NVIDIA started GeForce GT 550M sales 6 January 2011. This is a Fermi architecture notebook card based on 40 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at office use. 1536 MB of DDR3 memory clocked at 0.9 GHz are supplied, and together with 128 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 28.8 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is card attached via PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Power consumption is at 35 Watt.

Primary details

Some basic facts about GeForce GT 550M: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in performance ranking	936
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.27
Architecture	Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code name	N12P-GT
Market segment	Laptop
Release date	6 January 2011 (13 years ago)
Current price	$55	of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

GeForce GT 550M's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GT 550M's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	96	of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
CUDA cores	96
Core clock speed	740 MHz	of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Number of transistors	585 million	of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	of 4 (H100 PCIe)
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate	11.8 billion/sec	of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB)
Floating-point performance	284.16 gflops	of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo)

Form factor & compatibility

Information on GeForce GT 550M's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	large
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors	None

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GT 550M: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory type	DDR3
Maximum RAM amount	1536 MB	of 192 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Memory bus width	128 Bit	of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	900 MHz	of 23000 (GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER)
Memory bandwidth	28.8 GB/s	of 3276 (Aldebaran)
Shared memory	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GT 550M. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors

No outputs

Supported technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GT 550M. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Optimus

API compatibility

APIs supported by GeForce GT 550M, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX	12 API
Shader Model	5.1
OpenGL	4.5	of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile)
OpenCL	1.1
Vulkan	N/A
CUDA	+

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GT 550M. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GT 550M 1.48

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

GT 550M 573

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

GT 550M 4782

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

GT 550M 974

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 9%

GT 550M 2352

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce GT 550M is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

900p	15
Full HD	23

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

4−5

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	0−1
Battlefield 5	0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	10−11
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5
Forza Horizon 4	1−2
Hitman 3	2−3
Horizon Zero Dawn	1−2
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	7−8

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	0−1
Battlefield 5	0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	10−11
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5
Forza Horizon 4	1−2
Hitman 3	2−3
Horizon Zero Dawn	1−2
Metro Exodus	2−3
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	7−8
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	4−5

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	0−1
Battlefield 5	0−1
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5
Forza Horizon 4	1−2
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	4−5

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	3−4
Hitman 3	4−5
Horizon Zero Dawn	8−9
Red Dead Redemption 2	0−1
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	5−6

1440p
Ultra Preset

Cyberpunk 2077	1−2
Far Cry 5	2−3
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2−3

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	2−3
Hitman 3	2−3
Horizon Zero Dawn	7−8
Red Dead Redemption 2	0−1

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	0−1
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1
Far Cry 5	3−4
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6

Closest competitors

GeForce GT 550M's performance relative to its closest rivals among notebook graphics cards.

HD Graphics 5500 101.35

GeForce GTX 280M 100.68

Radeon R7 (Kaveri) 100

GeForce GT 550M 100

Radeon R7 M360 99.32

Radeon R6 (Carrizo) 98.65

GeForce GT 635M 97.97

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GT 550M is Radeon R7 (Kaveri), which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 1 position in our ranking.