Sufficient Wadlbeißer: AMD Radeon RX 550 in test

The Radeon RX 550 is actually the only one of AMD's now-launched graphics cards to be truly new and runs internally as Polaris 12. It is clearly aimed at the entry-level area for less than 100 euros and thus occupies a market niche in which Nvid... Appearances, dimensions and connections The card, which is very light with 282 grams, is only 15.5 cm long, 10.5 cm high and occupies exactly two slots with a depth of 3.5 cm. You don't have to be afraid of a backplate... Introduction The field of application as practical as possible was an important reason for us in the further course of the tests to adapt the platform and CPU to the target group of an RX 550 and thus instead of the Intel Core i7 a significantly simpler Core i3 6...Dota 2 - Medium Settings First, we let Dota 2 run with mediocre settings and drag Intel's slightly tired HD530 just as much. The other three cards are more likely to feel bored and under-cooked by the CPU. Savings rolls or not? In order to complete the confusion with the 640 vs. 512 shaders, AMD meanwhile put several values for the boardpower online, where for the "slimmed-down version" even under 40 watts in gaming were circulated. This... Temperature development and clock rates Both are also indirectly linked and so we first look at the warm-up phase and the boost rates achieved. But stop! Has the manufacturer not specified a boost clock of 1203 MHz? In the verlau... Summary AMD is re-occupying the niche that seems to be too poppy or unprofitable enough for others. But why should this opportunity be missed? System builders and integrators will be pleased to have some HT...

Savings rolls or not?

In order to complete the confusion with the 640 vs. 512 shaders, AMD meanwhile put several values for the boardpower online, where for the "slimmed-down version" even under 40 watts in gaming were circulated. However, this value can be safely forgotten, because we get to almost 47 watts in the worst-case gaming, which means a fairly exact point landing on the now finally released 50 watts. In the stress test, the card stays even lower due to the very restrictive throttling.

In the Idle, the value could be even better, because the fan rotates unnecessarily fast at almost 1600 rpm. You could easily save a watt. But there are seven, which in itself is low enough to turn a nose at the energy supplier.

More about Gaming Loop

If you look at the curve, you can see some quite violent fluctuations. Despite an intelligent low-pass filter, we measure peaks of up to 59 watts, because only the average value remains below the target limit for board power.

Similarly, the curves of the flowing currents are also shaped and it gets really hilarious. We can see very well when Power Tune pulls the plug and throttles it, because every violent tip is immediately followed by the fall into the hole.

Stress test in detail

The load is much more constant, so that no seats are measurable anymore. It stays continuously below 50 watts, which of course is also due to the throttling (clock, voltage). There is simply no more. Not even by manual overclocking.

The course curves for the currents are not surprising, because here too, rather unexcited continuous load is called for.

Loading of the motherboard slot

Finally, let's look at how well the card copes with the set standards for the motherboard slot. The very low power consumption alone would have allowed the conclusion that everything remains in the deep green range. And right: even the short-term peak of 4.6 amperes remains far below the 5.5 ampere that the PCI SIG sets as a limit value. You can really live with that.