NVIDIA Reportedly Working on MX550 Dedicated Laptop Graphics, Will Compete with RDNA 2 and Iris Xe-LP

NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel will go to war in just a couple of months, and that holds true in both the laptop and desktop segments of the market; to stand a better chance at leaving a mark, NVIDIA plans on upgrading its well known, entry-level dedicated GPU and ship it under the MX550 moniker.

This graphics card will directly compete with AMD’s RDNA 2 “Rebrandt” APUs and Intel’s Iris Xe-LP — neither of which have yet become available. This, of course, is the more affordable end of the laptop GPU spectrum, but it’s also what most buyers tend to purchase and prioritize, so getting an upper hand as early as possible is of the utmost importance.

Capable But Far From Spectacular

If the rumors are to be believed, the NVIDIA MX550 will be based on the novel Ampere architecture and would have 2GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory. With 16 Compute Units and 128 CUDA cores, it’s not exactly going to bring the house down but will nonetheless suffice for light workloads and esports gaming. Heck, you might even be able to get by with a bit AAA gaming if you lower the settings (and probably the resolution, too).

Based on its sub-50W configuration (CPU+GPU), it’s safe to assume that it’ll only be implemented in sleek ultrabooks and, potentially, NUC-like machines. And, based on all currently available information, most vendors will pair it with Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake-P processors, the ones that’ll be launched at next year’s CES.

Performance-wise, it’ll be about 15% more powerful than its predecessor which should make it about as capable as the GTX 1650 or, at best, the 1650 Ti. It’s still unknown whether NVIDIA will implement DLSS support — such a feature would no doubt make the MX550 a lot more appealing than its direct competitors.

All in all, this segment of the market is about to become a lot more competitive which should, in turn, benefit us the most. Gaming on a laptop has never been as viable an option as it is today, and having a wider gamut of choices to choose from will invariably lower prices and force everyone to innovate a lot more often.

All three tech giants will “reveal their cards” on January 4th, 2022, so make sure to mark your calendars!