ATI seem to be on a roll here, after witnessing the brutal match between the HD4670 and the 9500GT, the entry level segment was still untouched.
Till now we had the GeForce 9400GT, which was the only option for HTPC junkies and casual gamers, and naturally ATI could not resist but to cause some chaos. ATI then introduced the Radeon HD4550, its answer to the GeForce 9400GT.
This is a super low-budget card that will solely appeal to those looking to build a cheap but powerful HTPC or want a cheap fan-less solution below 5K.
Specification
Let's dissect the specifications and compare it to the 9400GT. To start off, the HD4550 comes with 80 stream processors compared to the 16 on the 9400GT. The other main difference is the memory; while the 9400GT uses 512MB of DDR2 memory, ATI uses 512MB of GDDR3, which straight away provides more bandwidth. The best part about this card is that it is supposed to consume just 20W on full load, which is really impressive (9400GT consumes 50W on load).
From the specifications itself, you can get a rough idea that this little fellow is shaping up to be quite a beast for an entry level card.
The Card
This card is a pre-evaluation sample and it's not the final retail piece so you could expect the design to change a bit.
The card is the same size as the HD4670 and instead of a copper heatsink, it sports black aluminum heat sink that spans across almost the entire PCB. There's nothing much on the front except a few capacitors.
The front panel is really interesting, we have a single DVI- I port, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort connector. Now this is a complete set of connectors and very much future proof once DisplayPort becomes more common. Again this is just a sample board so when it actually hits the streets, manufacturers may choose different ports, so we can't say for sure if this will be standard.
The back of the card is a little different with a small piece of the PCB missing; the heat sink covers that area to keep the shape of the card. Don't know what kind of a design choice is this, but it does stand out.
With the heat sink off, we can see the full layout of the RAM modules.
That's the RV710 die that powers the card. It uses the same 55nm fabrication process and packs in 242 million transistors.
Testbench
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme X9770 @ 3.2 GHz (Yorkfield)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS3 RAM 2 x 1GB DDR2 1066 MHz (5-5-5-15)
HDD: Hitachi 250 GB SATA II (7200 rpm)
PSU: CoolerMaster 1000W PSU
Monitor: Viewsonic G90fB Monitor (19-inch, Max Res. 1920 x 1440)
Optical Drive: ASUS Blu-Ray Drive
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
VGA Driver: CCC 8.9 (Graphics Driver v5.3)
HD Playback
Since this card is going to be used mostly by HTPC users, I decided
to test how much it really offloads the work from the CPU. Normally
when you play a HD movie with a 720p or 1080p resolution, the CPU has to do most of the work in decoding the movie in real time so that you get a smooth playback.
Now the CPU does not have any problems decoding a 720p movie (actual resolution would be around 1280x720) but when it comes to a full HD movie (1920 x 1080), there is a tremendous strain on the processor not only because of the high resolution but also the high bit rate video that has to be decoded.
This is where programs like PowerDVD and Nero Showtime support hardware acceleration come in. So instead of the processor doing the work, it's now handled by the graphics card, which does it more efficiently.
For this test I used Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End 1080p
Blu-Ray to stress the card. This will give you a fair idea of whether these cards can handle full HD content. To measure the CPU usage, I used Windows Performance Monitor (just type 'perfmon' in run) to measure CPU utilization.
For the scene, I've chosen the final battle when the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman team up and blow Lord Beckett's ship to smithereens and logged it for 2 minutes. This scene has some really intense fireworks and close up shots of some of the characters, which will help us judge the video quality.
With the HD4550 handling the job, the CPU usage is down to just
8.5%, which is what you get when using some small application like paint or a browser. The Nvidia 9400GT gives us slightly higher usage at 13.2% which is still good. Now when we play the same scene in some other player, the CPU usage shoots up to 40% and this is a Quad Core Extreme CPU so think about the ones you'll be using on your HTPC, there is no way it will be able to do it smooth enough.
HD HQV Benchmark
To test the video quality playback I've used HD HQV benchmark by SiliconOptix which is a powerful image quality testing tool that tests the strength of the Display as well as the video Processor. There are a couple of tests, each of which focuses on different aspects of picture quality.
HD Noise Reduction
Here we test for the amount of noise visible in the picture and is purely subjective. This is measured on a scale of 0-25 where 25 is the best picture without loss of detail.
Video Resolution Loss Test
Here we look for the Horizontal lines in the corner boxes. Score is either 0 or 25.
Jaggies Test
The three bars are constantly moving up and down and we have to observe the edges to make sure they are smooth at all times.
Film Resolution Loss Test
Once again we make sure that the horizontal lines are visible in the corner boxes while the screen moves from left to right.
Let's see how our two contenders fare;
In the first test there was a very noticeable 'shivering' see with the corner boxes while the ATI card was able to render it properly. In the HD Noise test, there was quite a lot of noise noticeable when using the 9400GT even though the picture was quite sharp. In the other tests both the cards give same results.
Conclusion
The tentative pricing according to ATI for the HD4550 is around 3.5K-4K and the warranty will depend on the manufacturer (we can assume the standard 3-year warranty). If Palit, ASUS, MSI and the other AIB partners actually do price it at that level then this card is going to be a runaway success. On the temperature front, even under maximum load the card recorded a maximum temperature of just 55 degrees Celsius.
It is slightly better when it comes to gaming compared to the 9400GT and even in our HD playback and quality tests it comes ahead of Nvidia's offering. Couple that with the minimalist power consumption (just 20W) on full load, low operating temperatures and you've got yourself one kick-ass HTPC card.
Till now we had the GeForce 9400GT, which was the only option for HTPC junkies and casual gamers, and naturally ATI could not resist but to cause some chaos. ATI then introduced the Radeon HD4550, its answer to the GeForce 9400GT.
This is a super low-budget card that will solely appeal to those looking to build a cheap but powerful HTPC or want a cheap fan-less solution below 5K.
Specification
Let's dissect the specifications and compare it to the 9400GT. To start off, the HD4550 comes with 80 stream processors compared to the 16 on the 9400GT. The other main difference is the memory; while the 9400GT uses 512MB of DDR2 memory, ATI uses 512MB of GDDR3, which straight away provides more bandwidth. The best part about this card is that it is supposed to consume just 20W on full load, which is really impressive (9400GT consumes 50W on load).
From the specifications itself, you can get a rough idea that this little fellow is shaping up to be quite a beast for an entry level card.
The Card
This card is a pre-evaluation sample and it's not the final retail piece so you could expect the design to change a bit.
The card is the same size as the HD4670 and instead of a copper heatsink, it sports black aluminum heat sink that spans across almost the entire PCB. There's nothing much on the front except a few capacitors.
The front panel is really interesting, we have a single DVI- I port, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort connector. Now this is a complete set of connectors and very much future proof once DisplayPort becomes more common. Again this is just a sample board so when it actually hits the streets, manufacturers may choose different ports, so we can't say for sure if this will be standard.
The back of the card is a little different with a small piece of the PCB missing; the heat sink covers that area to keep the shape of the card. Don't know what kind of a design choice is this, but it does stand out.
With the heat sink off, we can see the full layout of the RAM modules.
That's the RV710 die that powers the card. It uses the same 55nm fabrication process and packs in 242 million transistors.
Testbench
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme X9770 @ 3.2 GHz (Yorkfield)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS3 RAM 2 x 1GB DDR2 1066 MHz (5-5-5-15)
HDD: Hitachi 250 GB SATA II (7200 rpm)
PSU: CoolerMaster 1000W PSU
Monitor: Viewsonic G90fB Monitor (19-inch, Max Res. 1920 x 1440)
Optical Drive: ASUS Blu-Ray Drive
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
VGA Driver: CCC 8.9 (Graphics Driver v5.3)
HD Playback
Since this card is going to be used mostly by HTPC users, I decided
to test how much it really offloads the work from the CPU. Normally
when you play a HD movie with a 720p or 1080p resolution, the CPU has to do most of the work in decoding the movie in real time so that you get a smooth playback.
Now the CPU does not have any problems decoding a 720p movie (actual resolution would be around 1280x720) but when it comes to a full HD movie (1920 x 1080), there is a tremendous strain on the processor not only because of the high resolution but also the high bit rate video that has to be decoded.
This is where programs like PowerDVD and Nero Showtime support hardware acceleration come in. So instead of the processor doing the work, it's now handled by the graphics card, which does it more efficiently.
For this test I used Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End 1080p
Blu-Ray to stress the card. This will give you a fair idea of whether these cards can handle full HD content. To measure the CPU usage, I used Windows Performance Monitor (just type 'perfmon' in run) to measure CPU utilization.
For the scene, I've chosen the final battle when the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman team up and blow Lord Beckett's ship to smithereens and logged it for 2 minutes. This scene has some really intense fireworks and close up shots of some of the characters, which will help us judge the video quality.
With the HD4550 handling the job, the CPU usage is down to just
8.5%, which is what you get when using some small application like paint or a browser. The Nvidia 9400GT gives us slightly higher usage at 13.2% which is still good. Now when we play the same scene in some other player, the CPU usage shoots up to 40% and this is a Quad Core Extreme CPU so think about the ones you'll be using on your HTPC, there is no way it will be able to do it smooth enough.
HD HQV Benchmark
To test the video quality playback I've used HD HQV benchmark by SiliconOptix which is a powerful image quality testing tool that tests the strength of the Display as well as the video Processor. There are a couple of tests, each of which focuses on different aspects of picture quality.
HD Noise Reduction
Here we test for the amount of noise visible in the picture and is purely subjective. This is measured on a scale of 0-25 where 25 is the best picture without loss of detail.
Video Resolution Loss Test
Here we look for the Horizontal lines in the corner boxes. Score is either 0 or 25.
Jaggies Test
The three bars are constantly moving up and down and we have to observe the edges to make sure they are smooth at all times.
Film Resolution Loss Test
Once again we make sure that the horizontal lines are visible in the corner boxes while the screen moves from left to right.
Let's see how our two contenders fare;
In the first test there was a very noticeable 'shivering' see with the corner boxes while the ATI card was able to render it properly. In the HD Noise test, there was quite a lot of noise noticeable when using the 9400GT even though the picture was quite sharp. In the other tests both the cards give same results.
Conclusion
The tentative pricing according to ATI for the HD4550 is around 3.5K-4K and the warranty will depend on the manufacturer (we can assume the standard 3-year warranty). If Palit, ASUS, MSI and the other AIB partners actually do price it at that level then this card is going to be a runaway success. On the temperature front, even under maximum load the card recorded a maximum temperature of just 55 degrees Celsius.
It is slightly better when it comes to gaming compared to the 9400GT and even in our HD playback and quality tests it comes ahead of Nvidia's offering. Couple that with the minimalist power consumption (just 20W) on full load, low operating temperatures and you've got yourself one kick-ass HTPC card.
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