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Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 512MB
Introduction
Sometimes a video card needs to be just that. A card for video. Many high-end workstation motherboards don’t have integrated video, but what good is a computer without a display? The Intel i7 is just the perfect example. A lot of people have the need for quad cores of number-crunching power, but they’re not gamers (we’ll convert you yet, we’ll start slow, like with a relaxing, if hypnotic game of 99 Bricks, followed by a little retro-tastic Gravity Hook. Toss in a few hours of Desktop Tower Defense, and you’re inches away from being neck-deep in Assassin’s Creed) and, appropriately, have no desire to own a beautiful set of GTX 50 millions. (But you’ll get there, we’ll see to that.) And the Radeon HD 4550 is a perfect example of such a video card. It’s on par with really, really good integrated graphics, and Sapphire’s is half-height (and includes a half-height bracket for the SFF-bound) quiet enough, and consumes about zero watts of power. If that’s your speed, there’s almost nothing you could ever find wrong with an HD 4550. Everyone else, though, move along, nothing to see here.  Like any well-behaved stick of Sapphire hardware, this card has a blue PCB. Unlike damn near any other card on the market, the heatsink is a tiny aluminum disk with brief fins and a fan right in the center. I haven’t seen a fan like this in years, it takes me back. In fact I wonder why this card is actively cooled at all, I’d think a chunky bit of aluminum would be cheaper than a dinky bit and a fan, but then, I don’t make ‘em, I just bench ‘em. Sapphire does, at least, offer a passively-cooled model of this video card. This short card barely reaches the end of the PCI-Express slot, and is half-height, which means that all you need to do to make it fit in a short case is to swap out the expansion slot bracket for a short one. Good thing there’s one in the box, along with a driver disk, some paperwork, some instructions, a video-out adapter, a VGA adapter, and love.
Page 1: Introduction, The Card & Bundle
Page 2: Specifications and Setup Page 3: DirectX 10 Titles Page 4: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics Page 5: Video, Power, and Overclocking Page 6: Conclusion 
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Add Comment
2 User Comments 1 - Posted by
Audio/Video nerd
on November 12, 2009 - 6:27 pm There are so many reviews out there that test gaming performance; but they forget about the growing community of HTPC enthusiast that don’t game, but want an optimal solution to rip, organize, store and render high definition media. Some reviews include how much the onboard graphics card offloads the CPU wrt H.246, VC1 and MPEG decoding, but neglect image quality. Therefore, the brief inclusion of image quality here is a very good start of a trend in reviewing graphics cards for the benefit of us AV nerds in building a HTPC. Good job. I am building an optimal HTPC and want the highest possible price/performance ratio. It should be cheap, energy efficient, quiet and fully capable of processing high def content. Some gaming capability with Empire Total War and MS Flight simulator won’t hurt but is not necessary at this point. How about the following graphics cards? HIS H467QS1GP (Radeon 4670): USD 75 (including shipping) HIS H467QSS1GP (Radeon 4670): USD 100 (including shipping) Force3D RADEON HD 4550 DDR3 (fanless): USD 60 (including shipping) Which one ? Other parts of my setup: CASE: NSK2480 – quiet case with a reasonably quiet 380w PSU: USD 70 CPU: Intel E7500 – cheap, the extra cache of the E8xx series CPUs do nothing for processing media. USD 100 CPU cooler: Ninja mini – cheap, low profile and don’t require a fan. USD 30 MB: Gigabyte EG45M-UD2H – build quality. I have been an Asus fan for long and been considering P5Q-EM and P5N7A-VM; but after problems with the latter board and the decline in quality of Asus boards I choose to switch to Gigabyte, that is rising in quality boards. USD 110 HDD: Hitachi 7K100.C 500 GB and 7K100.C 1TB….Those are very quiet, energy efficient and fast drives with only one platter per 500GB. Total: USD 150 BD: LITEON iHOS108 – the era of optical disks will end, so I won’t bother with paying the double for writing BDs. I need a cheap, fast and quiet drive for playing, ripping DVDs and BDs. With full read speed (during ripping), it is noisy but it’s quiet during normal BD play. USD 100. OS: WinXP pro – considered Ubuntu 9.10 and windows7…. With Ubuntu, you are limited to VDPAU capable GF cards, no BD playback. Moreover, in Japan there is no support for TV tuner cards under Linux. Linux as HTPC = NG. Windows7 (USD 200) has a better media center s/w solution but XP is still faster and more stable. MediaCenter: MediaPortal – considered XBMC 9.11, but it does not allow me to spawn external players and has very few configuration options. DVD and BD s/w player: PowerDVD Ultra 9– excellent DVD playback with its True Theater effects. Matroska and m2ts player: KMPlayer with FFDshow and AC3filer --- great player with tons of configuration options. 2 - Posted by
Max Slowik
on November 13, 2009 - 4:36 pm If you're willing to spend up to $100 on a video card you should just get a 4770. A 5750 will future-proof the machine for $130, and you'll find that the video playback is slightly better. I think you'll also find that AMD processors in your price range are better deals and performers than Core 2 processors and will let you get a gaming card. I'd skip PowerDVD or any software you have to pay for. If you're considering XP use XBMC or better yet, Boxee. For codecs get the K-Lite Codec Pack. Windows Vista and 7 have excellent media centers, and they're very similar. Way better than what you'll see with XP (although Boxee is pretty sweet and runs on all versions of Windows). Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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