Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon RX 550

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon RX 550, 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 7970 stacks up against Radeon RX 550, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7970 Radeon RX 550
Power consumption (TDP) 300 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x8
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 3 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7970 has 500% more power consumption, than Radeon RX 550.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is connected by PCIe 3.0 x16, and Radeon RX 550 uses PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.
  • Radeon RX 550 has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7970.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon RX 550 - with GCN 4.0.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is manufactured by 28 nm process technology, and Radeon RX 550 - by 14 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is 129 mm longer, than Radeon RX 550.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon RX 550 is 5625 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7970.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 35−40 14−16
ultra / 1080p 21−24 8−9
QHD / 1440p 16−18 3−4
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 60−65 30−33
medium / 1080p 40−45 18−20
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 140% more, than Radeon RX 550.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7970 Radeon RX 550
Architecture GCN GCN 4.0
Code name Tahiti XT Lexa
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 22 December 2011 20 April 2017
Pipelines 2048 512
Core clock speed 1100 MHz
Boost Clock 925 MHz 1183 MHz
Transistor count 4,313 million 2,200 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 14 nm
Texture fill rate 118.4 37.86
Floating-point performance 3,789 gflops 1,211 gflops
Length 274 mm 145 mm
Memory bus width 384 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1375 MHz 7000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 264 GB/s 112.0 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (12_0)
Shader Model 5.1 6.4
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 2.0
Vulkan 1.2.131
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.1 x16
HDMI +
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CrossFire +
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