Asus Adds The RX 550 To Its Stable Of Radeon GPUs

News
By Steven Lynch
published

Asus is rounding out its Radeon RX 500 lineup with the debut of its budget-friendly Radeon RX 550. This entry-level card will feature a 128-bit bus, require no power connectors, and be available in 2GB and 4GB models.

Although this is a budget card, priced at only $90 for the 2GB model and $100 for the 4GB version, the company did include a unique non-reference design cooler with an IP5X-certified dust-proof fan. According to Asus’ site, this unique fan design extends the lifespan of the graphics card by 25% through increased dust and particle resistance while efficiently dissipating heat.

We reviewed AMD’s Radeon RX 550 last week. From our review:

If you're coming from Intel's HD Graphics 530, any discrete graphics card is going to be exciting. Indeed, Radeon RX 550 looks like a great upgrade for folks limping along with CPU-based graphics.

Though hard to tell from the product photos, this Radeon RX 550 is a dual-slot design measuring 182 x 112 x 43mm (LxHxW). As with most Radeon 500 series cards, Asus' Radeon-based video cards also support bridgeless CrossFire, FreeSync and Eyefinity.

These cards are produced using Asus' industry-first Auto-Extreme manufacturing technology. Obviously, building something by hand introduces the chance of human error. This new production process fully automates every step of PCB manufacturing and can be done with much more precision than before.

Asus also bundles GPU Tweak II and Xsplit Gamecaster with the Radeon RX 550.  The software includes the new Gaming Booster function that maximizes graphics performance with a single click. XSplit Gamecaster lets gamers stream or record gameplay right from the in-game overlay.

The Asus Radeon RX 550 2GB / 4GB is available now from a variety of retailers including Newegg for $90 / $100, respectively. 

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Header Cell - Column 0 Radeon RX 550 2GB
Clock SpeedCore:    1,100MHzBoost:   1,183MHz
Memory Clock7,000MHz
Memory Bus128 bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Memory Size2GB / 4GB
Direct X12
Open GL4.5
PCB FormATX
I/ODual-Link DVI-D x1HDMI x1Display Port x1
Multi-view3
PowerRequirement400W
Price$90 / $100
Steven Lynch
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12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Can't they have a model with two DP ports? DVI-D is junk in 2017. I'd buy this if in had a couple (or more) DP ports.
    Reply
  • hst101rox
    Hmm, are the fans in most desktop GPUs replaceable? Hopefully ... or laptops have an advantage there, as replacement fans for laptops are usually easy to come by. Makes the difference between a card or laptop lasting 5 years or practically infinite time.
    Our society has a problem with e-junk for sure.
    Reply
  • hst101rox
    Power Requirement 400w , you mean Power Supply Requirement. The card takes less than 120w.
    Reply
  • Bruin14
    ASUS North American support doesn't honor warranties on Graphics cards. You will do better with another brand.
    Reply
  • alidan
    19635075 said:
    Can't they have a model with two DP ports? DVI-D is junk in 2017. I'd buy this if in had a couple (or more) DP ports.

    seeing as I have a monitor with dvi out, and most people who would be going ultra low end won't have display port its a bit hard to justify the extra display ports.

    oh, and just in case someone wants to use 'get a new monitor' as a response, why? we don't have oleds, we don't have other high quality panels, why would I upgrade from more then good enough to a likely downgrade unless I shell out more than 500$?

    19635218 said:
    ASUS North American support doesn't honor warranties on Graphics cards. You will do better with another brand.

    Add msi to that list, just got over an rma with them where they were holding my gpu hostage (a dead fan) trying to get me to downgrade to move overstocked parts. took nearly 2 months for them to offer me something on par or better, with the only reason it had to be better was amd/nvidia don't make cards in the same performance bracket anymore. They may be better if your card is newer, but toward end of life they don't have the parts to fix your card, and with how often they apparently just send the same broken parts back... hard to justify.
    Reply
  • Ross_30
    Bit confused about the power requirement. Do you mean Power Supply Requirement, instead? Informative article though!
    Reply
  • mitch074
    Since the card has no power input, it can't go past 75W. Misleading summary with its 400W though.
    Reply
  • Rookie_MIB
    19635075 said:
    Can't they have a model with two DP ports? DVI-D is junk in 2017. I'd buy this if in had a couple (or more) DP ports.

    No, DVI-D allows you to go straight through to HDMI with a passive connector. For those who might want to run dual HDMI monitors having a DP/HDMI/DVI-D allows for quite a bit of flexibility or who might perhaps have an older monitor or one where they might be running dual computers on a single monitor and need more than one input.

    Reply
  • alidan
    19636462 said:
    Bit confused about the power requirement. Do you mean Power Supply Requirement, instead? Informative article though!

    the power supply requirement is there because most people when you tell them it requires x apms on blank rails they throw their arms up and have no clue what so ever, its the main reason we have psu manufacturers that try to make a quick buck by overloading the 5v and 3v rails, its easier and cheaper to do, and if you add up the watts a 280watt if you take the 12v into account now turns into a 750 watt amp and it only costs 40$.

    To normal people, they have no idea they just bought a ticking time bomb.
    Hell, when I do take my computer to a shop because I have no ability to diagnose the issue at home (don't have multiple ram sticks, cpus, psus, so on so forth) I don't let them install psus anymore because of the crap pile they sold me for 100$ that after it blew up, I find out cost 23$. Trusted them to sell me a no name they knew was from a real oem, not a crap one, and got burned, literally, when I ripped the power cable out. I think they were also trying to screw me on the gpu too, because they must have thought I was dumb enough to not plug it in when something I normally did was now resulting in black screens.
    Reply
  • photonboy
    This may be the perfect card for my sister. I bought her a DELL monitor only to discover it ONLY supports DP at full resolution. WTF?

    She's using onboard (HDMI, I think) but only at 1920x1080. I looked for a $30 GPU but they don't come that cheap new, and I will not buy my sister something used.
    Reply