GeForce MX550 vs GeForce MX450

We compared two discrete laptop gaming GPUs: the GeForce MX550 with 8 pipelines and 1024 shaders against the 1 year and 4 months older GeForce MX450 that utilizes 14 pipelines and 896 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of GeForce MX450 over GeForce MX550
Reasons to consider the GeForce MX550
  • Performs significantly better (up to 89%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • Has 20% higher memory bandwidth: 96 vs 80 GB/s

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
28
16
14
-
17
10
-
-
The Witcher 3
25
19
14
-
13
12
10
-
Counter-Strike 2
48
29
20
9
34
18
16
-
Far Cry 6
32
29
18
10
24
21
14
-
Hogwarts Legacy
20
12
11
-
18
10
9
-
CoD: Modern Warfare III
29
23
16
10
30
21
13
11
Ghost of Tsushima
16
-
9
-
11
-
-
-
Cyberpunk 2077
14
11
-
-
-
-
-
-
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
27
23
16
-
22
17
10
-
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 27 20
1080p Ultra 19 13
1440p Ultra 14 10
4K Ultra - -
Margin of Error High Medium

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
2173
Time Spy 2378 2120
Fire Strike 5959 5269
Wild Life Extreme 5060 4251
Night Raid 29231 26173
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
38596
Background Blur 70.9 img/sec 65.7 img/sec
Face Detection 37 img/sec 33.3 img/sec
Horizon Detection 1.28 Gpixels/sec 1.01 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 1.7 Gpixels/sec 1.39 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 1.9 Gpixels/sec 1.61 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 0.55 Gpixels/sec 0.48 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 180.5 Gpixels/sec 176 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 5147.2 FPS 5012.4 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
4372
G2D Mark 384 304
DirectX 11 33 FPS 25 FPS
DirectX 12 27 FPS 23 FPS
GPU Compute 2145 Ops/s 1860 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5], [6] – 890 & 1942 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
231.91
195.26
Sources: Blender [9], [10] – 4 & 25 samples

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
4930
GB6 ML Half Precision
GB6 ML Quantized
3611
Image Classification (SP) 1833 1911
Image Segmentation (HP) 3301 2536
Image Super Resolution (Q) 4390 4111
Face Detection (HP) 5360 5175
Pose Estimation (Q) 15739 13374
Text Classification (SP) 1514 1514
Machine Translation (HP) 1827 1481
Object Detection (SP) 2338 2070
Depth Estimation (Q) 8861 7813
Style Transfer (SP) 37895 36156
Framework ONNX ONNX
Backend DirectML DirectML
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of GeForce MX550 and GeForce MX450

General

Vendor Nvidia Nvidia
Build Discrete Discrete
Released January 1, 2022 August 25, 2020
Case Laptop Laptop
Purpose Gaming Gaming
Segment Entry-level Mid-range
Architecture Turing Turing
GPU Codename TU117 TU117
Rival Equivalent - Radeon 760M -
Successor - - GeForce MX550
Recommended CPU - Intel Core i7 1260P or above - Intel Core i5 11300H or above
Laptop GPU ranking (122nd and 135th place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 1065 MHz 720-1395 MHz (configurable)
Boost Clock 1320 MHz 930-1575 MHz (configurable)
Shading Units 1024 896
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 32 56
Render Output Units (ROPs) 16 32
Compute Units (Pipelines) 8 14
Tensor Cores No No
Ray-tracing Cores No No
L1 Cache 128KB per cluster 64KB per cluster
L2 Cache 2MB shared 512KB shared
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 21 GPixel/s 30-50 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 42 GTexel/s 52-88 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
2.7 TFLOPS
1.7-2.8 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 4.0 x8 PCIe 4.0 x4
TGP 25 W 10-30 W (configurable)
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Fabrication Process 12 nm 12 nm
Die Size 200 mm² 200 mm²
Transistor Count 4.7 billion 4.7 billion
Transistor Density 23.5 MTr/mm² 23.5 MTr/mm²

Memory

Memory Type GDDR6 GDDR6
Memory Size 2 GB 2 GB
Memory Clock 1500 MHz 1250 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 12000 Mbps 10000 Mbps
Bus 64-bit 64-bit
ECC No -
Memory Bandwidth
96 GB/s
80 GB/s

API

DirectX 12 12
Vulkan 1.3 1.2
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 3.0 1.2
CUDA 7.5 7.5
Ray Tracing No No
DLSS No No
DisplayPort 1.4 1.4

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
2 (40%)
3 (60%)
Total votes: 5

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