When you hear the expression “graphics card”, the first thing that probably comes to mind is beasts from the high price segment. Well, this time we’ll deal with models that don’t require you to spend hundreds of euros for a graphics card. The two Radeon HD 5550 models that we’ve received have little in common bar the same GPU. They are different in memory quantity and size, dimensions, frequencies, performance, and perhaps most importantly – target market. This interesting date was joined by the new GeForce GT 430, the weakest graphics card based on the Fermi architecture, one that we expected a lot from.

Radeon HD 5550 to the Max

Sapphire has made this model for buyers who wish to both play all the freshest titles and get as good a deal as possible. The graphics core is factory-overclocked to 650 MHz (the default clock being 550 MHz), and since an excellent Arctic Cooling solution with an 80 mm fan and aluminium cooling body has been put in charge of cooling it, there should be room for an additional overclock of 100-150 MHz without increase in voltage (factory settings were used for obtaining benchmark results). Despite all this, the cooler is exceptionally quiet, its dimensions are formidable and will prevent the usage of the closest slot on most motherboards. As the final price is nevertheless imperative in this category, price cuts had to be made in some department. Sapphire has opted for only 512 MB of graphics memory, but of GDDR5 type, which enables four times the throughput of the memory controller’s default frequency. As it’s been proven countless times by now (this review included), a smaller quantity of faster memory is always a better solution than a larger quantity of slower one, so we’re more than glad that Sapphire’s opted for this solution.

• READ MORE (Source): InsideHW – Radeon HD 5550 v. GeForce GT 430