The HIS HD 5550 is a silent card that can handle all desktop work and multimedia stuff you can throw at it, as well as most games at modest resolutions around 1024x768 (or Xbox-360-style 720p). Unlike the majority of competing HD 5550s, HIS has chosen to use GDDR5 on their card, which is faster than the DDR2 or DDR3 other companies use. It is also nice to see 512 MB instead of the wasteful 1 GB which does do anything except increase cost. In terms of performance the HIS HD 5550 sits closer to the HD 5570 than the HD 5450, thanks to its 320 shaders - but the price is similar too.
Thanks to the passive cooling solution by HIS, the card emits no fan noise which is crucial for a media PC system or work PC that you spend all day with. However, being a full-height dual slot design, the card might not fit the most compact of media PC cases. With a price tag in the $70 range, the card is certainly not the cheapest card around, only a few dollars more get you a HD 5570, even the $90 HD 5670 is not too far away from that. If you are just looking to buy a HDMI capable card for media playback, then even a cheap HD 3400 might do the job. On the other hand, the new HD 5000 Series of cards brings a couple of new video enhancement features that we tested here. So the bottom line is, if you have the space in the case and want a quiet card for movies and 720p gaming, you should definitely consider the HIS HD 5550.