4score
#130 of 131
Overall rank
AMDEntry

Radeon 540

3 · 8 votes
Best for 1080p esports gaming

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VRAM
1 GB
CUDA
384
FP32
0.9085 TF
Bandwidth
24 GB/s
TDP
50W
Boost
1124 MHz
Strengths at a Glance

How it stacks up to the flagship

Each metric is shown as a percentage of the GeForce RTX 5090 D, the strongest card we track.

FP32 compute0.9085 TFLOPS1%
vs RTX 5090 D: 104.8 TFLOPS
Memory bandwidth24 GB/s1%
vs RTX 5090 D: 1790 GB/s
VRAM capacity1 GB3%
vs RTX 5090 D: 32 GB
Shading units3842%
vs RTX 5090 D: 21,760
Power efficiency6/10010%
vs RTX 5090 D: 58/100
Synthetic Benchmarks

Estimated benchmark results

Each result is shown as a share of the RTX 5090 D's score in the same test.

3DMark Time Spy1,440pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 36,000 pts
3DMark Port Royal (RT)540pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 18,000 pts
Blender (samples/min)208spm
vs RTX 5090 D: 5,200 spm
Geekbench Compute7,200pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 240,000 pts

Performance breakdown

Gaming4
Ray tracing3
AI / Compute3
Creator / 3D4
Power efficiency6
Real-World Gaming

FPS Across Resolutions

1080p · Ultra preset1440p · Ultra preset4K · Ultra preset
Cyberpunk 2077avg 3 fps
1080p
5
1440p
3
4K
2
Call of Duty: MW IIIavg 5 fps
1080p
7
1440p
5
4K
3
Alan Wake 2avg 3 fps
1080p
4
1440p
3
4K
2
Forza Horizon 5avg 5 fps
1080p
7
1440p
5
4K
3
Baldur's Gate 3avg 4 fps
1080p
6
1440p
4
4K
3
Community Feedback

What Owners Say

Owners say it's fine for basic office work and older games, but the tiny memory buffer kills performance in anything modern.

Pros
  • Plays older games just fine
  • Fits in tiny office PCs
  • Uses very little electricity
  • Works without extra power cables
Cons
  • Too little VRAM for modern games
  • Loud fan under heavy load
  • No modern feature set support

Supported technologies

AV1 Encode

Full specifications

Graphics processor
Architecture
GCN 4.0
Process node
14 nm
Transistors
2.2 B
Compute Units
6
Release date
2017
Launch price
$79
Core configuration
CUDA Cores
384
TMUs
24
ROPs
16
L2 cache
512 MB
Memory
Size
1 GB
Type
GDDR5
Bus width
32-bit
Bandwidth
24 GB/s
Memory clock
1500 MHz
Clocks & throughput
Base clock
1183 MHz
Boost clock
1124 MHz
FP32 (float)
0.9085 TFLOPS
FP16 (half)
0.9085 TFLOPS
Pixel rate
18 GPixel/s
Texture rate
28.39 GTexel/s
Board & power
TDP
50W
Suggested PSU
100W
Power connectors
None
Bus interface
PCIe 3.0 x8
Length
145 mm
Slot width
1-slot
Display & outputs
Max resolution
7680×4320
Outputs
2x DisplayPort 1.4a

API and SDK support

DirectX
12 (12_0)
Shader Model
6.7
OpenGL
4.6
OpenCL
2.1
Vulkan
1.3
Verdict

Our verdict on the 540

An entry-level GCN 4.0 card from 2017 with 1 GB VRAM that was underpowered even for basic gaming at launch.

Get it if you need the cheapest possible card for basic display output on a very old office PC. Skip it if you plan to game or do anything remotely modern, as it's far too weak for even light titles.

Buy it if…

  • Buy it if you need a basic display output for a cheap office PC.
  • Buy it if you are building a retro gaming rig for decade-old titles.
  • Buy it if you must have a low-power card for a tiny, non-gaming build.
3.0

8 votes

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