Amd radeon rx 550 review in Spanish (full analysis)

The AMD Radeon RX 550 is the new entry-level graphics card from AMD based on the Polaris graphics architecture, it is a card aimed at undemanding gamers and those fans of e-Sports, games that will move perfectly. Specifically, they have sent us the PowerColor Red Dragon RX 550 model that we have had for 1 week testing, let's see what this small card is capable of.

First of all, we thank AMD Spain for the trust placed in giving us the AMD Radeon RX 550. It shows that they know where the good is! ?

AMD Radeon RX 550 technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

AMD Radeon RX 550 comes in a small cardboard box, the card is very well protected by foam pieces to prevent it from moving during transport and reaching the hands of the end user in perfect condition.

In the rear area we have all the most important specifications and characteristics of this model.

Once we open the box we find a super basic bundle. It consists of:

• AMD Radeon RX 550 Quick Guide.

The AMD Radeon RX 550 uses a Polaris GPU with a total of 8 Compute Units that translate into 512 stream processors at a maximum frequency of 1, 190 MHz. As you can imagine, this graphics card is not optimal for virtual reality as it does not reach the 5 TFLOPS recommended for use.

It is a fairly small card with dimensions of 225 x 128 x 38mm so it will be compatible with almost all the chassis on the market. Thanks to its GCN 4.0 architecture, it is able to offer much better performance than the graphics integrated in AMD Bristol Ridge APUs that conform to 384 processing units and lower frequencies. The core is manufactured in 14nm FinFET and is very efficient so the card does not need auxiliary power connectors, it is powered only through the motherboard so it can be used with less powerful power supplies.

The card mounts 2 GB of GDDR5 memory at a frequency of 7, 000 MHz and with a 128-bit interface to achieve a bandwidth of 112 GB / s. A correct figure to ensure excellent performance with AMD's Delta Color Compression technology that compresses colors to reduce bandwidth consumption.

The AMD Radeon RX 550 has a power consumption of less than 75W that the PCI-Express port of the motherboard is able to provide, this means that it heats up very little so it does not need a large heatsink. The manufacturer has included an aluminum heatsink that is supported by an 80mm fan to keep temperatures under control. Although the casing is plastic, it is closed except for the right side, which will improve the air flow of the card.

Being an entry-level card, a backplate has not been included, nor did we find an RGB LED lighting system.

• 1 x DisplayPort 1.3 / 1.4 HDR 1 x DVI. 1x HDMI 2.0.

PCB and internal components

To open the graphics card we must remove all the screws on the back to access the PCB and heatsink of the graphics card. But beware, in this case it comes with a screw that if we break it, we will lose all guarantee. Be careful, with the model you choose!

As we have said we found a simple aluminum heatsink, this time we do not have any copper radiator or heatpipes. All very basic How will your temperatures be? It depends on how cool it is… it will be enough or we will have to choose another assembler.

As we can see a PCB without much fanfare, a classic design with a total of 2GB of memory signed by ELPIDA. As power supply phases it has a total of three and does not need a power supply. Everything works with the power offered by the PCI Express connection of your motherboard.

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i7-6700k @ 4500 Mhz
Base plate:	Gigabyte Z170.
Memory:	32 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3200 Mhz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO SSD.
Graphic card	AMD Radeon RX 550
Power supply	Corsair AX860i.

All tests have been passed with the filters to the maximum unless we indicate otherwise. To have adequate performance all our tests in Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution as this graphics card is not prepared for higher resolutions (at least to play). The operating system we have used has been Windows 10 Pro 64 bit and the latest drivers available from the AMD website.

What are we looking for in the tests?

First, the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS the more fluid the game will go. To differentiate the quality a bit, we leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS, but we will also have the minimum Fps in the tests that were thus possible:

FRAMES BY SECONDS
Frames for Seconds. (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 - 40 FPS	Playable
40 - 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Fairly Good or Excellent

Synthetic benchmarks

On this occasion, we have reduced it to several very specific tests, since we consider that they are more than sufficient as synthetic performance tests.

• 3DMARK Fire Strike.Time SpyHeaven Superposition

Game Testing

We have decided to make the leap to checking various games manually. The reason? Very simple, we want to give a much more realistic vision and cover tests with current games. Since we make an effort, it is consistent with the level of the website and that of our readers.

It has been a real disaster since no application has allowed us to upload the core faster than the stock and the memories only +30 points. Extra performance? none. That is, we are facing a graphics card that gives the best it can give. And we can not get even a little improvement.

Temperature and consumption

The temperatures obtained are quite good, since it is a very cool chip and a cooling not as efficiently as the AMD Radeon RX 570 models or the AMD Radeon RX 580 can have. Specifically, we have obtained 26ºC at rest and 64ºC at maximum performance.

While the consumption is quite light with about 44W at rest and about 110W at maximum power. As we can see, it is a great option for a cheap PC Gaming device. Although its performance its performance is a bit different from the previous AMD Radeon RX 460.

Final words and conclusion about AMD Radeon RX 550

The new AMD Radeon RX 550 is here to stay and rank as one of the best options for casual or specialty e-sports players. It is a very cool graphics card, with low consumption and that worthily moves the Full HD resolution : 1920 x 1080p.

We recommend reading our guide to the best graphics cards on the market.

But of course, it is already so rushed as standard that it does not allow us to do any type of overclocking. And is that its performance is somewhat lower than the already proven AMD Radeon RX 460 4GB that we tested last year.

Currently we have it in online stores for a price of 100 euros for the 2GB version and 125 euros for the 4GB version. A fairly high price considering that we have the RX 460 which is much better… This graphics card should be between 70 euros for the 2GB version and 90 for the 4GB version.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DOES NOT NEED FOOD.	- HIGH PRICE.
+ GOOD PERFORMANCE IN FULL HD.	- DOES NOT ALLOW OVERCLOCK.
+ CONSUMPTION AND TEMPERATURES VERY GOOD.

And after carefully evaluating both the evidence and the product, Professional Review awards him the bronze medal:

AMD Radeon RX 550

COMPONENT QUALITY - 70%

DISSIPATION - 65%

GAMING EXPERIENCE - 70%

SOUND - 60%

PRICE - 70%

67%