AMD Radeon HD 7550M
AMD graphics card specifications and benchmark scores
At a Glance
AMDAMD Radeon HD 7550M Specifications
Radeon HD 7550M GPU Core
Shader units and compute resources
The AMD Radeon HD 7550M GPU core specifications define its raw processing power for graphics and compute workloads. Shading units (also called CUDA cores, stream processors, or execution units depending on manufacturer) handle the parallel calculations required for rendering. TMUs (Texture Mapping Units) process texture data, while ROPs (Render Output Units) handle final pixel output. Higher shader counts generally translate to better GPU benchmark performance, especially in demanding games and 3D applications.
HD 7550M Clock Speeds
GPU and memory frequencies
Clock speeds directly impact the Radeon HD 7550M's performance in GPU benchmarks and real-world gaming. The base clock represents the minimum guaranteed frequency, while the boost clock indicates peak performance under optimal thermal conditions. Memory clock speed affects texture loading and frame buffer operations. The Radeon HD 7550M by AMD dynamically adjusts frequencies based on workload, temperature, and power limits to maximize performance while maintaining stability.
AMD's Radeon HD 7550M Memory
VRAM capacity and bandwidth
VRAM (Video RAM) is dedicated memory for storing textures, frame buffers, and shader data. The Radeon HD 7550M's memory capacity determines how well it handles high-resolution textures and multiple displays. Memory bandwidth, measured in GB/s, affects how quickly data moves between the GPU and VRAM. Higher bandwidth improves performance in memory-intensive scenarios like 4K gaming. The memory bus width and type (GDDR6, GDDR6X, HBM) significantly influence overall GPU benchmark scores.
Radeon HD 7550M by AMD Cache
On-chip cache hierarchy
On-chip cache provides ultra-fast data access for the HD 7550M, reducing the need to fetch data from slower VRAM. L1 and L2 caches store frequently accessed data close to the compute units. AMD's Infinity Cache (L3) dramatically increases effective bandwidth, improving GPU benchmark performance without requiring wider memory buses. Larger cache sizes help maintain high frame rates in memory-bound scenarios and reduce power consumption by minimizing VRAM accesses.
HD 7550M Theoretical Performance
Compute and fill rates
Theoretical performance metrics provide a baseline for comparing the AMD Radeon HD 7550M against other graphics cards. FP32 (single-precision) performance, measured in TFLOPS, indicates compute capability for gaming and general GPU workloads. FP64 (double-precision) matters for scientific computing. Pixel and texture fill rates determine how quickly the GPU can render complex scenes. While real-world GPU benchmark results depend on many factors, these specifications help predict relative performance levels.
TeraScale 2 Architecture & Process
Manufacturing and design details
The AMD Radeon HD 7550M is built on AMD's TeraScale 2 architecture, which defines how the GPU processes graphics and compute workloads. The manufacturing process node affects power efficiency, thermal characteristics, and maximum clock speeds. Smaller process nodes pack more transistors into the same die area, enabling higher performance per watt. Understanding the architecture helps predict how the HD 7550M will perform in GPU benchmarks compared to previous generations.
AMD's Radeon HD 7550M Power & Thermal
TDP and power requirements
Power specifications for the AMD Radeon HD 7550M determine PSU requirements and thermal management needs. TDP (Thermal Design Power) indicates the heat output under typical loads, guiding cooler selection. Power connector requirements ensure adequate power delivery for stable operation during demanding GPU benchmarks. The suggested PSU wattage accounts for the entire system, not just the graphics card. Efficient power delivery enables the Radeon HD 7550M to maintain boost clocks without throttling.
Radeon HD 7550M by AMD Physical & Connectivity
Dimensions and outputs
Physical dimensions of the AMD Radeon HD 7550M are critical for case compatibility. Card length, height, and slot width determine whether it fits in your chassis. The PCIe interface version affects bandwidth for communication with the CPU. Display outputs define monitor connectivity options, with modern cards supporting multiple high-resolution displays simultaneously. Verify these specifications against your case and motherboard before purchasing to ensure a proper fit.
AMD API Support
Graphics and compute APIs
API support determines which games and applications can fully utilize the AMD Radeon HD 7550M. DirectX 12 Ultimate enables advanced features like ray tracing and variable rate shading. Vulkan provides cross-platform graphics capabilities with low-level hardware access. OpenGL remains important for professional applications and older games. CUDA (NVIDIA) and OpenCL enable GPU compute for video editing, 3D rendering, and scientific applications. Higher API versions unlock newer graphical features in GPU benchmarks and games.
Radeon HD 7550M Product Information
Release and pricing details
The AMD Radeon HD 7550M is manufactured by AMD as part of their graphics card lineup. Release date and launch pricing provide context for comparing GPU benchmark results with competing products from the same era. Understanding the product lifecycle helps evaluate whether the Radeon HD 7550M by AMD represents good value at current market prices. Predecessor and successor information aids in tracking generational improvements and planning future upgrades.
Radeon HD 7550M Benchmark Scores
No benchmark data available for this GPU.
About AMD Radeon HD 7550M
Power and Cooling — TDP, PSU recommendation, connector requirements
The AMD Radeon HD 7550M is a 14 W part, placing it squarely in the ultra-low-power segment of mobile graphics. This TDP figure is striking when compared against desktop discrete GPUs of the same era, many of which consumed 10–15 times that amount of power under load. The low power envelope means the card generates minimal heat, making it suitable for thin-and-light notebooks where thermal headroom is scarce.
The data shows no dedicated power connector is required, as the card draws all its operating power from the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. This is consistent with the 14 W TDP, which falls well within the 75 W maximum that a standard PCIe slot can deliver. Consequently, no specific PSU recommendation is provided in the fact pack — a desktop power supply unit is not applicable for this mobile part. Instead, the thermal and power delivery design is entirely dependent on the host laptop's cooling solution and battery management system.
The 40 nm process node, fabricated by TSMC, contributes to the modest power draw. The chip, codenamed Thames, contains 716 million transistors on a die size of 118 mm², yielding a transistor density of 6.1 million per square millimeter. This density figure, while modest by modern standards, was typical for the TeraScale 2 architecture of that generation. The combination of a mature 40 nm process and a relatively small die helps explain why power consumption stays at 14 W despite having 480 shading units active.
Because the card is end-of-life and designed for portable devices, the display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent." This means the actual connectors — whether HDMI, DisplayPort, or LVDS — vary by laptop model and are not standardized across implementations. The lack of a slot width dimension further confirms this is not a standalone expansion card but an integrated or MXM-type module soldered or socketed into a motherboard.
Who Should Consider It
Benchmark results place the Radeon HD 7550M at the 50th percentile among all GPUs, indicating it sits exactly at the median of the performance distribution. This is a telling statistic: half of all GPUs in the database are slower, and half are faster. For a mobile part released in early 2012, this suggests it was a mainstream solution rather than a high-end or entry-level offering, though the fact pack lists no direct rivals or benchmark scores to quantify further.
Given the 1024 MB DDR3 memory capacity and 128-bit bus width, the card is suited for 720p gaming at low to medium settings in titles from its era. The 28.80 GB/s memory bandwidth is a clear bottleneck for higher resolutions; at 1080p, texture-heavy scenes would likely exceed the memory subsystem's capability, causing frame rate drops. The data indicates the card's strength lies in 1366x768 or 1280x720 resolutions, where the 8.000 GPixel/s pixel fill rate and 12.00 GTexel/s texture rate can keep up with modest geometry loads.
Users who play older or less demanding titles — such as indie games, MOBAs, or pre-2012 AAA releases — will find the card adequate. The 480.0 GFLOPS FP32 performance provides enough compute for basic shader work, but the absence of any FP16 support (listed as null) means no half-precision acceleration for modern workloads. The card is not designed for content creation, machine learning inference, or any compute-heavy task; its 480 shading units are purely for rasterization and legacy DirectX 11 workloads.
Those seeking to play modern titles at 1080p with high settings should look elsewhere. The card's 50th percentile ranking, combined with 16 ROPs and 24 TMUs, indicates a hard ceiling for fill-rate-limited scenarios. The 28.80 GB/s bandwidth would also struggle with large texture arrays in open-world games. For emulation, the DirectX 11.2 (11_0) support limits compatibility with newer API features, though OpenGL 4.4 covers many PC ports from that period.
Ray Tracing and Feature Set
The Radeon HD 7550M has no dedicated ray tracing cores — the rtCores field is null. This is expected for a TeraScale 2 architecture GPU from 2012, which predates any hardware-accelerated ray tracing in consumer products. Similarly, tensor cores are absent (tensorCores is null), meaning no AI-accelerated features such as DLSS or denoising are available. Any ray tracing workload would run entirely on the 480 shader units in a brute-force manner, yielding performance that is effectively unusable for real-time rendering.
The API support is limited to DirectX 11.2 (with the 11_0 feature level) and OpenGL 4.4. Vulkan is not supported (null), which excludes the card from modern cross-platform titles that rely on Vulkan for low-overhead rendering. The DirectX 11.2 support means the card can run games built on DX11, but it cannot leverage DX12's explicit multi-adapter or async compute features. This is a significant limitation for any title released after 2015 that uses DX12 as its primary API.
The lack of Vulkan support is particularly notable because many esports titles and indie games have adopted Vulkan for its efficiency. Without it, the card must rely on OpenGL 4.4 or DX11, both of which have higher CPU overhead and less efficient draw call handling. The feature set is firmly rooted in the early 2010s, with no modern upscaling, ray tracing, or variable rate shading capabilities.
Texture and pixel processing rates are fixed: 12.00 GTexel/s and 8.000 GPixel/s respectively. These figures determine the card's ceiling for texture-heavy scenes and fill-rate-bound effects like particles and shadows. The 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs are modest counts that align with the card's mainstream positioning. For the era, the feature set was adequate for DX11-era games, but it lacks every modern graphics technology introduced in the subsequent decade.
FAQ
Q: What is the memory configuration of the Radeon HD 7550M?
A: The card ships with 1024 MB of DDR3 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 28.80 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory operates at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective).
Q: Does the card support hardware ray tracing?
A: No. The rtCores field is null, and the TeraScale 2 architecture has no dedicated ray tracing hardware. Any ray tracing would run on shader units with impractical performance.
Q: What is the power consumption and does it need a PSU?
A: The TDP is 14 W. No PSU recommendation or power connector is listed, as the card draws power solely from the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. This is a mobile component, not a desktop expansion card.
Q: Which APIs are supported?
A: DirectX 11.2 (11_0 feature level) and OpenGL 4.4. Vulkan is not supported. This limits compatibility with modern titles that require DX12 or Vulkan.
Q: What is the production status and release date?
A: The card is end-of-life. It was released on January 6, 2012, and its predecessor is Vancouver, with the successor being Solar System.
Q: How does the card perform relative to all GPUs?
A: It sits at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the database, meaning exactly half are slower and half are faster. No specific benchmark scores or rival comparisons are available.
Benchmark Performance
The benchmark data for the Radeon HD 7550M is sparse — the benchmarks array is empty, and the nearestRivals list is also empty. The only quantitative performance indicator is the percentileVsAllGpus rating of 50, which places the card at the exact median of the database's performance distribution. This is a remarkably precise positioning: the card is neither a standout performer nor a laggard; it represents the statistical midpoint of GPU capability.
Because no rival names, scores, or deltaPct values are provided, direct comparisons to specific competing GPUs are impossible from the fact pack alone. However, the percentile figure allows for meaningful interpretation. A 50th percentile ranking in early 2012, when the database likely contained a mix of older DX10 cards, mid-range DX11 parts, and flagship GPUs, suggests the HD 7550M was competitive with the bulk of contemporary mobile GPUs but outclassed by high-end desktop parts.
The FP32 performance of 480.0 GFLOPS is the raw compute figure. To contextualize this without rival specs: this is roughly one-tenth the compute of a flagship desktop GPU from the same era, which would have exceeded 4 TFLOPS. The pixel rate of 8.000 GPixel/s and texture rate of 12.00 GTexel/s are similarly modest. A modern mid-range laptop GPU achieves 100+ GPixel/s, indicating this card is roughly 12–15 generations behind current performance levels.
The memory subsystem is a critical bottleneck. With 28.80 GB/s bandwidth and 1024 MB capacity, the card cannot sustain high-resolution textures or large geometry buffers. In benchmark terms, this would manifest as severe frame pacing issues in games that exceed the 1 GB VRAM limit, leading to texture thrashing. The 128-bit bus is narrow by modern standards, but was typical for the 2012 mobile segment where power efficiency took precedence over bandwidth.
The 50th percentile ranking is consistent across the entire GPU population, but the absence of nearestRivals data means no deltaPct analysis is possible. The card's performance is best described as "median" — adequate for its intended use case of mainstream laptop gaming at 720p, but without any standout characteristics. The TeraScale 2 architecture, with 480 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, is a balanced configuration that prioritizes power efficiency over peak throughput.
Given the 14 W TDP, the performance-per-watt ratio is actually reasonable for the era. The card delivers 480 GFLOPS at 14 W, which works out to roughly 34 GFLOPS per watt. This efficiency is the card's primary strength, enabling it to be placed in thin laptops without active cooling. However, the absolute performance is limited, and the 50th percentile ranking reflects a design that aimed for broad compatibility rather than raw speed.
In summary, the benchmark data indicates the HD 7550M is a median performer with no exceptional strengths or weaknesses. Its 50th percentile score means it will handle esports titles and older games at low-to-medium settings, but it will struggle with anything released after 2015. The lack of Vulkan support and absence of tensor or RT cores further limit its longevity. For its intended market — budget laptops in 2012 — it was a serviceable solution, but it has no place in modern gaming workloads.
The NVIDIA Equivalent of Radeon HD 7550M
Looking for a similar graphics card from NVIDIA? The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 offers comparable performance and features in the NVIDIA lineup.
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