Radeon 550 vs 540

Place in performance ranking	682	597
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Value for money	0.30	4.37
Architecture	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)
GPU code name	Lexa	Lexa
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	26 March 2019 (5 years old)	20 April 2017 (6 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$79	$79
Current price	$1233 (15.6x MSRP)	$94 (1.2x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Radeon 550 has 1357% better value for money than Radeon 540.

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	512	512
Core clock speed	1100 MHz	1100 MHz
Boost clock speed	1124 MHz	1183 MHz
Number of transistors	2,200 million	2,200 million
Manufacturing process technology	14 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	50 Watt
Texture fill rate	35.97	37.86

Size and compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 3.0 x8	PCIe 3.0 x8
Length	145 mm	145 mm
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	None

Memory

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	2 GB
Memory bus width	64 Bit	64 Bit
Memory clock speed	7000 MHz	7000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	56 GB/s	56 GB/s

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
HDMI	+	+

API support

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (12_0)	12 (12_0)
Shader Model	6.4	6.4
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	2.0	2.0
Vulkan	1.2.131	1.2.131

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Radeon 540 3.51

Radeon 550 4.87
+38.7%

550 outperforms 540 by 39% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

Radeon 540 1361

Radeon 550 1885
+38.5%

550 outperforms 540 by 39% in Passmark.