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AMD Radeon Pro 555X

AMD Radeon Pro 555X: A Professional Tool or an Outdated Solution?

Analysis of the Graphics Card in 2025

Introduction

The AMD Radeon Pro 555X is a discrete GPU designed for mobile workstations and professional tasks. Despite its age (the card was released in 2018–2019), it can still be found in some laptops and systems. In 2025, its positioning requires reassessment: how relevant is it for modern tasks? Let’s dive into the details.

Architecture and Key Features

Polaris Architecture: Proven but Outdated

The Radeon Pro 555X is based on the Polaris architecture (4th generation GCN — Graphics Core Next). This 14nm chip is optimized for a balance between performance and energy efficiency. However, in 2025, Polaris appears outdated compared to AMD's RDNA 3 or NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace.

Unique Features: Minimal Innovations

The card supports AMD FidelityFX technologies (contrast adaptive sharpening) but lacks hardware support for ray tracing and DLSS-like AI scaling. For professional tasks, features like FreeSync Pro and Eyefinity (multi-monitor support) are relevant.

Conclusion: The architecture is suitable for basic tasks, but it’s not equipped for AI acceleration or modern rendering.

Memory: Modest Capabilities

Type and Size: GDDR5 and 4GB

The card uses GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit bus and a size of 4GB. The bandwidth is about 80–90 GB/s, which is 2–3 times lower than modern GDDR6/HBM solutions.

Impact on Performance

The limited size and speed of the memory become a "bottleneck" in games and applications with heavy textures (e.g., Blender or DaVinci Resolve). It’s sufficient for working in 1080p, but 4K or complex 3D scenes will lead to lag.

Gaming Performance: Only for Undemanding Projects

Average FPS in 2025 (Low/Medium settings, 1080p):

- CS2: 90–110 FPS.

- Fortnite: 45–60 FPS (without Ray Tracing).

- Cyberpunk 2077: 25–35 FPS (Low only).

- Hogwarts Legacy: 20–30 FPS (Low).

Higher Resolutions?

1440p and 4K are unrealistic for comfortable gaming. Even with FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution), the card will not provide smooth gameplay.

Ray Tracing: There is no hardware support. Software methods (e.g., via DirectX 12) reduce FPS to unacceptable levels.

Professional Tasks: Basic Level

Video Editing

In DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, the card handles editing 1080p/30fps, but 4K or effects slow down rendering. It’s optimal for brief projects without complex color grading.

3D Modeling

In Autodesk Maya or Blender (using OpenCL), the Pro 555X shows modest results. A scene with 1–2 million polygons processes without issues, but detailed models require more powerful GPUs.

Scientific Calculations

Support for OpenCL allows the card to be used for machine learning or physical simulations, but its performance is 5–7 times lower than that of the NVIDIA RTX A2000 (thanks to CUDA).

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 50–75 W

The low power consumption makes the card compatible with compact cases and thin laptops.

Cooling Recommendations

- For desktop builds: a case with 2–3 fans.

- In laptops: avoid prolonged loads without a cooling pad.

Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon Pro 555X vs NVIDIA T1000

- Gaming Performance: The T1000 is 20–30% faster thanks to GDDR6 and Turing architecture.

- Professional Tasks: The T1000 wins due to CUDA cores and optimization for Adobe Suite.

- Price: Both cards are available for $200–300 (new, OEM supplies).

AMD Radeon Pro 555X vs AMD Radeon RX 6400

- The RX 6400 (6nm, RDNA 2) is 50% faster in games and supports FSR 2.0.

- However, the RX 6400 is not suitable for workstations due to the lack of ECC memory.

Practical Tips

Power Supply

A 300–400 watt power supply is sufficient (for desktop PCs). Example: Corsair CV450.

Compatibility

- Platforms: macOS (only in official Apple builds), Windows 10/11.

- Drivers: Use the Pro versions from AMD for stability in professional applications. Gaming drivers may cause conflicts.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low power consumption.

- Stability in professional applications.

- Affordable price ($200–300).

Cons:

- Weak gaming performance.

- Only 4GB of memory.

- No support for Ray Tracing and AI technologies.

Final Conclusion: Who is the Radeon Pro 555X Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Owners of older MacBook Pro models (2019–2020), who need an upgrade without replacing the system.

2. Beginner video editors and 3D designers working on small projects.

3. Office PCs requiring multi-monitor setups.

Gamers and professionals working on AAA projects should consider modern alternatives: NVIDIA RTX 3050 or AMD Radeon Pro W6600.

Conclusion

The Radeon Pro 555X in 2025 is a niche solution. It doesn’t impress with its performance but retains value for specific scenarios. Its main strengths are stability and energy efficiency, not raw power.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

July 2018

Model Name

Radeon Pro 555X

Generation

Radeon Pro Mac

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x8

Transistors

3,000 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 4.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

4GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

1470MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

94.08 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

14.51 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

43.54 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

1393 GFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

87.07 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.365 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

768

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

1024KB

TDP

75W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_0)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.4

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.365 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 860M OEM

1.417 +3.8%

GeForce GTX 650 Ti OEM

1.396 +2.3%

Radeon Pro 555X

1.365

Radeon HD 5770 X2

1.333 -2.3%

Jetson Orin Nano 8 GB

1.306 -4.3%