AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB Review

[nikoli707]

single slot low profile please.

i got an asus dual rx 460 for $61.xx after a $20 rebate about a month an a half ago by the way. so msrp pricing only means so much. amd is always competitive down low when there are deals.

 

[bentremblay]

SRSLY? lots of Tom's readers are looking for a sub-$90 GPU?
O_0

/bdt

 

[FormatC]

SRSLY? lots of Tom's readers are looking for a sub-$90 GPU?
O_0/bdt

Why not? Here are not only gaming enthusiasts. And for a HTPC or accelerated desktop (Creative Cloud) is this card (low profile and single-slot versions will follow) not bad. Only the price is much too high. AMD is dreaming...

 

[cryoburner]

i got an asus dual rx 460 for $61.xx after a $20 rebate about a month an a half ago by the way. so msrp pricing only means so much. amd is always competitive down low when there are deals.

Yep, while the article points out that "Two-gigabyte Radeon RX 460s sell between $90 and $110", what it doesn't mention is that most of the RX 460s at Newegg currently offer rebates, bringing the final price down to as little as $70, which is $10 less than an RX 550. There's also a 4GB RX 460 that works out to $85 after rebate, the same price as the 2GB RX 550 they tested here.

Really, the price of the RX 550 needs to drop by around $20 to be worth considering over AMD's existing cards in this price segment, unless the lower wattage is deemed particularly important. And if Nvidia's GT 1030 turns out to offer competitive performance at a lower TDP, a lower price might be even more necessary.

 

[daglesj]

If only it had 576 Stream Processors...

 

[ohim]

The card is for E-Sports gaming and instead of starting with CS/DOTA etc you start with Doom and BF1.. games for which the card is not intended

So you're saying you're not a fan of alphabetical order?

When that order puts other non essential games in front ... yeah , i`m not a fan of it. I mean, it`s fun to test this card in very demanding games to which the card is not built for but at least put them separately at the end for fun and giggles ... You know... don`t judge a fish about it`s ability to climb a tree

 

[logainofhades]

Amazon's got a couple 1050s listed at $105 right now. For an extra $20, well worth it.

Yea I see no reason to choose the Rx 550 over a GTX 1050, even if money is tight. Save that extra by not going out to eat a couple times or something.

 

[okcnaline]

Oh wow.... This card is BAD!!! :lol:

For $10 cheaper one can get the RX 460 which manages to outperform RX 460 in quite a few scenarios. AND it's an AMD card. And the RX 460 is already touted as something that's not worth it. Come on...

 

[photonboy]

LOTS OF PEOPLE want a sub-$100 GPU mainly to play a couple old, or newer but not very demanding games.

I'm actually a little fed up (or just bored?) with the people who think you need a $200+ GPU or your experience will suck.

My brother-in-law plays a few games I set him up with using the HD530 in his $400 laptop and he's happy with what he has.

 

[InvalidError]

I'm actually a little fed up (or just bored?) with the people who think you need a $200+ GPU or your experience will suck.

My personal sweet spot for GPUs is around $150. I don't care about Ultra details since when I'm playing a game, I don't have time to stand still long enough to look at leaves, grass, bricks, etc. on a per-pixel basis to notice the difference.

 

[Onus]

I'm actually a little fed up (or just bored?) with the people who think you need a $200+ GPU or your experience will suck.

My personal sweet spot for GPUs is around $150. I don't care about Ultra details since when I'm playing a game, I don't have time to stand still long enough to look at leaves, grass, bricks, etc. on a per-pixel basis to notice the difference.

It has always come back to this for me too. I've spent more, sometimes a lot more (e.g. a GTX970 for $300), but it always comes back to my needs being so much less. I use that card on my test bench now; everything I've been running does just fine with a GTX1050Ti, even at 2K.

 

[cub_fanatic]

This thing should on a half-height, single slot low profile PCB with an optional full height slot included as the reference design. A 65W TDP card doesn't need that much space to cool it. People aren't buying these things to overclock and play DOOM on in 1080p although you can do that. They are going to stick them in a small, low-profile case next to their TV that looks like a VCR and use these as HTPC/light gaming cards. When the 750ti was the king of the budget GPUs, there were only a couple half-height cards on the market - one from MSI and one from Gigabyte. The rest were these "ITX" half-length cards. The half-height cards were always around $20 to $30 more because they were and still are in higher demand since they can fit in any case. A lot of those slim HP and Dell off the shelf boxes can only accept a half-height card. I bet their sales would increase significantly if the reference design was half-height and single slot. They could even make a passive card that throttles a little more under load for those that need it only for HTPC. Then, you could make the occasional non-reference ITX version with a larger fan that would be the minority of the 550's for those bottom-budget people who are buying something like this primarily for gaming and might actually need the extra cooling.

 

[No-Tech]

I dont know why anyone would even think of using this card for gaming? this is what i would use in a HTPC or a every day pc, thats it! If you are into gaming you need to spend at least $150.+ to be happy, save up dont cheap out!

 

[Karadjgne]

To answer an earlier question, no it will not. Only a pcie 1.0 card will work on a pcie 1.0 mobo, nvidia is backwards compatible to pcie 1.1, amd is compatible back to pcie 2.3 only. You'll need an older card for 1.1-2.2 mobo's.

Define gaming. Where's the line, the cutoff? Do you define a gamer just because they have to have a pc thats capable of better than console graphics? My mother-in-law thinks of herself as a gamer of sorts, she plays solitaire, hearts, mah-jong, candy-crush etc. Last I knew, those were games too and certainly do not require a $150+ gpu.

 

[No-Tech]

Based on game tiles that U know U want to play on a PC and we are talking about the RX550, it seems that *most gammers in here* want to play at high settings @ 1080p and up!,Yes it can get expensive but so U have to decide, buy a $100. handheld, $200.+ console or build a new $500.+ system to play the games u want, If U build it U should already know what kind of user/gamer U are, right! Why would anyone buy a low end card just to turn the settings down to play? Not me, I'd sell some old stuff I dont need to get the $150.+ card and try to future prof as much as possible, think 2 years max then sell to upgrade...