GeForce GT 550M vs Radeon HD 8650M

Place in the ranking	883	986
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	no data	2.88
Architecture	GCN (2012−2015)	Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code name	no data	GF108
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	7 January 2013 (11 years ago)	5 January 2011 (13 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	384	96
Core clock speed	650 MHz	475 MHz
Number of transistors	900 Million	585 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	no data	35 Watt
Texture fill rate	no data	7.600
Floating-point processing power	no data	0.1824 TFLOPS
ROPs	no data	4
TMUs	no data	16

Form factor & 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).

Laptop size	medium sized	large
Interface	no data	PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors	no data	None

VRAM capacity and type

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	DDR3
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	1 GB
Memory bus width	64 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	4500 MHz	900 MHz
Memory bandwidth	no data	28.8 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

Connectivity and outputs

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

no data

Portable Device Dependent

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Optimus

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.1	12 API
Shader Model	no data	5.1
OpenGL	no data	4.5
OpenCL	no data	1.1
Vulkan	-	N/A
CUDA	-	+

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p	18−21 +20%	15 −20%
Full HD	30−35 +30.4%	23 −30.4%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

4−5

+0%

4−5

+0%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +16.7%	6−7 −16.7%
Battlefield 5	1−2	0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +25%	4−5 −25%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +25%	4−5 −25%
Forza Horizon 4	7−8 +75%	4−5 −75%
Hitman 3	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +13.3%	14−16 −13.3%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +33.3%	3−4 −33.3%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	9−10 +12.5%	8−9 −12.5%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +6.1%	30−35 −6.1%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +16.7%	6−7 −16.7%
Battlefield 5	1−2	0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +25%	4−5 −25%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +25%	4−5 −25%
Forza Horizon 4	7−8 +75%	4−5 −75%
Hitman 3	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +13.3%	14−16 −13.3%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +33.3%	3−4 −33.3%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	9−10 +12.5%	8−9 −12.5%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +9.1%	10−12 −9.1%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +6.1%	30−35 −6.1%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +16.7%	6−7 −16.7%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +25%	4−5 −25%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Forza Horizon 4	7−8 +75%	4−5 −75%
Hitman 3	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +13.3%	14−16 −13.3%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	9−10 +12.5%	8−9 −12.5%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +9.1%	10−12 −9.1%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +6.1%	30−35 −6.1%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

4−5
+33.3%

3−4

−33.3%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Far Cry New Dawn	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	1−2	0−1
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	6−7 +20%	5−6 −20%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−11 +42.9%	7−8 −42.9%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

5−6
+25%

4−5

−25%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	0−1	0−1
Far Cry 5	1−2	0−1
Watch Dogs: Legion	0−1	0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

3−4

+0%

3−4

+0%

This is how HD 8650M and GT 550M compete in popular games:

HD 8650M is 20% faster in 900p
HD 8650M is 30% faster in 1080p

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, with 4K resolution and the Ultra Preset, the HD 8650M is 100% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

HD 8650M is ahead in 34 tests (69%)
there's a draw in 15 tests (31%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	2.04	1.47
Recency	7 January 2013	5 January 2011
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	1 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	40 nm

HD 8650M has a 38.8% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

The Radeon HD 8650M is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GT 550M in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.