Sapphire is a familiar face throughout the PC industry. Just last month we had the opportunity to look at their Radeon HD 4850 Toxic edition, and while the top end ATI cards have received a good bit of attention, some of the entry cards bring a lot to the table as well. Today we have the opportunity to check out one of these entry level cards, the Radeon HD 4550. While not as powerful as its older siblings, the Radeon HD 4550 carries a much smaller price tag at around $60. While it obviously won't be a record breaker, it has all of the makings of a great value for those home theatre PC's. And that is exactly where this graphics card will play a great role and show its strength. - Overclockers Online

Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 512MB Vista Board Review

Packaging is very similar to what we have seen before from Sapphire video cards. The black box has a bluish hue and the obligatory female character on the front. And a quick look and you can see that the card supports HDMI and CrossFireX technology. Switching around to the back there are some more features listed along with a small blurb regarding Vista along with a quick list of the contents inside. The sides of the package contain the retail information and specifications. Included in Sapphire's package for the Radeon HD 4550 edition is a driver CD, installation guide and case badge, with of course the needful cables.

Also one thing to note about requirements, while it mentions CrossFireX support needing a CrossFireX interconnect, the Radeon HD 4550 does not require this physical connection but rather uses the PCI Express bus to connect the two cards. After getting the card out of the packaging, we noticed while Sapphire shows passive cooling, ours actually has a fan. At first look it's quite apparent this card is aimed at home theatre PC setups even though it comes with a full height PCI bracket attached. The blue circular heatsink dominates the top. The analog port is attached to the card via a ribbon cable which can be removed.

Hiding under the heatsink is the core of the Radeon HD 4550. ATI uses 55nm technology so this is a small core that also makes it quite energy efficient and cool running. Doing a search on the Samsung memory chips used brings us to the specs pages, where we can see that the memory is rated at 1800MHz, so that doesn't really bode too well for overclocking, though we shall see. We finally ended up at 680MHz core from stock 600MHz speed and were able to push the memory to 1880MHz from a stock setting of 1600MHz. Pretty good overclocks and the best part was that load temps increased only one degree to 55°C.

Well, we honestly have to say we were pleasantly surprised by the performance and features of the Radeon HD 4550. It comes with every feature and accessory you could want for a home theatre PC setup and even handles games fairly well. At around $60 you easily get your money's worth and more. We really can't find any fault as everything ran smoothly and while it's not the strongest in games, it performs well enough for light duty and should be able to handle most games out there today. With built in audio and high definition support, the Radeon HD 4550 is the ideal card for your home theatre PC but also for the casual gamer.