ATI Radeon X550 HyperMemory

The ATI Radeon X550 HyperMemory is an end-of-life AMD-manufactured graphics card built on the RV370 chip, classified under the R300 architecture. It was fabricated by TSMC on a 110 nm process, containing 107 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, for a transistor density of 1.4M / mm². The card is equipped with 256 MB of DDR2 memory on a 128-bit bus, using a 250 MHz memory clock with a 500 Mbps effective data rate and 8.000 GB/s of bandwidth. It has 4 texture mapping units and 4 render output units, yielding 1.600 GPixel/s pixel fill rate and 1.600 GTexel/s texture fill rate. API support is limited to DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, with no Vulkan entry. The board uses a PCIe 1.0 x16 interface, occupies a single slot, and carries a 200 W suggested PSU rating. Display outputs are one DVI, one VGA, and one S-Video. The release date is 2005-06-30.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark list for this card is empty, and the aggregate benchmark score is recorded as 0. Its percentile rank against all GPUs in the database is 50, which places it at the midpoint of tracked products, but no measured scores support that placement. The data set supplies no nearestRivals entries, so there are no rival scores and no deltaPct values to compare. Without those entries, the 50th percentile cannot be cross-checked against specific competing products.

The available performance indicators are the fixed-function fill rates: 1.600 GPixel/s and 1.600 GTexel/s. These are driven by 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs. The equality of the pixel rate and texture rate reflects the symmetrical 4-to-4 unit count, but it also means neither geometry-heavy nor texture-heavy workloads have extra throughput headroom. The memory side is defined by a 250 MHz clock, 500 Mbps effective data rate, and 8.000 GB/s bandwidth. That bandwidth is modest and will limit how quickly textures and frame data can move. No base, boost, or game clocks are provided, and the FP32 and FP16 fields are null, so general shader throughput cannot be expressed from the record. The 0 score is therefore not a measured average; it is the result of an absent benchmark array. The 50th percentile is the only positional anchor, and it should be read as a database ranking placeholder rather than a tested finish.

Because there are no rival deltaPct values, exact percentage leads or deficits cannot be stated. The performance envelope is better described by the fixed hardware rates: 4 TMUs, 4 ROPs, 1.600 GPixel/s pixel throughput, 1.600 GTexel/s texture throughput, and 8.000 GB/s memory bandwidth. Those numbers indicate a very early PCIe-era part whose computational ceiling is far below later descendants in the product stack.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The RT core and tensor core fields are both null, meaning there is no ray tracing acceleration hardware and no tensor-based compute capability on this GPU. As a result, any workload relying on RT cores or tensor cores is outside the feature set. The API list is limited to DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0; Vulkan is null. This restricts the card to software written for those two APIs. DirectX 9.0 support places the card in the early shader-driven era of PC graphics, while OpenGL 2.0 provides a relatively mature but still pre-modern OpenGL feature level.

The fixed-function pipeline is modest: 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs produce 1.600 GTexel/s and 1.600 GPixel/s. The bus interface is PCIe 1.0 x16, an early PCI Express implementation, and the board itself is single-slot. Display connectivity is one DVI, one VGA, and one S-Video, which reflects analog-era output requirements. The production status is end-of-life, and the release date is 2005-06-30. The architecture generation is listed as R300, and the successor is Radeon R400 AGP. The predecessor is Radeon R200. No power connector details are recorded, while the suggested PSU is 200 W. The absence of Vulkan, RT cores, and tensor cores means the feature set cannot be extended to modern ray-traced or compute-heavy applications. The GPU is confined to DirectX 9.0 / OpenGL 2.0 class workloads, and its single-slot mechanical footprint with legacy analog outputs reinforces that positioning.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem consists of 256 MB of DDR2 on a 128-bit bus. The memory clock is 250 MHz, with an effective data rate of 500 Mbps, and the resulting bandwidth is 8.000 GB/s. A 256 MB frame buffer is small, and at higher resolutions it will be consumed quickly by color data, depth data, and texture storage. The 128-bit bus width limits how much data can be transferred per clock cycle, while 8.000 GB/s is the total bandwidth ceiling. The effective 500 Mbps data rate is characteristic of early DDR2 memory, not later high-bandwidth memory standards.

The relationship between memory and fill rates is important. The GPU can generate pixels at 1.600 GPixel/s and texture at 1.600 GTexel/s, but those rates can only be sustained if data can be fed fast enough from the 8.000 GB/s memory pool. In memory-intensive scenes, the 128-bit bus and 8.000 GB/s bandwidth are more likely to be limiting than the fill rates themselves. Conversely, scenes with many unique textures will strain the 256 MB capacity. Because only 256 MB is available, texture-heavy workloads will run out of storage space before the bus width becomes the sole constraint. The 128-bit bus and 8.000 GB/s bandwidth are consistent with the card’s DirectX 9.0-era target, but they leave little room for high-resolution rendering. No other memory type is listed, and no wider bus is recorded. The memory subsystem is one of the clearest bottlenecks for this part.

Who Should Consider It

This card is suited to a narrow set of use cases. The API list of DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0 means it can run software from that API generation, while the lack of Vulkan support rules out applications that require a more modern API. The absence of RT cores and tensor cores excludes ray-traced rendering and tensor-based compute workloads. Builders looking to populate a legacy system with a PCIe 1.0 x16 slot and a single-slot card may find the physical fit simple. The 200 W suggested PSU figure indicates a modest overall power requirement, although no TDP is recorded.

The memory configuration points to conservative settings. With 256 MB of DDR2 and 8.000 GB/s bandwidth, users should keep resolution and texture complexity low. The 1.600 GPixel/s and 1.600 GTexel/s fill rates define the output ceiling, while the memory subsystem will constrain how quickly data can be delivered to the 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs. The display outputs — one DVI, one VGA, and one S-Video — make this card usable with analog monitors and older display devices. The production status is end-of-life, so it is not a current retail product. The release date of 2005-06-30 places it firmly in the early PCIe era, and the architecture generation is R300. For users maintaining a period-appropriate DirectX 9.0 system, the card can operate within its hardware limits. For users expecting high-resolution performance, modern API support, ray tracing, or tensor processing, this card is not the right match. The 50th percentile rank is the only comparative data point, and because the benchmark array is empty, it should not be interpreted as a measured performance advantage.

How It Compares

The data set includes no nearestRivals entries, so there are no rival names, scores, or deltaPct values to report. This means a direct product-by-product comparison cannot be made from the record. The only comparative context is the 50th percentile rank against all GPUs in the database, alongside the 0 aggregate benchmark score. Without rival data, the 50th percentile has no supporting deltaPct values to confirm why the card sits at that position.

The product lineage does list a predecessor, Radeon R200, and a successor, Radeon R400 AGP. No benchmark scores are recorded for either product, so their relative standing cannot be quantified. The Radeon R200 is the earlier generation in the data, and Radeon R400 AGP is the listed successor, but no performance numbers accompany those entries. The architecture generation is R300, with the chip identified as RV370. The absence of nearestRivals is the defining limitation of the comparison section: the card cannot be placed against specific competitors in this database. The 0 aggregate benchmark score and the 50th percentile are the only ranking signals, and they are not backed by rival deltas. In short, the available data locates the card chronologically between Radeon R200 and Radeon R400 AGP, but it provides no numerical comparison to any named rival.