Radeon HD 5550 And 5570: Pumped Up With GDDR5

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AMD quietly introduced its new Radeon HD 5550 and prepped the Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5 to follow. We examine the performance of these two stealth-launched models to see if they have what it takes to replace a couple of power contenders in the sub-$100 market.

Enter The Radeon HD 5550

It’s hard not to notice that AMD has a large performance gap between the low-end Radeon HD 5450 and the gamer-friendly Radeon HD 5570. Just look at the specifications. Its Radeon HD 5450 has 80 stream cores, while the Radeon HD 5570 is equipped with 400. The graphics card market abhors a vacuum, and though the space between the Radeons HD 5450 and 5570 has temporarily been filled by older models like the Radeon HD 4650, AMD is filling the void by stealth-launching a new card: the Radeon HD 5550.

As if the new Radeon HD 5550 wasn't enough for the sub-$100 graphics card market, AMD is also launching another version of its Radeon HD 5570, this time armed with a fast GDDR5 frame buffer. This is especially intriguing since the Radeon HD 5670 is essentially an overclocked Radeon HD 5570 equipped with GDDR5. The newer card should effectively blur the line between the Radeon HD 5570 and Radeon HD 5670.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes these cards tick.

Don Woligroski
Contributor

Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.