Radeon HD 8970M vs RX 550

Place in performance ranking	520	414
Place by popularity	13	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	3.25	11.17
Architecture	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)	GCN (2011−2017)
GPU code name	Lexa	Neptune
Market segment	Desktop	Laptop
Release date	20 April 2017 (7 years ago)	15 May 2013 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$79	no data
Current price	$121 (1.5x MSRP)	$135

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

HD 8970M has 244% better value for money than RX 550.

Detailed specifications

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	1280
Core clock speed	1100 MHz	850 MHz
Boost clock speed	1183 MHz	900 MHz
Number of transistors	2,200 million	2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology	14 nm	28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	100 Watt
Texture fill rate	37.86	72.00
Floating-point performance	1,211 gflops	2,304 gflops

Form factor & compatibility

Information on Radeon RX 550 and Radeon HD 8970M compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	no data	large
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x8	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	145 mm	no data
Width	2-slot	no data
Supplementary power connectors	None	no data

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	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	4 GB
Memory bus width	128 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	7000 MHz	4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth	112.0 GB/s	153.6 GB/s
Shared memory	no data	-

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	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort	No outputs
HDMI	+	no data

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (12_0)	12 (11_1)
Shader Model	6.4	5.1
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	2.0	1.2
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.

RX 550 7.01

HD 8970M 10.01
+42.8%

HD 8970M outperforms RX 550 by 43% 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%

RX 550 2715

HD 8970M 3876
+42.8%

HD 8970M outperforms RX 550 by 43% in Passmark.