ATI Radeon HD 4550 Entry-Level DX 10.1 GPU

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, September 30, 2008, 12:01 AM EDT

AMD continues their procession of new ATI Radeons today, with a couple of new entry-level offerings targeted at users who would like to upgrade from underpowered IGPs. Like the Radeon HD 4670 that came before it, the new Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 being rolled out today are based on the same GPU architecture first introduced with the popular Radeon HD 4800 series. The Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 both offer support for DirectX 10.1, DisplayPort, AVIVO with the UVD 2 engine, and CrossFire, although they do not have CrossFire bridge connectors like AMD's higher-end offerings. As such, these new entry-level cards sport virtually all of the same features as their more expensive, and more powerful, counterparts--they just don't perform on the same level.

We've got one of AMD's passively cooled Radeon HD 4550 cards in-house and plan to show you all what it's made of on the pages ahead. There's a half-height actively cooled version coming out as well, however, pictured below. Go ahead and take a gander at the teaser shots and specifications, we'll get down to business and see what the Radeon HD 4550 is really made of a little later...

ATI Radeon HD 4550 Entry-Level DX 10.1 GPU

Tags: ATI, Radeon, HD, GPU, Radeon HD, ATI Radeon, 10.1, DX

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

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