ASRock Launches the Phantom Gaming Radeon 550 2G Graphics Card

[Raevenlord]

No, that's not a typo. AsRock has actually launched an AMD Radeon 550 graphics card this late into the game. There is some sense behind the business decision, though; AMD's Radeon 550 is the company's entry-line offering, which aims only to improve upon the performance of integrated graphics solutions, and no more. In that sense, the Radeon 550 certainly delivers, though it does so in an underwhelming way for any tech enthusiasts. The Radeon 550 2G features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1,750 MHz (7,000 MHz effective) across a 64-bit bus, which feeds a die powered by 512 Stream Processors.

There are three operating modes on offer: Silent, for HTPC environments, which clocks the graphics card at 1,183 MHz boost clock and 7,000 MHz memory clocks. Default mode runs the card at AMD's defaults (1,183 MHz boost, 7,000 MHz memory). The OC mode overclocks the graphics card's boost clock to 1,230 MHz and the memory to 7,038 MHz. I/O stands at 1x dual-link DVI-D connector, 1x HDMI 2.0b port and 1x DisplayPort 1.4. A 50 W TDP should make it easy to cool in cramped spaces, and the graphics card doesn't require any power pins. No pricing was available at time of writing.



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[jabbadap]

They released a, What!? RX 550 is 640 stream processor 128bit 4GB card. Closest to what this is, is OEM Radeon 550X 512/640 stream processors and 64bit bus. I weren't aware there's consumer product with that config.

 

[hellrazor]

$50 would be overpriced.

 

[silentbogo]

So, essentially it's a mobile RX540 with half the memory bandwidth, stuck on a desktop GPU PCB, and it's not even low-profile? That doesn't make any sense...

 

[Turmania]

wow and its Phantom Edition as well!

 

[The Egg]

The minimum GPU able to use current drivers (by either side) is the GT 710 DDR3 variant using the GK208; available for about $37 on Amazon. While this chopped-down 550 might be technically superior on paper, its actual usefulness is roughly the same. IMO both should be listed for about $29.95.

 

[silentbogo]

The minimum GPU able to use current drivers (by either side) is the GT 710 DDR3 variant using the GK208; available for about $37 on Amazon. While this chopped-down 550 might be technically superior on paper, its actual usefulness is roughly the same. IMO both should be listed for about $29.95.

It's about as fast as an oldie GTX750Ti, and does DX12/Vulkan as well. Should be good enough for Dota2 and CS:GO at FHD Low/Medium. But I highly doubt AsRock named this "540X" a "550 Phantom Gaming" just to sell it for $30-40. Pretty sure it's an intentional naming fraud, which AsRock won't handle on their own, but instead pass onto Asian/CIS prebuilt PC market.

 

[Apocalypsee]

A very low end card like this but still uses THICK cooler such as that. Is it so hard to make single slot cooler?

 

[Deleted member 67555]

$44.99?

 

[notb]

A very low end card like this but still uses THICK cooler such as that. Is it so hard to make single slot cooler?

It's hard enough to make some proper engineering necessary, which means some additional costs.
For chip with such low TDP, they could have used almost any cooler they had available or could put together using bits lying around. So they did.

AsRock is not selling many graphics cards and savings like this make their (fairly young) GPU endeavor worth the risk.

 

[jabbadap]

It's about as fast as an oldie GTX750Ti, and does DX12/Vulkan as well. Should be good enough for Dota2 and CS:GO at FHD Low/Medium. But I highly doubt AsRock named this "540X" a "550 Phantom Gaming" just to sell it for $30-40. Pretty sure it's an intentional naming fraud, which AsRock won't handle on their own, but instead pass onto Asian/CIS prebuilt PC market.

RX 550 is indeed close to gtx750ti perf. But then again this is not RX 550 this is 550, crippled by memory bus and thus probably a lot slower.

 

[potato580+]

would like to pay for, if its cost $20

 

[IceShroom]

A very low end card like this but still uses THICK cooler such as that. Is it so hard to make single slot cooler?

Maybe single slot dont sell that much. XFX used to have a RX 560 single slot.

 

[Casecutter]

Looks like AMD has some chips to get rid of, while this is to replace those R7 260 2Gb (95W TDP) still be used in many OE boxes. This is perhaps 20% above that and today not a any "gaming card" it's a nice card to pair with the Ryzen 3 2300X in some OE Box. Such spec's would be better any Intel IGP and give a young kid ability to start playing E-Sport and low quality games @ 1080p. Figure if ASRock packages this with one of their A320M motherboards that offers a strong OE base machine on a 350W PSU.

 

[Paganstomp]

More options for MAME / DOS-Box / 720p gaming rigs. Not everybody cares about 4K.

 

[R-T-B]

More options for MAME / DOS-Box / 720p gaming rigs. Not everybody cares about 4K.

I mean... integrated graphics is still a thing if doing emulation.

 

[micropage7]

phantom? i don't see any that related to phantom on that

 

[Kapone33]

I really wish that they would make these cards crossfire compatible with the APUs. You would be able to build a nice system on the cheap.

 

[Chrispy_]

Another pointless card for a completely saturated market.

There's a real shortage of single-slot cards with more than two modern outputs (HDMI or DP) and with a 50W TDP such a thing should be very easy and affordable to produce.

Almost every single ATX board on the market with 3 or more PCIe x16 slots puts the last slot at the very bottom position, meaning that it cannot (usually) be used for dual-slot cooler. What's the point if there are no single-slot cards to even put in it?

I know Quadro and RadeonPro cards come in single-slot variety but I make no exaggeration when I say that they are 5-10x the price of the equivalent Geforce or Radeon.

 

[kmetek]

what is point of this?

 

[hojnikb]

This card makes absolutely no sense. It's too slow for any kind of real gaming (an 2200G with OC could probably match it) and too expensive for just a display/video decoding gpu.

What market really needs is some sort of basic and very cheap gpu (20-30$ range) that could handle 4k displays, modern codecs like vp9 and h265 and some 3D capabilities, so it makes it a real gpu (128-192SPs would be plenty enough). Now that would make a lot of sense (think of all the cheap ryzen 1200/1600 or xeon 2011 builds, that aren't built for gaming).

 

[notb]

what is point of this?

The point is that RX 550 is the cheapest AMD GPU that can support two high-res screens (2 x 4K). It's a natural choice for workstations.

Of course a GT 730 (GT 1030) is cheaper - with multiple passive cooling xor single-slot models available for around $70.
But not everyone accepts an Nvidia logo in their PC and this is the kind of customer most RX 550 cards are trying to appeal to.

As for gaming: there are countries where a mainstream gaming PC has to cost less than $500, so RX 550 is a viable option.
Again: +$50 makes 1050Ti / 1650 possible, but some clients will prefer an AMD card anyway.
The next card above RX 550/560 is RX 570 and it's both expensive and more demanding (PSU, case cooling).

 

[Casecutter]

what is point of this?

The point is to support Ryzen 3 and mostly A320 motherboard systems with a modern graphic option that works from PCI-E only. While it isn't a $50-60 option to the consumer market I would think its main focus is to OE builds, and can be offered with good bulk pricing, especially to support the released the Ryzen 3 2300X (non retail OEM/tray). Such a GPU offering is more a way to advertise (in a lowly entry spec) the present-day RX 550 nomenclature than promote an end user consumer option. At least this is a 2 year old Lexa on 14mn, not some 28nm from 5 years ago. If I thought it's place in retail consumer space I could see it after some months in retail being a $65-75 working a $10 rebate. I think both OE and others making low cost builds are looking for just descent modern graphic option and that step above AMD APU's .

 

[jabbadap]

The point is that RX 550 is the cheapest AMD GPU that can support two high-res screens (2 x 4K). It's a natural choice for workstations.

Of course a GT 730 (GT 1030) is cheaper - with multiple passive cooling xor single-slot models available for around $70.
But not everyone accepts an Nvidia logo in their PC and this is the kind of customer most RX 550 cards are trying to appeal to.

As for gaming: there are countries where a mainstream gaming PC has to cost less than $500, so RX 550 is a viable option.
Again: +$50 makes 1050Ti / 1650 possible, but some clients will prefer an AMD card anyway.
The next card above RX 550/560 is RX 570 and it's both expensive and more demanding (PSU, case cooling).

It's Radeon 550, not Radeon RX 550. They are two different graphics cards. But yeah it is probably AMDs versions of Geforce GT series not really gaming(RX) but media cards.

 

[Tartaros]

Another pointless card for a completely saturated market.

There's a real shortage of single-slot cards with more than two modern outputs (HDMI or DP) and with a 50W TDP such a thing should be very easy and affordable to produce.

Looks a refresh of the R5, which is very old now. This fills in the cheap multimedia serviceable gpu for older integrated gpus that don't have modern video decoding capabilities, like my old computer which is now a server/tinkering machine. GT710 is too old too and the next step is the GT1030, which is a little overpriced for what I need.

What is not stated is what video decoding it has, and if AMD is finally to develop their drivers to support different OSes than Windows 10 and VM software accordingly if they want to offer better support for other tasks than gaming and computing. There isn't an official driver for regular AMD gpus in Windows Server 2019 after a year.