Both new ATI cards are derived from AMD’s 55 nm 4800 series architecture, but have substantially less capability, less features - and a much lower power consumption. The HD 4550 has 80 stream processors (compared to 800 in the 4800), which deliver about 96 (single precision) GFlops. The graphics chip runs at 600 MHz, the memory at 800 MHz. 4550 cards will be available in 256 MB and 512 MB GDDR3 configurations and offer a memory bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s. Included are a DVI to HDMI adapter as well as support for DirectX 10.1 and DVD upscaling. Prices will range from
$45 to $55, according to AMD.
AMD claims that 4550 cards will outrun Nvidia’s 9400 GT by
at least 20% in common games and deliver at least 30 fps in popular game titles such as Call of Duty 4 (1280x1024) and Devil May Cry 4 (1024x768).
The HD 4350 also comes with 80 stream processors, 256 GB of DDR2 memory and provides a memory bandwidth of 8.0 GB/s. The graphics chip is clocked at 600 MHz and the memory at 500 MHz.
Both the 4550 and 4350 are claimed to not consume more than 20 watts of power, which is not only 1/8 of the power of a 4800-series card, but also less than half of Nvidia’s 50-watt 9400 GT graphics card.
Both the 4350 and 4550 will be available from “a dozen add-in-board companies offering custom designs of the products” in October
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