ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series GDDR5 Review
Our Summary and Conclusion
Performance Summary: Both the Radeon HD 5550 and HD 5570 GDDR5 editions offer decent performance, that’s a significant step up from integrated graphics solutions. Generally speaking, the Radeon HD 5570 and competing GeForce GT 240 perform about on par with each other, with the cards trading victories depending on the applications being tested. The Radeon HD 5550 obviously performs somewhat lower than the 5570 due to its lesser compliment of stream processors, texture units, etc., but it is also less expensive.
The Radeon HD 5500 series GDDR5 editions aren’t barn burners, but they are welcome additions to AMD’s graphics card line-up for a couple of reasons. First of all, they perform better than their GDDR3/2 counterparts, which is a big plus in their price segment. Speaking of price, the Radeon HD 5500 series GDDR5 editions also arrive with price points right in line with the GDDR3/2 iterations—AMD is essentially offering higher-performing cards for the same price as the original version, which will obviously see a price drop as a result. These cards will also be offered in half-height or passively cooled versions as well.
The Radeon HD 5550 GDDR5 can be found for approximately $60 - $80 depending on its memory compliment and cooler configuration. And the Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5 comes in at around $80 - $90, which is right in line with the similarly performing GT 240. Considering how close they are in price, we’re more intrigued by the Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5, due to it offering much better overall performance. The extra few bucks are well spent in our opinion, if you’re shopping for a card in this price range. We’d also give the Radeon the nod over the GT 240—performance is similar, but the 5570 will net end users a more flexible output configuration and DX11 support. Of course, for a few more bucks, there’s a lot more performance to be had by opting for a card in the Radeon HD 5600 or 5700 series, but if you’ve got less than $100 to spend on a GPU, the Radeon HD 5500 GDDR5 edition should fit the bill nicely.
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