AMD Radeon HD 8550G vs AMD Radeon HD 8650G

AMD Radeon HD 8550G

The AMD Radeon HD 8550G is a processor graphics card in the AMD Richland APUs (for example, the A8-5550M). It offers only 256 VLIW4 shader cores vs. the 384 shader cores of the 8650G. The 8550G has no dedicated graphics memory and shares the main memory with the CPU cores.

The integrated UVD3 video decoder allows for full decoding of Multi-View Codec (MVC), MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX, xVid), MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and Adobe Flash HD videos.

According to its clock rate range of 515 - 720 MHz (or 554 - 720 MHz in an A8-5557M), performance is only a few percentage points above a Radeon HD 7640G. Thus, the Radeon HD 8550G performs similarly to a dedicated Radeon HD 7570M. Without fast dual-channel memory, however, performance drops dramatically. The shaders of the chip can also be used for general computing.

The APU is manufactured in 32nm and rated at a TDP of 35 W. This allows the chip to be used in notebooks from 13- to 14-inches or larger.

AMD Radeon HD 8650G

The AMD Radeon HD 8650G is a processor graphics card in the AMD Richland APUs (for example, the A10-5750M). It offers the full amount of 384 shader cores (VLIW4 architecture) and is clocked at 533 - 720 MHz (or 600 - 720 MHz in the A10-5757M). The 8650G has no dedicated graphics memory and shares the main memory with the CPU cores.

The integrated video decoder (likely UVD3) allows the full decoding of Multi-View Codec (MVC), MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX, xVid), MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and Adobe Flash HD videos.

The performance of the 8650G is about 20 percent above the HD 7660G. Thus, the Radeon HD 8650G performs similar to a dedicated HD 7670M or NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M. Without fast dual-channel memory, however, performance drops dramatically.

The shaders of the GPU can also be used for general computing.

The APU is manufactured in 32nm and is rated at a TDP of 35 W. This allows the chip to be used in notebooks from 13- to 14-inches or larger.