• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Sapphire Expands Mainstream Lineup with HD 5550 GDDR5 Graphics Card

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,229 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
SAPPHIRE Technology has just strengthened its mainstream range of ATI-based graphics cards with the introduction of several new models in the HD 5500 series and a new bundle deal with ArcSoft.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is based on the highly successful graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, built in its 40nm process. It supports the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11, as well as on-board Stream Processing and video decoding, delivering superb video clarity and visual effects, whilst consuming very low power levels.



The SAPPHIRE HD 5550 family of graphics cards have 320 Stream processors and support Microsoft DirectX 11 as well as accelerating applications compatible with ATI Stream. SAPPHIRE now offers several new models with different memory configurations and display output options giving users a choice of card for different applications, and different budgets. As the core technology is low power, no external power connection is required, making this series ideal for system upgrades or mainstream PCs that do not have high end power supplies.

ATI Eyefinity multi-screen technology is supported by models with a DisplayPort output. This technology gives users the ability to work across three monitors as though it were one large monitor, bringing huge productivity benefits to applications such as photo editing, music creation and document creation.

Other models in the SAPPHIRE HD 5550 series have the alternative output configuration of DVI, HDMI and VGA. This is the most flexible combination of monitor outputs and allows the use of HDMI enabled monitors or digital TVs to be directly driven with both video and sound signals over a single HDMI cable.

Ideal for media applications, all members of the SAPPHIRE HD 5550 series have an on board hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder) considerably reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files. In the SAPPHIRE HD 5000 series the UVD has been enhanced to be able simultaneously to decode two 1080p HD video streams and to be able to display HD video in high quality with Windows Aero mode enabled. It supports HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3 is a new generation of media player that uses ATI Stream technology supported by the SAPPHIRE HD 5550 series to provide smooth, video playback of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD content as well as upscaling other video material. A new deal with ArcSoft gives purchasers of the SAPPHIRE HD 5550 series a 50% discount on upgrading to the 'Gold' or 'Platinum' versions from now until the 30th August 2010.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is fully compatible with DirectX10.1, DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0 games and applications, as well as showing stunning new levels of detail, transparency and lighting effects in newer releases of software using DirectX 11. Native CrossFire support allows two or more cards to be used together for additional performance on a suitable CrossFireX compatible mainboard. On the HD 5500 series, CrossFireX is supported in software by the driver, and no additional interconnect is required.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is supported by AMD's Catalyst DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which together with this generation of hardware delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 level features including DirectCompute 11 instructions, hardware Tessellation and multi-threaded communications with the system CPU. They also support ATI Stream, accelerating supported applications such as video transcoding and rendering tasks by executing instructions on the GPU architecture rather than the system CPU.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
13,791 (1.88/day)
I wonder why the have to use these fat ugly coolers. Man, i totally hate them. Can't they use coolers like we were used on GeForce 6600GT cards? Most of these are fine with pasive coolers so anything slightly active cooled should be enough. While remain single slot and still silent.
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
337 (0.06/day)
System Name Roxy
Processor i7 5930K @ 4.5GHz (167x27 1.35V)
Motherboard X99-A/USB3.1
Cooling Barrow Infinity Mirror, EK 45x420mm, EK X-Res w 10W DDC
Memory 2x16GB Patriot Viper 3600 @3333 16-20-20-38
Video Card(s) XFX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra
Storage Sabrent Rocket 2TB, 4TB WD Mechanical
Display(s) Acer XZ321Q (144Mhz Freesync Curved 32" 1080p)
Case Modded Cosmos-S Red, Tempered Glass Window, Full Frontal Mesh, Black interior
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster Z
Power Supply Corsair RM 850x White
Mouse Logitech G403
Keyboard CM Storm QuickFire TK
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/e5uz5f
I tested a half height, passive cooled 5550 a couple of days ago. Not bad, ~2900 Pro performance level.
 

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,229 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Joined
May 21, 2008
Messages
4,113 (0.68/day)
Location
Iowa, USA
System Name THE CUBE 2.0
Processor Intel i5 13600k
Motherboard MSI MPG Z690 EDGE DDR4
Cooling Phanteks PH-TC14PE BK 2x T30-120 Fan mod mount
Memory G.Skill TridentZ 3200 MT/s C15 32GB 2x16GB
Video Card(s) Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti 11GB OC: Core 2GHz, Mem 5.7GHz
Storage WD SN770 250GB / 3x WD SN850X 2TB / Toshiba X300 4TB / 2x RAID1 Toshiba P300 3TB
Display(s) Samsung 49" Odyssey OLED G95SC 240Hz 5120 x 1440
Case "THE CUBE" Custom built, pure Red Alder wood
Audio Device(s) Beyerdynamic DT 880
Power Supply Corsair RM1000X
Mouse Logitech G700
Keyboard Logitech G910
Software Windows 11 Pro
Top