Select any two GPUs for comparison

Gaming Performance Comparison

Recommended System Requirements
Game GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI Radeon HD 7850 XFX Core Edition
Red Dead Redemption 2 149% 158%
Doom Eternal 114% 122%
Cyberpunk 2077 242% 254%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 149% 158%
Dragon Ball Z Kakarot 53% 59%
Microsoft Flight Simulator 242% 254%
Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order 242% 254%
Grand Theft Auto VI 280% 294%
Need For Speed Heat 149% 158%
Warcraft 3: Reforged 90% 90%

In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI are marginally better than the AMD Radeon HD 7850 XFX Core Edition.

The GTX 550 Ti has a 40 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the HD 7850. This results in the GTX 550 Ti providing 2.6 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The GTX 550 Ti has a 40 MHz higher core clock speed and 16 more Render Output Units than the HD 7850. This results in the GTX 550 Ti providing 15.7 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The HD 7850 was released less than a year after the GTX 550 Ti, and so they are likely to have similar driver support for optimizing performance when running the latest games.

The GTX 550 Ti has 1024 MB more video memory than the HD 7850, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. This is supported by the fact that the GTX 550 Ti also has superior memory performance overall.

The GTX 550 Ti has 36.8 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the HD 7850, which means that the memory performance of the GTX 550 Ti is noticeably better than the HD 7850.

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI has 384 Shader Processing Units and the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Core Edition has 1024. However, the actual shader performance of the GTX 550 Ti is 691 and the actual shader performance of the HD 7850 is 749. The HD 7850 having 58 better shader performance is not particularly notable, as altogether the GTX 550 Ti performs better when taking into account other relevant data.

The HD 7850 transistor size technology is 12 nm (nanometers) smaller than the GTX 550 Ti. This means that the HD 7850 is expected to run slightly cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the GTX 550 Ti. While they exhibit similar graphical performance, the HD 7850 should consume less power than the GTX 550 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI requires 250 Watts to run but there is no entry for the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Core Edition. We would recommend a PSU with at least 600 Watts for the GTX 550 Ti and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 7850. The GTX 550 Ti has been recommended a PSU with 100 Watts more than the HD 7850. The difference is significant enough that the GTX 550 Ti may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the HD 7850.

Game FPS Benchmarks On Ultra

GPU Architecture

Core Speed900 MHzvs860 MHz
Boost Clock-vs-
ArchitectureFermi GF116-400-A1 (x2)GCN 1.0 Pitcairn PRO
OC Potential Poor vs Good
Driver Support Poor vs Good
Release Date15 Mar 2011vs01 Mar 2012
GPU LinkGD LinkGD Link

Resolution Performance

green tick vs -
green tick vs
green tick vs
green tick vs
3840x2160 - vs green tick

GPU Memory

Memory2048 MBvs1024 MB
Memory Speed1025 MHzvs1250 MHz
Memory Bus384 Bitvs256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Memory Bandwidth196.8GB/secvs160GB/sec
L2 Cache 768 KB green tick vs 512 KB
Delta Color Compression no vs no
Memory Performance 0% green tick vs green tick 0%

GPU Display

Shader Processing Units384vs1024
Actual Shader Performance33%vs36%
Texture Mapping Units64vs64
Texture Rate57.6 GTexel/svs55 GTexel/s
Render Output Units48vs32
Pixel Rate43.2 GPixel/svs27.5 GPixel/s

GPU Outputs

Max Digital Resolution (WxH)2560x1600vs4096x2160
VGA Connections0vs0
DVI Connections2vs2
HDMI Connections1vs1
DisplayPort Connections0vs-

GPU Power Requirements

Max Power250 Watts-
Recommended PSU600 Watts & 42 Ampsvs500 Watts

GPU Features

Shader Model5.0vs5.0
Open GL4.5vs4.4
Open CL-vs-
Notebook GPUnono

GPU Supporting Hardware

Recommended ProcessorIntel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHzvsIntel Core i5-3330 3.0GHz
Recommended RAM8 GBvs8 GB
Maximum Recommended Gaming Resolution1920x1080vs1920x1080

Gaming Performance Value

Performance Value

GPU Mini Review

Mini ReviewOverview
GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI is a solution of two GeForce GTX 550 Ti put together using NVIDIA's SLI Technology.


It consists of 2 GPUs Codenamed GF116-400-A1 which, together, offer 384 Shader Processing Units, 64 TMUs and 48 ROPs. The Central Unit is Clocked at 900MHz.

Each GPU accesses a 1GB frame buffer of fast GDDR5, through a 192-bit memory interface. The size of the frame buffer is adequate. The Memory Clock Operates at 1025MHz.

Power Consumption
Power Consumption lies between 225W and 250W.

Benchmarks Indicate GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI's performance stands somewhere between GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GeForce GTX 570.

System Suggestions
GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI is best suited for resolutions up to and including 1920x1080. We recommend a Very Strong Processor and 8GB of RAM for a system with GeForce GTX 550 Ti SLI.
Radeon HD 7850 XFX Core Edition is a special edition of the powerful Radeon HD 7850. See the standard version for more information about it.
This edition features a special cooling system that allows twice as much heat dissipation when compared to the reference AMD cooling system but its performance is still the same, as there's no over-clocking out of the box.
Recommended CPU
Possible GPU Upgrades
GPU Variants