Radeon HD 6550A vs Radeon R9 M380

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6550A and Radeon R9 M380, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the Radeon HD 6550A stacks up against Radeon R9 M380, check out specs charts below.

Radeon R9 M380 is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon R9 M380 is only used in laptop graphics. It has lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Radeon R9 M380 here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6550A Radeon R9 M380
Power consumption (TDP) 35 Watt
Interface MXM-A (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6550A is connected by MXM-A (3.0), and Radeon R9 M380 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon R9 M380 has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6550A.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is used in Desktops, and Radeon R9 M380 - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is build with TeraScale 2 architecture, and Radeon R9 M380 - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon R9 M380 is 450 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6550A.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 M380 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6550A is 100 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M380.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 16−18
ultra / 1080p 9−10
QHD / 1440p 0−1 4−5
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 1−2 30−35
medium / 1080p 0−1 20−22
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 M380 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 3100% more, than Radeon HD 6550A.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6550A Radeon R9 M380
Architecture TeraScale 2 GCN
Code name Pinewood Strato Pro GDDR5
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 7 February 2011 16 June 2015
Pipelines 480 768
Core clock speed 550 MHz 1000 MHz
Boost Clock 1000 MHz
Transistor count 627 million 2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 13.20 48.00
Floating-point performance 624.0 gflops 1,536 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1600 MHz 1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 25.6 GB/s 96 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 6.3
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 Not Listed
Vulkan N/A
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 194 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
TrueAudio +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
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