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.

Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage

There is a lot of data here, but the first thing we notice is how much faster the basic DDR3 Radeon HD 5550 is than the older Radeon HD 4650. The Radeon HD 5550 DDR3 even appears a bit faster than the GeForce GT 220 DDR3-equipped card. 

The reference-clocked HIS Radeon HD 5550 GDDR5 card nips at the heels of the reference Radeon HD 5570 DDR3, while PowerColor’s PCS+ HD5550 GDDR5 passes the DDR3-equipped 5570.

Finally, the GDDR5-equipped Radeon HD 5570 noses ahead of the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, although there’s a bit of room between them and the faster Radeon HD 5670.

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.