Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU vs AMD Radeon RX 6550S vs AMD Radeon RX 6500M

Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU

The Intel Arc iGPU with 8 cores (ID 7D55) is an integrated graphics adapter in Meteor Lake SoCs based on the Xe LPG architecture (similar to the dedicated Arc GPUs, but with a focus on efficiency). It offers all 8 Xe cores (128 Xe vector engines), 8 ray tracing units, 8 samplers and 4 pixel backends.

The Arc name may only be used if at least 16 GB RAM is used in dual channel mode. Otherwise, the only iGPU is called "Intel Graphics" and is also significantly slower.

According to Intel, performance has been doubled compared to the previous generation (probably still in Alder Lake).

The iGPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (probably DX 12_2 like the desktop Arc GPUs). The graphics unit also supports XeSS AI Super Sampling.

The media engine of Meteor Lake is in the SOC tile and supports up to 8k60 10-bit HDR encode and decode of MPEG2, AVC, VP9, HEVC and AV1. The display engine is also in the SoC tile and supports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 20G with up to 8K60 HDR.

The GPU Tile of the Meteor Lake chip is manufactured at TSMC on 5nm (5N process).

AMD Radeon RX 6550S

The AMD Radeon RX 6550S is a mobile entry-level graphics card based on the Navi 24 chip (RDNA 2  architecture) manufactured in the modern 6nm process. It features 1024 cores (16 CUs - compute units) and 4 GB of fast GDDR6 graphics memory connected with a 64 Bit memory bus. The chip also includes 16 MB Infinity Cache. The game clock speed is specified at 2170 MHz. Low power version of the Radeon RX 6550M with lower clock speeds (-15%) and a lower maximum TGP (-37%).

The performance should be similar to an average RX 6500M, as long as the memory bandwidth reduction wont has a too big impact.

The Navi 24 chip is manufactured at TSMC in the modern 6nm process and should offer a good energy efficiency. The RX6550S is specified at a TDP of 35 - 50 Watt and therefore well suited for thin and light laptops.

AMD Radeon RX 6500M

The AMD Radeon RX 6500M is a mobile entry-level graphics card based on the Navi 24 chip (RDNA 2  architecture) manufactured in the modern 6nm process. It features 1024 cores (16 CUs - compute units) and 4 GB of fast GDDR6 graphics memory connected with a 128 Bit memory bus. The chip also includes 16 MB Infinity Cache. The game clock speed is specified at 2191 MHz. AMD specifies the theoretical performance at 9.97 TFLOPS (half precision +60% vs 6300M) and 4.98 TFLOPS (single precision). The 6500M supports Smart Access Memory and SmartShift Technology.

The performance should be similar to a mobile RTX 3050 (according to AMD) and therefore best suited for 1080p gaming with high settings.

The Navi 24 chip is manufactured at TSMC in the modern 6nm process and should offer a good energy efficiency. The RX6500M is specified at a TDP of 50 Watt and therefore best suited for normal multimedia laptops.