GeForce4 MX 420 vs ATI Radeon HD 5550

Place in the ranking	1113	1507
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	1.73	no data
Architecture	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)	Celsius (1999−2005)
GPU code name	Redwood	NV17 A3
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	9 February 2010 (14 years ago)	6 February 2002 (22 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	320	no data
Core clock speed	550 MHz	250 MHz
Number of transistors	627 million	29 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	150 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	39 Watt	no data
Texture fill rate	8.800	1.000
Floating-point processing power	0.352 TFLOPS	no data
ROPs	8	2
TMUs	16	4

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	AGP 4x
Length	165 mm	no data
Width	1-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	None

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	SDR
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	64 MB
Memory bus width	128 Bit	64 Bit
Memory clock speed	800 MHz	166 MHz
Memory bandwidth	51.2 GB/s	1.328 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA	1x VGA, 1x S-Video
HDMI	+	-

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.2 (11_0)	8.0
Shader Model	5.0	no data
OpenGL	4.4	1.3
OpenCL	1.2	N/A
Vulkan	N/A	N/A

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark 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.

ATI HD 5550 0.97
+9600%

GeForce4 MX 420 0.01

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. 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.

ATI HD 5550 376
+9300%

GeForce4 MX 420 4

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.97	0.01
Recency	9 February 2010	6 February 2002
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	64 MB
Chip lithography	40 nm	150 nm

ATI HD 5550 has a 9600% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 8 years, a 3100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 275% more advanced lithography process.

The Radeon HD 5550 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce4 MX 420 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.