Radeon HD 6550A vs Radeon HD 7970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6550A and Radeon HD 7970M, 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 HD 7970M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 7970M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 7970M 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 HD 7970M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6550A Radeon HD 7970M
Power consumption (TDP) 35 Watt 100 Watt
Interface MXM-A (3.0) MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
  Check Price
  • Radeon HD 7970M has 185% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6550A.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is connected by MXM-A (3.0), and Radeon HD 7970M uses MXM-B (3.0) interface.
  • Radeon HD 6550A and Radeon HD 7970M have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 7970M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is build with TeraScale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7970M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M is 300 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6550A.
  • Radeon HD 6550A is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7970M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M is 3200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6550A.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 18−20
ultra / 1080p 10−12
QHD / 1440p 0−1 5−6
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 1−2 35−40
medium / 1080p 0−1 21−24
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 3600% more, than Radeon HD 6550A.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6550A Radeon HD 7970M
Architecture TeraScale 2 GCN
Code name Pinewood Wimbledon XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 7 February 2011 1 May 2012
Pipelines 480 1280
Core clock speed 550 MHz 850 MHz
Transistor count 627 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 13.20 68.00
Floating-point performance 624.0 gflops 2,176 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1600 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 25.6 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 254 Mh/s
Laptop size large
  Check Price