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AMD Radeon RX 550 512SP

AMD Radeon RX 550 512SP: Budget GPU for Undemanding Tasks and Gaming

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD Radeon RX 550 512SP graphics card is positioned as an affordable solution for basic gaming, office tasks, and multimedia systems. Despite its modest specifications, it captures attention due to its energy efficiency and support for modern technologies. In this article, we will explore who this model is suitable for and what nuances to pay attention to.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The RX 550 512SP is built on the updated RDNA 2 architecture, tailored for the budget segment. This allows the card to maintain a low cost while partially utilizing the benefits of modern technology.

Process Technology: The GPU is manufactured using a 6nm process, which balances power consumption and performance.

Unique Features:

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 3.0 — a scaling technology that increases FPS in games through dynamic image scaling.

- Radeon Anti-Lag+ — reduces input lag in competitive games.

- Hybrid Ray Tracing — simplified ray tracing, but with limited performance (implemented through software algorithms rather than hardware blocks).

For its price, the card offers a decent set of features, although full Ray Tracing like that found in top-tier GPUs is not available here.

2. Memory: Type, Volume, and Bandwidth

Memory Type: GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus.

Volume: 4 GB — a minimum standard for games in 2025 at low settings.

Bandwidth: 224 GB/s (14 Gbps × 128 bits / 8).

Impact on Performance:

- In games with high-resolution textures (e.g., Horizon Forbidden West), frame drops may occur due to insufficient VRAM.

- For 1080p in titles like Fortnite or Apex Legends, the memory is sufficient, but compromises arise at 1440p.

- Professional applications like Blender will face limitations when rendering complex scenes.

3. Gaming Performance

Average FPS in Popular Games (1080p, medium settings):

- Counter-Strike 2: 90–110 FPS.

- Fortnite (with FSR 3.0): 60–75 FPS.

- Apex Legends: 55–65 FPS.

- Cyberpunk 2077 (without ray tracing, low settings): 35–45 FPS.

Resolution Support:

- 1080p — the optimal choice for most games.

- 1440p — achievable in less demanding titles (Rocket League, Dota 2) or with active FSR.

- 4K — not recommended, except for older games (Half-Life 2, Portal).

Ray Tracing:

The Hybrid Ray Tracing mode reduces FPS by 30–40%. For instance, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with reflections enabled, the FPS drops to 25–30. For comfortable gameplay, it is better to use FSR 3.0 in conjunction with the Quality mode.

4. Professional Tasks

- Video Editing: Suitable for working with 1080p in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, but rendering 4K material will take 2-3 times longer compared to the RTX 3050.

- 3D Modeling: Handles simple scenes in Blender and Maya, but memory and computational power will be insufficient for complex projects.

- Scientific Calculations: Supports OpenCL, but due to limited stream processors (512 SP), it is not suitable for large-scale simulations.

Tip: For professional tasks, it is better to consider models with 8+ GB VRAM and a higher number of compute units.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 75W — powered through the PCIe slot, additional connectors are not required.

Cooling: Passive and active systems (depending on the model). Single-fan versions operate at noise levels of 28–32 dB.

Recommendations:

- A case with at least one exhaust fan for heat dissipation.

- Good case ventilation is essential for passive models.

This card is ideal for compact builds in Mini-ITX format cases.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (2025 Refresh):

- Pros: Better optimization for DX12, stable drivers.

- Cons: Higher price ($150–170), lacks FSR 3.0.

Intel Arc A380:

- Pros: AV1 support for encoding, 6 GB VRAM.

- Cons: Poor optimization for older games.

Conclusion: The RX 550 512SP excels in price ($120–130) and energy efficiency but falls short in multimedia capabilities.

7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: A 350–400W model is sufficient (e.g., EVGA 400 BR).

- Compatibility: PCIe 4.0 x8 — ensure that the motherboard supports the standard.

- Drivers: Use the latest Adrenalin Edition 2025 for improved FSR 3.0 performance.

Important: On older PCs with UEFI BIOS, check the boot mode (CSM/UEFI) for correct card operation.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price ($120–130).

- Energy efficiency (suitable for upgrading older PCs).

- Support for FSR 3.0 and Anti-Lag+.

Cons:

- Only 4 GB of VRAM.

- Weak performance in modern AAA games.

- Limited ray tracing support.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the RX 550 512SP Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Budget Gamers willing to play at low settings.

2. Office PCs with occasional light gaming sessions.

3. Home Theaters (4K HDR support via HDMI 2.1).

4. Owners of Older Systems where compatibility and low power consumption are key.

If you're not chasing ultra settings and are looking for an affordable solution, the RX 550 512SP will be a reliable option. However, for future games in 2026+, it’s worth considering models with 8 GB of memory.

Price: $125–135 (new models, April 2025).

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

October 2017

Model Name

Radeon RX 550 512SP

Generation

Polaris

Base Clock

1019MHz

Boost Clock

1071MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x8

Transistors

3,000 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 4.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

2GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

1500MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

96.00 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

17.14 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

34.27 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

1097 GFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

68.54 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.075 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

512

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

50W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_0)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.4

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

250W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.075 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon 540X Mobile

1.143 +6.3%

GeForce GTX 470 PhysX Edition

1.111 +3.3%

Radeon RX 550 512SP

1.075

Tesla S2050

1.049 -2.4%

Tesla M2050

1.009 -6.1%