AMD Radeon 660M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop) vs AMD Radeon 680M

AMD Radeon 660M

The AMD Radeon 660M is an integrated GPU in the entry level Ryzen 6000 series for laptops (Rembrandt, e.g. Ryzen 5 6600U). The GPU is based on the RDNA2 architecture and has 6 of the 12 CUs (= 384 shaders) clocked at up to 1,900 MHz (depending on the CPU model). The 680M and 660M iGPUs are the first integrated graphics card with hardware raytracing support, although the performance is too slow to use it in current games.

Due to the halved CU count and lower core clock, the Radeon 660M is clearly slower than the Radeon 680M and most likely only on par with the old Radeon Vega 8 iGPUs. 

Thanks to the modern 6nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD), so the graphics card can also be used for slim and light notebooks (depending on the CPU model).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 is an entry level graphics card for desktops based on the Pascal architecture. It uses the same GP107 chip as the GTX 1050 Ti, but with only 640 instead of 768 shaders. The chip is manufactured at Samsung in 14 nm (opposed to the 16 nm TSCM based Pascal chips of the 1060 and up). The performance and specs should be similar to the GTX 1050 laptop version, that will be released later (early 2017). Compared to the faster GTX 1050 Ti, the 1050 offers less shaders (640 instead of 768) and only 2 GB of GDDR5 (instead of the 4 GB of the 1050 Ti).

Gaming benchmarks by Nvidia state that the GTX 1050 is about 30% faster on average than the Radeon RX 460 with 2 GB VRAM. The 4 GB version of the RX 460 should be about 10% slower and the older GTX 950 should reach a similar performance level as the new GTX 1050. Therefore, the GTX 1050 should be ideal for 1080p gaming with high detail settings (but not max settings).

AMD Radeon 680M

The AMD Radeon 680M is an integrated GPU in the Ryzen 6000 series for laptops (Rembrandt, e.g. Ryzen 9 6980HX). The iGPU is based on the RDNA2 architecture and has 12 CUs (= 768 shaders) clocked at up to 2,400 MHz (depending on the CPU model). The 680M and 660M iGPUs are the first integrated graphics card with hardware raytracing support, although the performance is too slow to use it in current games.

Thanks to the new architecture, high core count and the increased maximum core clock, the Radeon 680M should be clearly faster then the old Radeon Vega 8 iGPUs. Therefore, the 680M should be the fastest integrated graphics card in early 2022. Compared to the dedicated Radeon 5300M (also RDNA), the 680M should still be significantly slower. According to AMD, the Radeon 680M (in the 6800U) is faster than a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX450 and best suited for 1080p gaming and low details (for AAA games).

Thanks to the modern 6nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD), so the graphics card can also be used for slim and light notebooks (depending on the CPU model). The whole Ryzen 6000 chip can be configured down to 15W.