe 4.0 x8.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two tests directly compare both cards, and the RX 6600 wins both. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6600 scores 28,850 against the M4000M's 19,989. The 30.7% delta places the win firmly in decisive territory — not a marginal edge but a substantial performance gap that would be visible in real-world compute workloads. The M4000M's OpenCL score of 19,989 is actually higher than its own average of 20,480 across two tests, suggesting OpenCL is a relative strength for the older card, yet it still loses by nearly a third.

Geekbench Vulkan is where the gap becomes enormous. The RX 6600 scores 67,623, more than three times the M4000M's 20,971. The 69% delta is among the largest possible in head-to-head comparisons. This is not an incremental improvement; it is a complete architectural mismatch. Vulkan's low-level API overhead favors the RX 6600's modern RDNA 2 design, which handles draw calls and command buffers far more efficiently than Maxwell 2.0. The M4000M's Vulkan score of 20,971 is slightly above its OpenCL result, but that modest advantage evaporates against the RX 6600's massive Vulkan throughput.

Looking at the broader benchmark suites reinforces the pattern. The RX 6600's Passmark G3D score of 15,096 and GPU Compute score of 6,554 are strong standalone results, though no equivalent M4000M scores exist for direct comparison. The RX 6600 also posts a Geekbench Metal score of 88,398, which has no M4000M counterpart. The M4000M's two benchmark scores — 19,989 OpenCL and 20,971 Vulkan — average to 20,480, which is 7.6% higher than the RX 6600's average of 19,036. That average is dragged down by the RX 6600's low Passmark DirectX scores (95 for DX10, 152 for DX11, 51 for DX12, 197 for DX9), which are legacy API tests where modern architectures often underperform. In modern API tests, the RX 6600 is decisively ahead.

The Verdict

The data supports only one conclusion for modern workloads: the RX 6600 is the superior GPU. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks with margins of 30.7% and 69%, offers 3.4 times the FP32 throughput, doubles the memory capacity, and adds ray tracing support. Its 7 nm process, 46.7M transistors per mm² density, and 224 GB/s bandwidth are all generations ahead of the M4000M's 28 nm node and 160.4 GB/s. The RX 6600's DirectX 12 Ultimate support enables features the M4000M cannot access, and its 28 RT cores provide hardware acceleration that the Maxwell architecture simply does not have.

However, the M4000M is not without statistical merit. Its 65th percentile ranking beats the RX 6600's 63rd, and its nearest rivals include the RTX 3070 Mobile and Intel Arc B570 — cards from 2020 and 2024 respectively — suggesting the M4000M remains competitive in the database's aggregate scoring. Its 100 W TDP and MXM form factor make it suitable for portable workstation deployments where the RX 6600's 132 W dual-slot design would not fit. The M4000M also supports PCIe 3.0 x16, which may be preferable in older systems without PCIe 4.0.

For anyone choosing between these two today, the RX 6600 is the obvious pick for gaming, content creation, or compute tasks that leverage modern APIs. The 69% Vulkan advantage alone justifies the choice. The M4000M makes sense only in legacy workstation environments where its MXM form factor, 100 W power draw, and established driver ecosystem for professional applications are paramount — and even then, the performance gap in OpenCL and Vulkan is substantial. The RX 6600's 8 GB of GDDR6 versus the M4000M's 4 GB of GDDR5 further cements its position for texture-heavy workloads.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the Geekbench Vulkan benchmark?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 wins decisively with a score of 67,623 against the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M's 20,971, a 69% margin.

Q: How large is the performance gap in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RX 6600 scores 28,850 versus the M4000M's 19,989, giving the RX 6600 a 30.7% advantage.

Q: What are the memory specifications for each card?

A: The M4000M has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 160.4 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Does the M4000M support ray tracing?

A: No. The M4000M's Maxwell 2.0 architecture has no RT cores. The RX 6600 has 28 ray tracing cores.

Q: How do the two cards compare in transistor density?

A: The RX 6600 achieves 46.7 million transistors per mm² on a 7 nm process, while the M4000M achieves 13.1 million per mm² on a 28 nm process.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The M4000M averages 20,480 across two tests, while the RX 6600 averages 19,036 across eleven tests. The M4000M ranks at the 65th percentile versus the RX 6600's 63rd.