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AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB Review

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Dota 2 (Vulkan)

Medium Results

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Dota 2 yields similar results as Civilization VI, illustrating that the Radeons all behave similarly in their triumph over Intel’s HD Graphics 530.

An almost-76% advantage proves that Radeon RX 550 is a big upgrade over an integrated GPU at 1920x1080. But we wouldn’t expect Polaris 12 to lead AMD’s other cards in a comparison like this. What's going on there?

In order to generate usable results for our Core i3 host processor, quality dropped to the second-lowest preset. Let’s pull Intel’s graphics out of the list, max out Dota 2’s quality slider, and see if the Radeons land in the same order.

Best Looking Results

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A 15% slow-down brings Radeon RX 550 back below the other two cards, though it’s still plenty playable averaging 60 FPS. We do record some big frame time spikes, but they register on the other cards as well.

The fact that AMD’s Radeon RX 460 only gives up 2% of its performance shifting to Dota 2’s top quality setting suggests a host processing bottleneck. In other words, generating higher frame rates calls for something faster than a Core i3.


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39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dstarr3 27 April 2017 15:15
    Wow, can't even hit 60fps in Doom. Talk about a sheep in wolf's clothing. This is barely a step above those $30 GPUs that you buy strictly because you don't have onboard graphics.
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ 27 April 2017 15:21
    19617624 said:
    Wow, can't even hit 60fps in Doom. Talk about a sheep in wolf's clothing. This is barely a step above those $30 GPUs that you buy strictly because you don't have onboard graphics.

    This is an 85$ GPU, competing with more the likes of a GT 740. So don't expect good details at such a low price point. $30 GPUs are worse than IGPUs BTW.

    However, you can still find GTX 750s and 750 tis used for the price of a 550 and it performs much better.
    Reply
  • LucoTF 27 April 2017 15:22
    I think if it comes down $10-$20 it will be a contender, it does solidly outperform AMD APUs and hopefully will help to keep our more budget orientated gamers away from the A8s and A10s...
    Reply
  • jaber2 27 April 2017 15:45
    How is this even "Gaming"?
    Reply
  • MCMunroe 27 April 2017 15:46
    I don't understand why these are all full height double width cards. Wouldn't the only purpose be to install in a small form factor case?
    Reply
  • TallestJon96 27 April 2017 15:49
    They should be selling the old 460 as the 550, for $80, and then sold this gpu as the 540 for $50-$60.

    Its hard to buy a card that you know can't keep up with the consoles. What happens when a big game comes out and you don't have the horse power to actually play it? The 460 and 560 can keep up, but the 550 might he left behind.

    Save your pennies for another couple weeks and buy something better, its worth the wait
    Reply
  • Glock24 27 April 2017 15:54
    Very dissapointing for the price. At $50 might make more sense. Then again, I would only use this for a system without IGP for video acceleration.

    On a side note, images finally load correctly using Firefox on Android.
    Reply
  • Joe Black 27 April 2017 16:04
    Face it... Its a 720p card. Just like something like the a10-7890K using integrated graphics is good for 720p gaming too.

    That's the value proposition that should be explored. the A10 w. integrated, or the 550 discreet.
    Reply
  • InvalidError 27 April 2017 16:17
    19617777 said:
    They should be selling the old 460 as the 550, for $80, and then sold this gpu as the 540 for $50-$60.
    There is a very simple reason nobody makes new GPUs for under $80: there is next to no profit to be made from them.

    Keep in mind that out of that $80 MSRP, there is a ~60% distributor and retailer markup on the manufacturer's own price, so the manufacturer itself only sees ~$50 of it to cover DRAM, GPU chip, PCB, support components, HSF, assembly, testing, packaging, R&D, marketing, gross profit margin, etc. In other words, manufacturers barely break even on those and don't want you to buy them unless your choice boils down to either that or nothing. They'd much prefer that you buy the RX560 for $20-30 more which translates to $10-20 more gross profit for the manufacturer.

    Who are you going to get an alternative sub-$100 GPU from? Nvidia has bailed out of that market altogether to focus on $150+ (launch-time MSRP) GPUs.
    Reply
  • ohim 27 April 2017 16:17
    The card is for E-Sports gaming and instead of starting with CS/DOTA etc you start with Doom and BF1.. games for which the card is not intended :)
    Reply