AMD Radeon HD 8550M vs AMD Radeon HD 8590M vs AMD Radeon HD 8450G + Radeon HD 8570M Dual Graphics

AMD Radeon HD 8550M

The AMD Radeon HD 8550M is a DirectX 11.1 graphics card for small laptops. The core is clocked at 700 MHz, while the DDR3 graphics memory runs at 900 MHz. The 28nm Mars core uses the GCN architecture. Compared to the 8600M and 8700M series, the 8550M is different only in clock speed, memory bus configuration and memory type.

The performance of the Radeon HD 8550M is very similar to the Radeon HD 8570M or GeForce GT 630M. Current and demanding games like Far Cry 3 will run fluently only in low resolutions and detail settings.

The 384 shaders can be used with OpenCL 1.2 for general-purpose calculations (as 6 compute units). Compared to old TeraScale 2 chips, the GCN-based Mars architecture offers improved performance in this framework.

Features of the 8550M include video decoding via UVD3 for decoding MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and Flash directly from the AMD GPU. Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos are now compatible as well.

The 8500M series also supports automatic graphics switching between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU. Called Enduro, the technology supersedes AMD's Dynamic Switchable Graphics and is similar to Nvidia's Optimus. Furthermore, the 8550M can directly support up to 2 connected monitors using Eyefinity Technology if Enduro is disabled.

Other features of the 8500M series include ZeroCore for reducing power consumption when the display is turned off and Power Gating to power down areas of the chip that are not used. PowerTune allows automatic overclocking and underclocking of the graphics card as long as the GPU is within its TDP limit. For example, the chip may be underclocked when running FurMark and OCCT, but will overclock in certain games like Lost Planet, Crysis or Resident Evil 5.

The integrated HD audio processor is able to transmit HD Audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) over HDMI and DisplayPort (e.g., for Blu-Ray videos). Additionally, it now allows audio to output simultaneously and in parallel to multiple devices with the new Discrete Digital Multipoint Audio (DDMA) feature.

The power consumption should be somewhat below that of the old HD 7650M. As a result, the 8550M is suited for 13-inch notebooks or larger.

AMD Radeon HD 8590M

The AMD Radeon HD 8590M (sometimes also called ATI Mobility Radeon HD 8590M) is a DirectX 11.1 graphics card for laptops. It was announced early 2012 and is technically a Radeon HD 8570M with GDDR5 graphics memory. The core is clocked at 620 MHz and is able to overclock itself to 700 MHz (Boost). The GDDR5 graphics memory is clocked at 1125 MHz (4.5 GHz effective).

The 28nm Mars core uses the GCN architecture. Compared to the 8600M and 8700M series, the only clock speed, memory bus configuration, and memory type have been overhauled.

The performance of the Radeon HD 8590M should be slightly below the old Radeon HD 6750M. Current and demanding games like Far Cry 3 should run fluently only in low resolutions and detail settings.

The 384 shaders can be used with OpenCL 1.2 for general-purpose calculations (as 6 compute units). Compared to old TeraScale 2 chips, the GCN-based Mars architecture offers improved performance in this framework.

Features of the 8590M include video decoding via UVD3 for decoding MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and Flash directly from the AMD GPU. Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos are now compatible as well.

The 8500M series also supports automatic graphics switching between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU. Called Enduro, the technology supersedes AMD's Dynamic Switchable Graphics and is similar to Nvidia's Optimus. Furthermore, the 8590M can directly support up to 2 connected monitors using Eyefinity Technology if Enduro is disabled.

Other features of the 8500M series include ZeroCore for reducing power consumption when the display is turned off and Power Gating to power down areas of the chip that are not used. PowerTune allows automatic overclocking and underclocking of the graphics card as long as the GPU is within its TDP limit. For example, the chip may be underclocked when running FurMark and OCCT, but will overclock in certain games like Lost Planet, Crysis or Resident Evil 5.

The integrated HD audio processor is able to transmit HD Audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) over HDMI and DisplayPort (e.g., for Blu-Ray videos). Additionally, it now allows audio to output simultaneously and in parallel to multiple devices with the new Discrete Digital Multipoint Audio (DDMA) feature.

The power consumption should be somewhat below that of the old HD 7670M. As a result, the 8590M is suited for 13-inch notebooks or larger.

AMD Radeon HD 8450G + Radeon HD 8570M Dual Graphics

The AMD Radeon HD 8450G + HD 8570M Dual Graphics is the combination of a integrated AMD Radeon HD 8450G APU processor graphics card and a dedicated entry level AMD Radeon HD 8570M graphics card in CrossFire combination. It is called AMD Dual Graphics or asymmetric CrossFire and uses AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) to render different frames on the two graphic cores. Therefore the combination also suffers from micro stuttering (different spaces between two images lead to stuttering altough the framerate is high enough for fluent gaming with only one GPU).

The performance of the Dual Graphics solution depends greatly on the driver support for the used games. In some games the performance may even degrade by 10-15% compared to using only the dedicated graphics card. Therefore, due to the micro stuttering and performance problems, Dual Graphics may impose more problems than bring performance gains. Overall, most games of 2013 will only run fluently in low settings.

The features like PureVideo HD (UVD3) or OpenCL support are similar to the two graphics cards.

As both graphics cards are rendering frames, the power consumption is clearly higher than using only one GPU.