Rx550 review: AMD Radeon RX 550 review: A thrilling budget graphics card with a perplexing price

AMD Radeon RX 550 review: A thrilling budget graphics card with a perplexing price

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Huge e-sports performance leap over integrated graphics
Cool and quiet
Offers modern ecosystem and media features

Cons

No small form factor versions at launch
Priced too high

Our Verdict

The Radeon RX 550 delivers tremendous value to e-sports gamers and home theater PC owners, but high pricing compared to the RX 560 renders it borderline irrelevant.

The most popular games in the world don’t need a beefy graphics card.

Yes, I’m talking about e-sports. The likes of League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive dominate Twitch and Steam charts alike. There are a lot of reasons for their success, but the fact that they run on virtually any PC doesn’t hurt. Heck, you can even run e-sports games—including Overwatch—on an AMD APU’s integrated graphics if you’re okay with modest frame rates at lower resolutions.

AMD’s affordable new Radeon RX 550 is designed for folks who want more e-sports eye candy without breaking the bank, at $80 on Newegg.

Higher frame rates and resolutions mean you can see more, faster, and that extra performance can spell the difference between winning and losing in the world of competitive gaming. AMD’s latest Radeon lets you crank those graphics settings, and it includes all the helpful ecosystem conveniences found in the rest of the Radeon RX 500-series, such as native broadcasting support with Radeon Crimson ReLive, FreeSync monitor compatibility, and modern media technologies that could make the Radeon RX 550 a hit with home theater PC enthusiasts.

We haven’t seen a graphics card serve the ultra-budget market in years. But is a graphics card this cut-down worthwhile? Yes…and no.

Let’s dig in.

Meet the Radeon RX 550

You’ll find all the hardcore technical specs for the Radeon RX 550 in the chart below, but in sum they’re half that of the already modest $100 RX 560, which is launching in early May as the final release in AMD’s new Radeon RX 500 series. It’s one-quarter the GPU inside the $170 Radeon RX 570.

AMD

AMD’s Radeon RX 550 graphics card specs.

The Radeon RX 550’s Polaris GPU packs a mere 8 compute units and 512 stream processors, but you don’t need much horsepower to drive e-sports or home theater PCs. It hums along at a 1,100MHz base/1,183MHz boost clock, married to 2GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit bus. (4GB models will also be available in limited numbers.) Those modest internals demand only modest amounts of power, however. The Radeon RX 550 is powered completely via your motherboard’s PCIe slot, with no extra power cables required. That’s a big deal for folks wanting more oomph from an existing PCs—likely a sizable portion of this card’s target audience.

AMD

Media features in AMD’s Polaris GPU.

Besides e-sports gaming capabilities, which are bolstered by compatibility with affordable FreeSync variable refresh rate displays, the Radeon RX 550 offers support for modern media technologies. The HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4 connections can handle 4K resolution and high-dynamic-range video, while the GPU’s capable of HEVC encoding and decoding. That makes this tiny graphics card an intriguing option for a home theater PC.

AMD says to expect low-profile versions of the Radeon RX 550 “shortly after” launch, which would certainly suit itty-bitty HTPCs.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The version we’re testing today isn’t low-profile. Heck, it isn’t even as small as most 3GB GeForce GTX 1060 cards. Instead the PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 550 uses the same basic cooling solution as PowerColor’s RX 460, with a single fan and a plastic shroud over a small heatsink reminiscent of a stock CPU cooler. That’s not surprising. AMD didn’t create a reference version for any of the Radeon RX 500 series, and with the Radeon RX 550 being so cheap, we’d expect to see a lot of cooler reuse from manufacturers, especially in the first wave of products.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Port report.

You’ll find single connections for the aforementioned HDMI and DisplayPorts, as well as DVI-D, which is officially eradicated from AMD’s reference lineup but damned handy for older and entry-level monitors serving this price range.

Got it? Good. Let’s see how this puppy handles.

Our test system

Even though the PowerColor RX 550 is the most entry-level of entry-level video cards released in a long while, we’re still testing it on PCWorld’s dedicated GPU benchmarking PC, which is brimming with high-level hardware to eradicate bottlenecks and show unfettered graphics performance.

Intel’s Core i7-5960X with a Corsair Hydro Series h200i closed-loop water cooler ($120 on Amazon).
An Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard ($230 on Amazon for an updated version).
Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory ($125 on Amazon), and 1,200-watt AX1200i power supply ($310 on Amazon).
A 480GB Intel 730 series SSD ($280 on Amazon).
Phanteks’ Enthoo Evolv ATX case ($190 on Amazon).
Windows 10 Pro ($158 on Amazon).

This review’s going to be a bit unusual, as the stripped-down Radeon RX 550 simply isn’t intended to play AAA games at a decent clip like most graphics cards. It’s designed as a step-up from CPU integrated graphics, and heck, it doesn’t even have any direct competition in dedicated graphics. No Nvidia GeForce cards have targeted this segment since 2014’s GT 740, and AMD hasn’t offered a comparable Radeon in the U.S. since the Radeon R7 250 launch in 2013.

So instead of our usual benchmarking suite, I turned to some of the top e-sports games to test the Radeon RX 550, taking advantage of the replay feature in Dota 2 and League of Legends. For each, the charts show the last 10 minutes of a professional match, with all players leveled up and action coming fast and furious. Here are the options I used for Dota 2, which resulted in an attractive overall image:

Brad Chacos/IDG

Meanwhile, I tested Counter-Strike: Global Offensive using the FPS Benchmark mod from the Steam Workshop. All e-sports performance results were captured using FRAPS.

Radeon RX 550 benchmarks

Unfortunately, I don’t have a PC with integrated graphics on hand to compare the Radeon RX 550 against. But I tested an AMD A10-7860K APU-powered machine with relatively strong integrated graphics last year, and while it was definitely capable of playing e-sports games, it required some severe compromises. You can see below how that PC held up in the games we’re testing today. Take particular note of the resolution and graphics settings listed next to each game, which were the combination required to get the games running close to the hallowed 60 frames per second standard.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The previous results from an e-sports PC powered by a high-end AMD APU.

By comparison, here’s how the PowerColor Radeon RX 550 fared in those same games. All games were tested at 1900×1200 resolution and High graphics settings. We also tested a pair of traditional AAA games at Low graphics settings to see how the card rolls outside of e-sports.

Brad Chacos/IDG

As you can see, the RX 550 delivers a vastly superior experience to even the Radeon integrated graphics in a pricier AMD APU, surpassing 100fps at far higher resolutions and graphics settings in the tested games. Not too shabby! Also not too shabby: the Radeon RX 550’s ability to handle The Division and Rise of the Tomb Raider, two of the most gorgeous games in recent memory, albeit at low settings. You’re definitely going to want a more potent graphics card if you plan on playing anything but e-sports regularly. But the Radeon RX 550 can do in a low-quality pinch.

Even better, this modest card uses modest amounts of power and generates modest amounts of heat. (Clarification update: Power measurements represent whole system power, not the GPU alone.)

Brad Chacos/IDG

Bottom line

So is a card this cut-down worthwhile? The benchmarks say yes, unequivocally, if your usage falls into its purview.

If you’re using a PC with integrated graphics and want to supercharge your e-sports experience (and dabble in other games) without topping $100, the Radeon RX 550 definitely delivers. The difference in performance is night and day, and with Polaris’s deep encoding support, you’ll be able to stream your adventures to Twitch with no problem—and streaming functionality’s built right into AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson. It’s like this card was made for e-sports or something.

There’s no reason to opt for a pricier 4GB version of the Radeon RX 550 once those become available, as none of the gaming this card is meant for would push the memory that hard. But if you wind up upgrading your monitor at some point down the line, a high refresh-rate FreeSync display like ViewSonic’s 24-inch, 75Hz VX2457-mhd ($140 on Amazon) would be a splendid, buttery-smooth companion.

Brad Chacos/IDG

On the other hand, the Radeon RX 550’s modern media features indeed make it an intriguing option for home theater PCs. Of course, many are built to be smaller rigs, something less obtrusive for the living room.

If your needs are compatible with the first wave of full-height cards, swell! If not, here’s hoping the Radeon RX 550 indeed starts rolling out in low-profile and (maybe, please?) single-slot variants. It’s a natural fit for that form factor—and quiet as hell.

The only fly in the ointment? Price.

At $80, the Radeon RX 550 certainly isn’t expensive, and it’s more affordable than Nvidia’s ancient $100 GT 740 was—but it’s only $20 cheaper than the $100 Radeon RX 560 cards coming in early May. And if you remember back to the beginning of this review, a Radeon RX 550 is half a RX 560 under the hood. A 20 percent discount for 50 percent less performance (roughly) doesn’t sit right, especially since the extra oomph provided by the Radeon RX 460 (and soon the RX 560) enables solid near console-quality gaming at 1080p resolution.

Sure, if you know you’re only going to use the Radeon RX 550 for e-sports or watching 4K videos, the card lets you save $20 off the price of the RX 460 or RX 560. Most people should just buy the $100 card though. Which is why I’m so disappointed here.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The Radeon RX 550 is nowhere near as versatile as the RX 460. I actually consider that a great thing. Competitive gaming is only getting more popular, and extremely budget-focused graphics card buyers have been woefully underserved by AMD and Nvidia for years. The stellar e-sports performance of this GPU excited me during benchmarking—when I assumed it would cost somewhere between $60 and $70. Itches that have been lingering for years would finally be scratched! Instead, at $80, there’s little reason to buy it over an RX 460. We’re back at square one.

I still really, really like the Radeon RX 550 and its laser-focus on HTPCs and competitive gaming. It could’ve been something special if it was just a bit cheaper. But as it stands there’s little reason to buy it unless prices shift downward by $10 or $20. Cost is very important in the sub-$100 market, even if it’s been largely underserved until now.

AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB Review — Tom’s Hardware

Tom’s Hardware is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s why you can trust us.

Early Verdict

If you’re coming from Intel’s HD Graphics 530, any discrete graphics card is going to be exciting. Indeed, Radeon RX 550 looks like a great upgrade for folks limping along with CPU-based graphics. But AMD’s own Radeon RX 460 2GB is quite a bit quicker than the RX 550 in demanding games, and it only costs about $10 more. If you can live with the 460’s slight price premium and higher power consumption, that’s the card we’d buy for $90.

Pros

+
Low power, low heat
+
Compact form factor
+
Serviceable 1080p performance
+
No auxiliary power connector

Today’s best MSI RX 550 Aero ITX 2GB deals

No price information

Check Amazon

AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB

Radeon RX 550 is AMD’s first graphics card based on new silicon since its Polaris 11-based Radeon RX 460. The company says RX 550 is 1080p-capable in a number of popular e-sports games, adding that the product’s compact dimensions and low power also endear it to home-theater PCs.

Fittingly, the RX 550 slides in behind AMD’s just-announced Radeon RX 560 and starts at $80. That’s an incredibly important price point. In fact, as recently as last year, our Best Graphics recommendations included the $90 Radeon R7 360. Its disappearance forced us up the stack to Radeon RX 460, which started life at $110 last August.

Can Radeon RX 550 carve out a spot on the list of Tom’s Hardware-approved upgrades by serving up viable performance for less money than some of our past picks?

Meet Polaris 12

AMD’s older Radeon RX 460 wields 896 Stream processors. The just-announced Radeon RX 560 bumps that to 1024 Stream processors operating at even higher clock rates. When it arrives next month, we expect the RX 560 to be even faster than its predecessor for right around $100.

This leaves room for a lower-end part like the Radeon RX 550. AMD certainly could have built it using Polaris 11 with more disabled compute units. But the company’s mobile aspirations apparently necessitated a smaller GPU with fewer transistors and a more conservative power profile.

Polaris 12, code-named Lexa and based on a fourth-gen GCN architecture, is that processor. Composed of 2.2 billion transistors and measuring 101 square millimeters, it’s frankly not much smaller than Polaris 11. However, AMD plans to use it in configurations that wouldn’t have made sense from a larger chip.

In its entirety, Polaris 12 exposes 10 Compute Units organized into two Shader Engines capable of two triangles/clock, similar to Polaris 11 but with fewer CUs per Shader Engine. Radeon RX 550, specifically, uses an implementation with eight of those 10 Compute Units enabled, adding up to 512 Stream processors and 32 texture units.

The chip’s back-end is proportioned more generously, maintaining Polaris 11’s 16 ROPs, aggregate 128-bit memory bus, and 7 Gb/s GDDR5 able to move up to 112 GB/s. Whereas Polaris 11 comes with 1MB of L2 cache, however, Polaris 12 is down to 512KB.

	Radeon RX 550	Radeon R7 260X	Radeon RX 460
Shader Units	512	896	896
ROPs	16	16	16
GPU	Polaris 12	Bonaire	Polaris 11
Transistors	2.2 Billion	2.08 Billion	3 Billion
Memory Size	2GB	2GB	2/4GB
Interface	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit
GPU Clock Rate (MHz)	1100+	1100	1090
Memory Clock Rate (MHz)	1750	1625	1750

AMD’s official specification for Radeon RX 550 calls for a 1100 MHz base clock rate and 1183 MHz boost frequency, though some partners will undoubtedly configure their boards differently. A 50W ceiling exempts the RX 550 from needing an auxiliary power connector, and even at overclocked frequencies you shouldn’t have any issue staying under the motherboard slot’s specified current limit.

We are told that AMD has no plans to put any other configuration of Polaris 12 on a desktop graphics card, allowing the company to pursue mobile market share with other variants of this GPU.

Particularly relevant to Polaris 12 are some of the media and connectivity features specific to AMD’s fourth-gen GCN GPUs. For more information on the architecture’s display control and fixed-function accelerators, check out this page of our Radeon RX 480 8GB review.

The die markings made us do a double-take. «Made in Taiwan» doesn’t indicate that Polaris 12 came from GlobalFoundries, after all. Further, the codes and font also seemed familiar from Nvidia’s various processors. But it turns out that this is due to the packaging step, where the die is installed onto the GPU package. A company called ASE, which is one of the world’s largest IC assemblers, handles the process, and it has offices in Taiwan. Mystery solved.

MORE: Best Graphics Cards

MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table

MORE: All Graphics Content

Current page:
AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB

Next Page MSI RX 550 Aero ITX 2GB

Tom’s Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site .

Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB review — Is it still relevant today?

Home » Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB review – Is it still relevant today?

Zhi Cheng

01/07/2018

3.3K views

AMD’s released their flagship Vega based graphics card for the market in late August last year. However, it was rather odd to see them only releasing their new Vega based graphics card for the high performance segment, while leaving the mainstream and entry portions to their Polaris 11 and 12 models (RX500 series). Why did they not replace the whole series of graphics card with a new and improved architecture across different market segments?

It seems to us that they were saving hype of their entry/mainstream Vega chips for their Ryzen based “Raven Ridge” APUs. Definitely, these APUs did not disappoint in terms of their performance. Meanwhile, they can also focus on the design and engineering of the new next generation 7nm Vega graphics card to compete with their fierce competitors in the other camp.

With the movements of the GPU market in the past year, and the impending release of the next generation graphics card, will the lower end Polaris based graphics card still make sense for consumers? Would system builders just go ahead with a Ryzen “Raven Ridge” APU instead, rather than spending more on a dedicated graphics card? We have the Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB Graphics Card with us today to help us with the questions we have today.

The Radeon RX550 GPU from AMD is developed based on AMD’s Polaris 12 architecture. It is positioned as an entry level graphics card that promises graphics compute efficiency. Unlike the higher end Polaris 11 cards, such as the RX570 and RX580, the Polaris 12 also consumes much less power than the Polaris 11 and its predecessors. In fact, its typical board power is only rated at 50W.

GPU	512 Stream Processors 14 nm 4^th Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1206 MHz Boost Engine Clock
Memory	128 bit Memory Bus GDDR5 Memory Type 1500 MHz, 6000 MHz Effective 2 GB Size
BIOS Support	UEFI BIOS
Displays	Maximum 3 Outputs
Output	1 x DVI-D 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
Resolution	5120×2880 (60Hz) Pixel DisplayPort Resolution 2560×1600 (60Hz) Pixel Dual Link DVI Resolution 4096×2160 (60 Hz) HDMI Resolution
API	OpenGL® 4. 5 OpenCL 2.0 DirectX® 12 Shader Model 5.0
Feature	FreeSync Technology AMD Eyefinity AMD Xconnect ready DirectX™ 12 Optimized HDR Ready Frame Rate Target Control Intelligent Fan Control III Radeon Chill Radeon Relive
Cooling	Single fan
Form Factor	1.5 Part Slot Occupied 158(L)X 112(W)X 28 (H) Dimension /mm
Power Consumption	<65W
OS	Windows 10　Windows 7
System Requirement	400 Watt Power Supply (Suggestion) Blue-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive. PCI Express® 2.0 or higher version based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard in order for the card to be compatible with.

Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB

1 x Display Port, 1 x HDMI Port and 1 x DVI Port

The Sapphire Radeon RX550 2GB looks fairly simple. It has a single fan that cools the whole graphics card unit. Interestingly, the fan doesn’t even spin most of the times, unless you are actually in a game. This is possible because the AMD Radeon RX550 is really that power efficient and cool. Such a setting makes this graphics card a great choice for small form factor computers. This is also great for those who are really sensitive to fan noise, as it’s literally silent while idle.

Test Setup

Specifications	Hardware
CPU	Ryzen 5 2400G, Ryzen 3 2200G
RAM	G.Skill Sniper X DDR4 3400 CL16-16-16-36 2 x 8GB DDR4 Kit
Storage	Samsung 850 Evo M. 2 SATA 250GB SSD
GPU	Vega 11, Vega 8, Sapphire Pulse RX550 2GB
Motherboard	MSI B350I PRO AC
CPU Cooler	AMD Wraith Stealth Cooler (Stock)
OS	Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
Drivers	Radeon Software Adrenaline Edition 18.5.1

We’ve placed the Sapphire Radeon RX550 within an AMD Ryzen “Raven Ridge” APU system in order to do a direct comparison with the performance of the Vega 11 and Vega 8 systems. This way, we can also compare between the performance difference between the Vega and Polaris architecture with the RX550 and Vega 8, as they have the same number of stream processors. However, do take note that the test may not be as accurate as it should be, due to the fact that the Vega 8 on the Ryzen APU does not have dedicated Video Memory, and has to rely on slower DDR4 system memory. The RX550 on the other hand is dedicated with 2GB of fast GDDR5 video memory.

Benchmark Results

Dota 2 results for the RX550 was somewhat expected. As the Radeon RX550 has 512 stream processors as compared to 704 stream processors in the Vega 11, the results should be worse than what the Ryzen 5 2400G with Vega 11 provide. We can also see that there isn’t much difference in performance between the Polaris based RX550 graphics card and the Vega 8 GPU found on the Ryzen 3, as they both have 512 stream processors.

Interestingly, the benchmark results for Final Fantasy XV was very much different when compared to those from Dota 2. The Ryzen 5 2400G with Vega 11 was expected to perform the best, but both setups equipped with the Radeon RX550 were actually on par, despite having lesser stream processors.

It could be likely that memory performance became a bottleneck for this game with the Vega 11 on the Ryzen 5 APU. Therefore, it was unable to perform to its fullest.

The Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark made the difference in performance even more apparent. It seems like video memory place a huge part to the performance of graphics card in today’s games.

Conclusion

The benchmark results speak for themselves. It is obvious that the Radeon RX550 Graphics Card has somewhat been made obsolete by the new Ryzen “Raven Ridge” APUs, especially the Vega 11. The GPU within the Ryzen 5 2400G was able to perform better than the RX550 in Dota 2, providing more FPS. It is simply just amazing to see all that performance just coming from an integrated APU SoC.

However, we have also taken note that the type of game mattered a lot as well, as the Radeon RX550 seems to perform better in both Final Fantasy XV and Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks. There are definitely still good reasons for the adoption of this card.

Firstly, since APUs do not have dedicated video memory for their Vega graphics processors, they have to rely on the slower system memory. The results also have shown that the Radeon RX550 still performed better than the Ryzen APUs in games where more video memory is required, such as Final Fantasy XV. This could highly likely be caused by the bottleneck by the speed of the system memory. Despite having more stream processors based on an improved architecture, the Radeon RX550 still manages to hold its ground.

Speaking from a more practical point of view, if you are purchasing a new budget gaming system, you will be better off purchasing a new Ryzen APU, as it is of a great deal of value for the performance that comes with it.

However, if you have pre-built desktop without a graphics card and would like to upgrade your system in order to play some games, the Radeon RX550 is still a great choice. Without the need for an additional 6-pin power cable plugged in, it should be easily compatible with most systems out there. The Radeon RX550 is still one of the cheapest graphics card capable of gaming that’s available in the market anyway, and it could take some time before the next generation of graphics card will be released. Therefore, perhaps the purchase of a new Radeon RX550 graphics card, such as the Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB wouldn’t be such a bad choice after all.

Tags
AMD APU featured Graphics Card Graphics Card PC DIY Polaris 12 RX550 Ryzen Sapphire Sapphire Radeon RX550 Pulse 2GB

Zhi Cheng

I am The Tech Revolutionist.

GIGABYTE’s new B450 Aorus motherboard, and RGB RAM at half the price!

New Gundam Breaker Review — New formula to justify a makeover?

01/07/2018

is the best budget gaming graphics card? GECID.com. Page 1

::>Video cards
>2017
> ASUS RX550-2G

16-08-2017

Page 1
Page 2
One page

In mid-April, the AMD Radeon RX 500 series of video cards was announced, which by and large is a rebranding of models from the AMD Radeon RX 400 line. But among the four graphics adapters, there was one absolute novelty — AMD Radeon RX 550 , which has no analogue in the previous series. It is based on the AMD Polaris 12 GPU with support for 512 stream processors, 32 texture units and 16 raster units. It can be paired with 2 or 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit bus.

With a recommended price of $79, the new product is positioned as an excellent option for budget gaming systems and faster processing of multimedia content (compared to the integrated graphics core). In addition, it will be an excellent option for home theaters with support for HDR displays, 4K video (at 60 Hz) and HEVC content. It also supports such useful proprietary technologies as FreeSync 2, Radeon Chill, Radeon ReLive and others.

For a more convenient comparison of AMD Radeon RX 550 with its neighbors in the internal model range, we present a summary table of characteristics.

Model	AMD Radeon RX 550	AMD Radeon RX 460	AMD Radeon RX 560	AMD Radeon RX 470	AMD Radeon RX 570	AMD Radeon RX 480	AMD Radeon RX 580
GPU	AMD Polaris 12	AMD Polaris 11	AMD Polaris 11	AMD Polaris 10	AMD Polaris 20	AMD Polaris 10	AMD Polaris 20
Microarchitecture	4th Generation AMD GCN
Crystal area, mm ²	101	123	123	232	232	232	232
Technical process, nm	14
Number of computing units	8	14	16	32	32	36	36
Number of stream processors	512	896	1024	2048	2048	2304	2304
Number of texture units	32	56	64	128	128	144	144
Number of raster blocks	16	16	16	32	32	32	32
GPU clock frequency, MHz	1100 / 1183	1090 / 1200	1175 / 1275	926 / 1206	1168 / 1244	1120 / 1266	1257 / 1340
Video memory type	GDDR5
Volume, GB	2 / 4	2 / 4	2 / 4	4 / 8	4 / 8	4 / 8	4 / 8
Effective memory frequency, MHz	7000	7000	7000	6600	7000	7000 / 8000	7000 / 8000
Memory bus width, bit	128	128	128	256	256	256	256
Bandwidth, GB/s	112	112	112	211	224	224 / 256	224 / 256
Performance level, TFLOPS	1. 2	2.15	2.6	4.9	5.1	5.8	6.2
TDP value, W	50	75	80	120	150	150	185
Estimated cost, $	79	119	99	179	169	199 / 239	199 / 229

All prices for Asus%2BRadeon%2BRX%2B550%2BRX550-2G

The key competitor of AMD Radeon RX 550 in this price segment is NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030, which is characterized by fewer structural elements in the graphics processor (384 CUDA -cores, 24 texture and 16 raster units) and using a 64-bit bus. As a result, the bandwidth of the reference version is only 48 GB / s instead of 112 GB / s for the Radeon RX 550. We will check how much this will affect in practice when analyzing the results, but for now let’s take a closer look at model ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB (RX550-2G) , on the basis of which we will study the capabilities of the budget representative of the new series.

Specification

Model	ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB (RX550-2G)
Technical process, nm	14 (FinFET)
GPU	AMD Polaris 12
Microarchitecture	AMD Polaris
Number of stream processors	512
Number of texture units	32
Number of raster blocks	16
GPU dynamic frequency, MHz	1183
Video memory type	GDDR5
Volume, GB	2
Effective frequency, MHz	7000
Bus width, bit	128
Internal interface	PCI Express 3. 0 x16 (x8)
External interfaces	1 x DVI-D 1 x HDMI 2.0b 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
Additional power connector	—
Recommended power supply, W	400
Dimensions, mm	182 x 112 x 43
Drivers	Latest drivers can be downloaded from the ASUS website or from the website of the manufacturer of GPU
Manufacturer website	ASUS

Packing and contents

The ASUS RX550-2G video card came to us for testing in its formal packaging — in this form you can also find it on store shelves. The box is quite informative: you can find an image of the novelty itself, its interface panel and key advantages on it. Only GPU and memory clocks are missing.

On one of the sides, the manufacturer made recommendations for the power supply used. Its minimum power should not be lower than 400 watts. You can see the real power consumption of our entire test bench with the ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB graphics adapter on the last graph of the test unit.

Package only includes user manual and software CD.

Appearance

The design of the ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB video card is quite simple and familiar for budget branded models. The active cooling system covers only the graphics processor itself and partly the memory chips, and the elements of the power subsystem are blown by air currents from the main fan due to the special shape of the radiator. Therefore, it is desirable that additional air circulation be organized in the case.

The power supply subsystem of the novelty is made according to a 4 + 1-phase design using high-quality element base: solid capacitors and ferrite chokes (Super Alloy Power II concept). In addition, the assembly took place on a fully automatic ASUS Auto-Extreme Technology line, so the quality of workmanship does not raise any questions. The DIGI + ASP1206 microcircuit acts as a PWM controller.

On the back of the circuit board are several controllers and a number of electrical components. And on one of the screws securing the cooling system, you can see a protective sticker, damage to which will void the warranty. Also, this photo clearly shows the absence of an additional PCIe power connector and the use of only 8 lines of the PCI Express 3.0 x16 interface. This can cause compatibility and stability issues when paired with very old systems.

The set of external interfaces is pleased to note the support of three popular digital ports: DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort. The maximum supported screen resolution is declared at 5120 x 2880. Note that NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 series models usually have only two available ports — in some cases this can cause inconvenience.

The GPU-Z utility prompts not only information about the structure of the used GPU and its clock frequency, but also about the manufacturer of the GDDR5 memory chips (Elpida).

It is curious that in the proprietary GPU Tweak II utility for this model there is an “OC” profile, in which the dynamic frequency rises from 1183 to 1203 MHz (an increase of 1.7%). However, it is not mentioned on the official page.

Cooling System

The ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB (RX550-2G) graphics card cooling system uses a very simple design: it consists of an aluminum heatsink and an axial fan. The heatsink does not directly contact the memory chips, but only partially covers some of the chips. But due to the shape of the blades, the air flow from the fan is also directed to the elements of the power subsystem.

The turntable itself is claimed to be IP5X dust resistant.

After turning on, the fan constantly spins at a speed of approximately 2280 rpm, creating a quite comfortable noise background, below the average level. At the same time, the temperature of the GPU at maximum load rises to 71 ° C.

You can extract a lot of useful information from the BIOS of a video card. For example, the maximum rotation speed of the fan is 4600 rpm and the maximum temperature is 93°C. If it rises to 97 ° C, then the system will simply turn off.

In idle mode, the fan rotates at the same speed, which allows the GPU temperature to drop to 29°C.

As you can see, the cooling system generally copes with its task, because even with the maximum load on the video card, there is still a 22-degree margin of safety. The only pity is that the fan rotates at a constant speed even at low load on the GPU — this does not cause acoustic discomfort, but it can accelerate bearing wear. No extraneous sounds in the form of an annoying squeak of throttles were noticed during testing.

specs and benchmarks in 13 games and 1 benchmark

AMD started selling the Radeon RX 550 on April 20, 2017 for a suggested price of $79. This is a desktop video card based on the GCN 4.0 architecture, with a 14 nm process technology. It has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory with a frequency of 1750 MHz, a 128-bit bus, which provides a bandwidth of 7 Gb / s.

The card occupies 2 slots, connected via PCIe 3.0 x8 interface. The length of the reference version is 145 mm. The card does not require additional power supply, the declared maximum power consumption is 50 watts.

Specifications

GPU

GPU name: Lexa

GPU option

Lexa PRO (215-0

Architecture: GCN 4.0

Manufacturer: GlobalFoundries

Process: 14 nm

Number of transistors: 2200 million

Crystal area: 103 mm²

Graphic card

Release date: April 20, 2017

Generation: Polaris (RX 500)

Predecessor: Arctic Islands

Descendant: Vega

Launch price: $79

Market price: $74

Data bus interface: PCIe 3. 0 x8

Frequencies

Base frequency: 1100 MHz

Boost frequency: 1183 MHz

Memory frequency: 1750 MHz

Memory

Memory capacity: 2 GB

Memory type: GDDR5

Memory bus: 128 bit

Memory speed: 7 Gb/s

Memory bandwidth: 112 GB/s

Render configuration

Shader units: 512

Compute modules: 8

Texture blocks: 32

Screen blocks: 16

L1 cache: 16 KB

L2 cache: 512 KB

Rated output

Pixel fill rate: 18. 93 GP/s

Texture Fill Rate: 37.86 GT/s

Performance FP16: 211 GFlops

Performance FP32: 211 GFlops

Performance FP64: 75.71 GFlops

Graphics

DirectX: 12 (12_0)

OpenGL: 4.6

OpenCL: 2.1

Vulcan: 1.2

Shader Model: 6.4

Video card design

Occupied slots: 2

Length: 145 mm

Heat Sink Requirements: 50 W

Recommended PSU power: 250 W

Outlets: 1x DVI 1x HDMI 1x DisplayPort

Power supply: Not required

Board number: D090-01

Maximum temperature: 57 °C

Maximum noise: 36. 2 dB

FPS in games

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

(2020)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 9.3

2560×1440 / Ultra / 8.1

3840×2160 / Ultra / 5.5

Valorant

(2020)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 40.8

2560×1440 / Ultra / 33. 4

3840×2160 / Ultra / 29.0

Death Stranding

(2020)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 18.5

2560×1440 / Ultra / 14.3

3840×2160 / Ultra / 8.7

Cyberpunk 2077

(2020)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 4000).

1920×1080 / Ultra / 9.3

2560×1440 / Ultra / 8.7

3840×2160 / Ultra / 5.7

Apex Legends

(2019)

Better than AMD Radeon RX 550X Mobile, but worse than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 18.0

2560×1440 / Ultra / 13.4

3840×2160 / Ultra / 8. 0

Metro Exodus

(2019)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 11.2

2560×1440 / Ultra / 8.7

3840×2160 / Ultra / 5.5

Red Dead Redemption 2

(2019)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 9.5

2560×1440 / Ultra / 7. 8

3840×2160 / Ultra / 5.0

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

(2017)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M, but worse than AMD Radeon RX 560X Mobile.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 16.1

2560×1440 / Ultra / 12.2

3840×2160 / Ultra / 7.0

Overwatch

(2016)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M, but worse than AMD Radeon RX 540.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 25.9

2560×1440 / Ultra / 18.2

3840×2160 / Ultra / 9.1

Grand Theft Auto V

(2015)

Better than AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile, but worse than AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 19.1

2560×1440 / Ultra / 13.3

3840×2160 / Ultra / 6. 3

The Witcher 3

(2015)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M, but worse than NVIDIA T500 Laptop GPU.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 19.4

2560×1440 / Ultra / 14.2

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

(2012)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 59.5

2560×1440 / Ultra / 49. 6

3840×2160 / Ultra / 44.6

League of Legends

(2019)

Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon HD 6870.

1920×1080 / Ultra / 111.6

2560×1440 / Ultra / 62.0

3840×2160 / Ultra / 24.8

Benchmark tests

Passmark: 2766 Better than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, but worse than AMD Radeon RX 540.

Interested to know:

Camera and microphone test.

Comparison with other graphics cards

Map 1:

Map 2:

Video reviews and tests

Error 403 The request cannot be completed because you have exceeded your quota. : quotaExceeded

If you find an error or have something to add, write in the comments. Have you had any experience with this video card? Is it worth buying such a card today?