Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 550

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7870 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 7870 stacks up against Radeon RX 550, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7870 Radeon RX 550
Power consumption (TDP) 175 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x8
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7870 has 250% more power consumption, than Radeon RX 550.
  • Radeon RX 550 has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7870 is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon RX 550 - with GCN 4.0.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon RX 550 is 100 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • Radeon HD 7870 is manufactured by 28 nm process technology, and Radeon RX 550 - by 14 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon RX 550 is 2200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 24−27 14−16
ultra / 1080p 14−16 8−9
QHD / 1440p 9−10 3−4
4K / 2160p 6−7
low / 720p 45−50 30−33
medium / 1080p 30−33 18−20
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 66% more, than Radeon RX 550.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7870 Radeon RX 550
Architecture GCN GCN 4.0
Code name Pitcairn XT Lexa
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 5 March 2012 20 April 2017
Pipelines 1280 512
Core clock speed 1000 MHz 1100 MHz
Boost Clock 1183 MHz
Transistor count 2800 Million 2,200 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 14 nm
Texture fill rate 37.86
Floating-point performance 1,211 gflops
Length 145 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4800 MHz 7000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 112.0 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX DirectX 11.1, Shader 5.1 12 (12_0)
Shader Model 6.4
OpenGL 4.6
OpenCL 2.0
Vulkan 1.2.131
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.39 kh/s
Eyefinity +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.63 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 16.6 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 145 Sol/s
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