Review and testing of the AMD Radeon RX 550 video card : Test | Specs | CPU | Config

At the heart of this graphics card is a GPU based on the Polaris 12 architecture (codenamed Lexa), which uses an improved 14nm process, so we see the Radeon RX 550 at higher clock speeds than the first generation Radeon RX 400 series. 640 unified processors are responsible for the performance of the graphics adapter, which is quite modest, but the video card does not claim to be a “top solution” either. The number of texture units is 32, and there are only 16 rasterization units in the device. The effective frequency of the graphics solution is 1287 MHz. At moments of serious loads, the frequency rises, but only slightly – up to 1476 MHz. The RX 550 has a memory capacity of 2 gigabytes. The bus reaches a capacity of 128 bits, and the frequency with which the video memory operates is 7000MHz.

Among discrete video adapters, the Radeon RX 550 plays the role of an intermediate link between more powerful models, on the one hand, and the integrated graphics of the CPU and APU, on the other. However, neither AMD nor Intel currently sell fresh models of processors with a large graphics core in retail. The last that was available were Broadwell generation Intel Core i5 / i7 chips with Iris Pro 6200 graphics and AMD A10-7800 series APUs. As a result, there is still a niche for budget video cards like the Radeon RX 550, especially since this video card may well compete with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M.

Specifications

Synthetic tests

3DMark

3DMark Fire Strike is a beautiful and popular application with DirectX 11 API support for testing computers with high-performance gaming graphics cards in the Windows environment. 3DMark Fire Strike results help you evaluate the comparative performance of a video card and its suitability for the most demanding PC games.

3DMark – Fire Strike Graphics 1920×1080

AMD Radeon RX 540 (Acer Swift 3 SF315-41G)

3519

NVIDIA GeForce 150 MX 1D12 (Lenovo IdeaPad 530s )

2323

NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (Dell Inspiron 17 7778 )

1889

AMD Radeon RX 550 (Lenovo IdeaPad 720)

5060

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (MSI GL72 6QF )

4705

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (Acer Aspire F15 F5-573G )

3556

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Acer Aspire 7 A715-71G)

6167

AMD Radeon RX 560Х(Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42)

6282

Literally FPS stands for “Frame per second”, or frames per second. Accordingly, the larger this number, the smoother the picture will be on the display during the game. How much FPS is needed for a comfortable game? It is difficult to unequivocally answer this question, if only because in different game engines with the same number of frames per second, the image quality can be different. However, there is a widespread belief that 30 FPS will be enough for a smooth game.

Immediately, we draw your attention to the fact that the capabilities of the AMD Radeon RX 550 video card in AAA class projects are not enough to play in Full HD resolution and high detail settings, you will have to lower the graphics settings profiles to the average level, and in some projects to the low level. Next, we tested the AMD Radeon RX 550 in popular games at medium graphics settings with a display resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, based on 60 frames per second (FPS).