Clock frequency (GPU) over time
Nominal operating clock. Says nothing about work done per cycle and must never be used as a proxy for performance across architectures.
- Device scope
- gpu
- Method
- Nominal clock
- Plotted in
- hertz
Chart
38 figures from 37 machines, spanning 1982 to 2025. The lowest clock frequency here is 3.579545 MHz (Sega Master System, 1986) and the highest is 2300 MHz (AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, 2022). That is a range of about 643× within one comparability group; the figures are plotted in Hz. Points use the release date of the machine the figure belongs to. The table below lists absent figures with their recorded reasons.
Data
| Machine | Released | Figure | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commodore 64 NTSC | August 1982 | 8.18 MHz The video dot clock of the NTSC machine, carried on pin 6 of the expansion port. | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Entertainment System | October 1985 | 5.37 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sega Master System | June 1986 | 3.579545 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sega Saturn PAL retail console (MK-80200-50) | November 1994 | 28.63636 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo 64 Retail console | June 1996 | 62.6 MHz Reality Coprocessor, from the manual's clock speeds and bus bandwidth list. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| 3dfx Voodoo Graphics 3dfx Interactive Voodoo (3dfx Voodoo Graphics) | November 1996 | 50 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sega Dreamcast Retail console | November 1998 | 100 MHz NEC HOLLY image-drawing VLSI, built around a PowerVR2 core. | Vendor-rated | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 256 NVIDIA GeForce 256 (NVIDIA GeForce 256) | October 1999 | 120 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 2 Retail console | March 2000 | 150 MHz Graphics Synthesizer clock, as stated in Sony's specification release. | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo GameCube Retail hardware | September 2001 | 162 MHz The ATI/Nintendo "Flipper" graphics part of the shipped console. | Vendor-rated | |
| Microsoft Xbox Retail hardware | November 2001 | 233 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| ATI Radeon 9700 Pro ATI Technologies R300 (ATI Radeon 9700 Pro) | August 2002 | 325 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra NVIDIA GeForce 6 (NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra) | April 2004 | 425 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Microsoft Xbox 360 Retail hardware | November 2005 | 500 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Wii Retail hardware | November 2006 | 243 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA Tesla (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX) | November 2006 | 575 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 3 Launch console | November 2006 | 550 MHz RSX, per the announcement of May 2005. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA Fermi (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580) | November 2010 | 772 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo Wii U Retail hardware | November 2012 | 550 MHz The AMD-designed graphics core of the shipped console. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Microsoft Xbox One Retail hardware | November 2013 | 853 MHz The 12 compute units of the shipped console. | Vendor-rated | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti NVIDIA Kepler (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti) | November 2013 | 875 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 4 Launch console (CUH-1000 series) | November 2013 | 800 MHz The 18 compute units of the shipped console. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 6s | September 2015 | 650 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 NVIDIA GP104 (GeForce GTX 1080) | May 2016 | 1607 MHz Reference card, as specified in NVIDIA's launch table. | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Switch Docked mode | March 2017 | 768 MHz The 256 Maxwell cores of the shipped console, docked. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo Switch Handheld mode | March 2017 | 307.2 MHz The 256 Maxwell cores of the shipped console, undocked, in its default power mode. | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVIDIA Turing (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti) | September 2018 | 1350 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple Mac mini (M1, 2020) | November 2020 | 1278 MHz | Measured provisional | |
| Microsoft Xbox Series X Retail hardware | November 2020 | 1.825 GHz 52 RDNA 2 compute units at their constant operating frequency. | Vendor-rated | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 NVIDIA Ada Lovelace (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090) | October 2022 | 2235 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX AMD RDNA 3 (AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX) | December 2022 | 2300 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple iPhone 15 Pro | September 2023 | 1338 MHz | Measured provisional | |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | October 2023 | 800 MHz | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple Mac mini (M4, 2024) | November 2024 | 1578 MHz | Measured provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 NVIDIA GB202 (GeForce RTX 5090) | January 2025 | 2.01 GHz Reference card, as specified in NVIDIA's product specification table. | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Switch 2 Docked mode | June 2025 | 1007 MHz | Measured provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 17 | September 2025 | 1620 MHz | Measured provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 17 Pro | September 2025 | 1620 MHz | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| IBM System/360 Model 50 | April 1964 | not applicable The selected processing-unit configuration has no fitted graphics processor. The optional display unit is outside its scope. | not plotted | — |
| DEC PDP-8 | 1965 | not applicable The standard table-model configuration has no graphics processor. CRT display equipment was optional. | not plotted | — |
| Apple II | June 1977 | unknown The reference manual describes several display timing signals but does not state one frequency for a graphics processor. | not plotted | — |
| Atari 2600 | September 1977 | unknown The cited manual names the tile-and-sprite graphics unit but does not publish one standalone GPU clock. | not plotted | — |
| Intel 8086 PC IBM PC display adapter | 1978 | unknown MDA and CGA boards use distinct timing crystals; this display-adapter class has no one GPU clock. | not plotted | — |
| Atari 800 | November 1979 | unknown The reviewed hardware manual names the display chips but no graphics clock. | not plotted | — |
| IBM Personal Computer 5150 | August 1981 | not applicable The 5150 supports different display adapters, so there is no single system GPU clock. | not plotted | — |
| BBC Micro Model B | December 1981 | unknown The documentation describes the ULA's timing functions without a standalone GPU frequency. | not plotted | — |
| Intel 80286 PC IBM PC display adapter | 1982 | unknown MDA and CGA boards use distinct timing crystals; this display-adapter class has no one GPU clock. | not plotted | — |
| ZX Spectrum 48K | April 1982 | unknown The cited oscillator drives video timing; its frequency is not an execution-clock figure for comparison with graphics processors. | not plotted | — |
| MSX | 1983 | unknown No accepted graphics-clock figure was located in the data book. | not plotted | — |
| Apple Macintosh 128K | January 1984 | not applicable | not plotted | — |
| Amstrad CPC 464 | June 1984 | unknown No accepted graphics-clock figure was located in the user guide. | not plotted | — |
| Intel 80386DX PC VGA-compatible display adapter | 1985 | unknown VGA compatibility is a display standard, not a single graphics processor or clock rate. | not plotted | — |
| Atari 520ST | June 1985 | unknown The reviewed manual gives no separate graphics-clock figure. | not plotted | — |
| Commodore Amiga 500 | 1987 | unknown The Hardware Reference Manual describes the custom chips by the clocks the bus carries them — a 7.16 MHz system clock, a 3.58 MHz color clock — and never gives the chipset a frequency of its own. | not plotted | — |
| Acorn Archimedes A310 | June 1987 | unknown The reviewed manual gives no single nominal graphics-clock figure. | not plotted | — |
| NEC PC Engine | October 1987 | unknown The reviewed system-outline manual gives no graphics clock. | not plotted | — |
| Sega Mega Drive | October 1988 | unknown The reviewed manual covers a different console revision. | not plotted | — |
| Intel 80486DX PC VGA-compatible display adapter | 1989 | unknown VGA compatibility is a display standard, not a single graphics processor or clock rate. | not plotted | — |
| Nintendo Game Boy | April 1989 | unknown The reviewed manual gives no separate LCD-controller clock. | not plotted | — |
| SNK Neo Geo AES | April 1990 | unknown The reviewed manual gives no graphics clock. | not plotted | — |
| Super Nintendo Entertainment System | August 1991 | unknown Nintendo's table has a Graphics Processor row and puts only "16-bit" in it — a data width, not a frequency. | not plotted | — |
| Commodore Amiga 1200 | October 1992 | unknown The service manual gives the processor clock and the crystal it is divided from, and no frequency for the AGA chipset. | not plotted | — |
| Commodore Amiga 4000 | October 1992 | unknown The checked manuals state no separate AA chipset clock. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Pentium PC VGA-compatible display adapter | 1993 | unknown VGA compatibility is a display standard, not a single graphics processor or clock rate. | not plotted | — |
| Sony PlayStation | December 1994 | unknown The developer reference gives one system clock, in the processor’s specification table, and states no separate frequency for the drawing processor or the geometry engine. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Pentium II PC VGA-compatible display adapter | 1997 | unknown VGA compatibility is a display standard, not a single graphics processor or clock rate. | not plotted | — |
| Game Boy Advance | March 2001 | unknown The reviewed manual gives no independent graphics clock. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Pentium 4 PC VGA-compatible display adapter | 2002 | unknown VGA compatibility is a display standard, not a single graphics processor or clock rate. | not plotted | — |
| Nintendo DS | November 2004 | unknown The reviewed technical reference describes the graphics units but does not publish one standalone GPU clock. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 PC Intel integrated processor graphics | July 2006 | unknown Intel states a frequency for each generation and the generations disagree: Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the Core i7-2600K is specified at 850 MHz base and 1.35 GHz maximum dynamic, UHD Graphics 770 on the Core i9-14900K at 300 MHz base and 1.65 GHz maximum dynamic. Both figures are vendor statements and neither can stand for the other. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone (1st generation) | June 2007 | unknown Apple states no frequency for any part of this machine. The independent analysis that established the processor clock says outright that it has no clock-speed information for the graphics core and is guessing. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone 3GS | June 2009 | unknown Apple gives no GPU operating frequency in the cited technical specification. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone 4 | June 2010 | unknown Apple gives no GPU operating frequency in the cited technical specification. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Core i7-2600K PC Intel integrated processor graphics | January 2011 | unknown Intel states a frequency for each generation and the generations disagree: Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the Core i7-2600K is specified at 850 MHz base and 1.35 GHz maximum dynamic, UHD Graphics 770 on the Core i9-14900K at 300 MHz base and 1.65 GHz maximum dynamic. Both figures are vendor statements and neither can stand for the other. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone 5s | September 2013 | unknown Apple gives no GPU operating frequency in the cited technical specification. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone X | November 2017 | unknown Apple gives no GPU operating frequency in the cited technical specification. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone 12 | October 2020 | unknown Apple gives no GPU operating frequency in the cited technical specification. | not plotted | — |
| Sony PlayStation 5 | November 2020 | not applicable Sony specifies the graphics engine as running at a variable frequency with a ceiling, so it has no fixed nominal clock either. | not plotted | — |
| NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU (SXM) | 2022 | unknown NVIDIA’s specification table for this accelerator gives floating-point rates at four precisions, a memory bandwidth and a power figure, and no clock at all. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Core i9-14900K PC Intel integrated processor graphics | October 2023 | unknown Intel states a frequency for each generation and the generations disagree: Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the Core i7-2600K is specified at 850 MHz base and 1.35 GHz maximum dynamic, UHD Graphics 770 on the Core i9-14900K at 300 MHz base and 1.65 GHz maximum dynamic. Both figures are vendor statements and neither can stand for the other. | not plotted | — |
Why this chart holds one group only
Every point on a chart is implicitly compared with every other point on it. This chart uses one comparability group: one metric, one device scope, one method . There is no chart of all clock frequencies over time because they are not one quantity.
Points use the release date of the machine a figure belongs to, including figures recorded against a part. A release date applies only to a machine that shipped. What this metric measures.