HIS HD 5500 Silence Graphics Cards Cost Under $100

When DirectX 11-capable graphics cards first came out, there were only a few models available and even those weren't exactly approachable by others besides enthusiasts and hardcore gamers. Fortunately, Advanced Micro Devices was quick to follow up with mainstream and entry-level cards. The ones that seem to have become most popular are the HD 5550 and the HD 5570, both of which have already incarnated, under a variety of guises, as offspring of ATI's various manufacturing partners.

Considering how many customized cards have debuted, it is no surprise to hear that other models have made their way to market. This time's culprits are none other than HIS (Hightech Information System) and its two sidekicks, the Silence series Radeon HD 5570 and the HD 5550.

The newcomers are both low profile versions of the reference models and use passive cooling solutions, which means that they not only consume less power then the originals, but also produce no noise whatsoever during operation. In addition to the 40nm Redwood GPU, they feature 512MB or 1GB of GDR5 VRAM and a memory interface of 128 bits.

Furthermore, the HD 5550 has 320 stream processors, whereas the HD 5570 boasts 400. As for clock speeds, the GPUs operate at 550MHz and 600MHz, respectively, whereas the GDDR5 is set at 1000MHz (4GHz effective).

The HIS Radeon HD 5550 and 5570 Silence connect to video output devices via D-Sub, DVI and HDMI. Naturally, they support DirectX 11 graphics and the rest of the technologies such as ATI Stream technology that have been behind the over 2 million shipments of HD 5000 series. Thus, they should prove quite formidable on the HTPC and even the mainstream/entry-level markets. As for actual pricing, the 512MB HD 5550 costs roughly 89 Euro, whereas the 1GB model has a price tag of 99 Euro. Unfortunately, the pricing scheme of the HD 5570 is reportedly still unknown.