AMD Radeon Pro 555 vs AMD Radeon Pro 560

AMD Radeon Pro 555

The AMD Radeon Pro 555 is a mobile graphics card based on the small Polaris 21 chip from AMD. It is available in the 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Mid 2017 model with Kaby Lake) and is the performance is similar to the Radeon Pro 455 in the mid-tier MBP15 from 2016. The Polaris 21 chip is produced in a 14nm FinFET process and is the smaller Polaris chip. With a core clock of 855 MHz and 768 shaders, the Radeon Pro 555 offers the same specs as the previous Radeon Pro 455.

The Radeon Pro 555 is shipped with just 2 GB GDDR5 video memory, which could be insufficient for games. Both the performance and the power consumption are roughly on par with the Nvidia GeForce MX150 (laptop version of the GT 1030), which is also equipped with 2 GB GDDR5-VRAM.

More information about the Polaris architecture is available in our dedicated article. More benchmarks including gaming tests are listed on the dedicated page for the similarly powerful Radeon Pro 455.

AMD Radeon Pro 560

The AMD Radeon Pro 560 is a mobile graphics card based on the small Polaris 21 chip (not verified) from AMD. It is an option for the 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Mid 2017) and is probably very similar to the Radeon Pro 460 (except for the slightly improved process for the new Polaris 21 chip). It is similar to the desktop Radeon RX 460, but not with all 1024 shader units.

Compared to the slower Radeon Pro 555 (entry-level model), the Radeon pro 460 is equipped with 4 GB GDDR5 memory. The average gaming performance in Windows of the Radeon Pro 460 is just above the GeForce GTX 960M and below an average GTX 965M ein. Compared to the slightly raised clocks of the desktop 500-series models, the Radeon Pro 560 should only be slightly faster.

The mobile Radeon Pro 560 should support all features of the desktop RX 460/560 like DisplayPort 1.2 (Polaris actually supports up to 1.4), HDMI 2.0 (via USB-C adapter), new H.265 video de- and encoder as well as architectural improvements. More information about the Polaris architecture is available in our dedicated review.

The Polaris 21 chip is manufactured in a slightly improved 14nm FinFET process according to AMD. The power consumption of the Radeon Pro 460 is 35 Watts according to AMD, so this should also be the case for the Pro 560.