AMD's RV730-based Radeon HD 4600 graphics cards are now bullying the mainstream market, but the California-based manufacturer has one more Radeon HD SKU in store for this month; the Radeon HD 4550.
The Radeon HD 4550, based on AMD's RV710 architecture, isn't due to arrive until late September but a selection of slides have been disclosed by Expreview, so, why not take an early look?
The above slide reveals the Radeon HD 4550 in its full-height 512MB variant, and it offers GPU and memory clock speeds of 600MHz and 800MHz, respectively. The card will be passively cooled, and consumes less than 25 watts of power. If you're looking for a very low-cost HTPC solution, this looks as though it'll fit the bill very nicely.
The report also confirms that a low-profile offering with 256MB of memory will also be on offer. The low-profile card will feature identical core and memory clock speeds, and its UVD-assisted hardware decoding is again going to make it a very reasonable solution for low-cost media PCs.
So, onto the next leaked slide and a closer look at the RV710 architecture:
The tech-minded readers will notice that the Radeon HD 4550 is, for all intents and purposes, a Radeon HD 4650 on a slim-fast diet. For those of you who prefer an easier-to-digest table, we've broken down the available details as follows:
| Radeon HD 4550 | Radeon HD 4650 | Radeon HD 4670 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core clock | 600MHz | 600MHz | 750MHz |
| Memory clock | 800MHz | 1,000MHz | 2,000MHz |
| Stream processors | 80 | 320 | 320 |
| Texture filters and address units | 8 | 32 | 32 |
| ROPs | 4 | 8 | 8 |
| Memory interface | 64-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory | 256MB/512MB DDR3 | 256MB/512MB DDR2 | 512MB/1,024MB GDDR3 |
| Manufacturing process | 55nm | 55nm | 55nm |
| Transistor count | 242m | 514m | 514m |
Expect AMD to officially announce the card in the coming weeks, and you probably won't need to start saving - this one should arrive below the $50 mark, and it'll go head-to-head with NVIDIA's GeForce 9400 GT.
