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Our last media review of the Asus Bravo 220 left us feeling slightly cold because as an overall bundle it was sadly lacking, particularly the appalling proprietary software which Asus decided to make a focal point.
Reviewing the Sapphire HD5550 Ultimate Edition today has left me feeling more positive about this specific market.
Firstly, the Ultimate edition requires very little power, in fact when we were gaming it was only consuming 29watts, which has broken all our records. It might appear to be such a minor discussion point, but in a media center situation this helps the card to run cool and subsequently lower ambient temperatures within a restricted space. Remember inside a HTPC if you are using a hot running video card this can affect everything else, even causing CPU temperatures to rise.
Secondly, the cards performance (while not earth shattering) is clearly superior to the competiting GT220 from nVidia … the ATI board also has DX11 capabilities. Granted this isn't the board you will buy if you wish to enjoy Crysis on your 1080p television, but for the majority of engines at modest IQ settings it will deliver an enjoyable experience.
Thirdly, for an enthusiast user on a budget we have found that the Sapphire HD5550 Ultimate edition has a hell of a lot of core headroom potential. Normally we wouldn't recommend you overclock a passive solution however in this situation the temperatures are still well within safety parameters. While results will vary from board to board we would assume most users will hit at least 100mhz+ on the core … ours delivered a whopping 150mhz and still remained on the happy side of 70c. We would also take an educated guess and say that Sapphire have not overclocked this board to ensure temperatures remain as low as possible, ensuring that even in chassis with little to no airflow it will be 100% stable.
Lastly, image quality in our HQV media test was the highest we have seen from a board under £100 and compares favourably to solutions in the £150 price bracket. Sure, this is subjective, but we spent considerable time testing this card with HD media and it would be my first choice in a low power, small form factor chassis. Bear in mind you can pick it up for £70 inc vat in the UK and you begin to appreciate the value for money factor.
KitGuru says: You really can't go wrong with the Sapphire HD5550, they have improved on the already excellent reference design and have produced probably the finest media card available today.
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