Hot on the heels of the release of the Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 launched earlier this week, AMD have released a new Polaris 12 GPU, the Radeon RX 550. It is a sub-$100 entry level GPU, targeted at those who want an inexpensive, low profile, low power and low performance component for mini desktop PCs or a minor upgrade on integrated GPUs. It has just 8 compute units, a boost clock of 1183 MHz and comes with either 2 or 4 Gb of GDDR5 memory capable of delivering up to 112 GB/s bandwidth. As expected from a discrete GPU, the RX 550 wipes the floor with Intel’s current best desktop iGPU (HD 630 (Kaby Lake). The RX 550 is expected to be around 70% as fast as the only $20 dearer RX 560 (the successor to the RX 460 to be released next month), however this should be sufficient for an okay gaming experience for many games on non-demanding settings. It is anticipated, that AMD will tailor the form of the 550 more towards the laptop market as the year progresses. [Apr '17GPUPro]
It's hard to say what exactly I dislike about the card. It just gave be a bad vibe from day 1 when it arrived as a replacement for my DOA 7770. It's performance has always felt poor, sure it runs more modern games at higher framerates than the intel HD graphics I had to compare it to, but it never felt like it was working very efficiently. It leaves horizontal lines on the screen reminiscent of VHS fuzz just in the desktop and I've even experienced the occasional black screen when waking up from sleep mode.
I suspect mine is a 1GB model and that the 2GB model is more reliable, but the fact that the two aren't easily distinguishable is yet another reason to avoid buying it IMO. Overall I would strongly recommend *not* buying this card even in a pinch. [Nov '19AgentOranJ]
We calculate effective 3D speed which estimates gaming performance for the top 12 games. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield value for money. Our figures are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top GPUs. [GPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.