By the way, this comment software truncates messages that contain the percent sign.

Thanks for the input. Catalyst 7.x is certainly typo :-)

ATI Radeon HD 4550 came in with custom drivers from ATI and, if I am not mistaken, was not supported by official Catalyst 8.10 and 8.11 (maybe I am wrong about the 8.11).

Video game tests were run using custom drivers.
Media decoding tests of the ATI Radeon HD 4550 were run using Catalyst 8.12 WHQL drivers.

The article is aimed to show the difference between various cheap solutions, which it does.

We are working on new performance-measuring methods, though.

I would disagree that it shows a meaningful diffrence between cheap solutions when the settings do not reflect what anyone would use for this card.

You could have shown a difference between the solutions without enabling AA and AF on a card that will never be tasked with that in a real-world situation. Nobody is going to buy a 4550 for high-res ultra detail gaming, but it would have actually been useful to see if it could go the distance with minimal settings at 720p.

I would also think that various cheap solutions in the same price range would have been relevant; the 8500 GT, 8600 GT, Radeon 4650, 3650, etc...

I don't think the 4830 or 3870 have much business in a gaming bench against the 4550, but if you're going to put them in there for reference, the lowest common denominator should be the 4550's playable settings... not the 4830's.

Don't get me wrong, you did a good job on the review as a whole; But it just seems like the gaming benchmarks didn't give us any useful information. We already know the 4830 is faster and can use AA; but what we still don't know is whether or not the 4550 is a viable gaming card at basic settings.

We typically tend to show performance results with high image quality settings. At the end, it does not make a lot of sense to buy a standalone graphics card and keep low quality settings.

We will reconsider some of the methods in the forthcoming articles. But in the case of the Radeon HD 4550 relative performance this article shows that it is much slower compared to the Radeon HD 4670 despite of nearly negligible difference in price.

"At the end, it does not make a lot of sense to buy a standalone graphics card and keep low quality settings."

Well, in the case of the 4550, it makes even less sense to run it with AA and AF, because then you can't use it at all!

As far as the 4670, of course it's a better call for gamers. And don't forget the 4650, which is a great option too.

The 4550 probably draws a lot less power than either, which is nice for a cool HTPC machine though... but we still don't know how it can game in a real-world situation.

Can a 4550 game at 720p at basic settings, which are the only ones a person in their right mind would use on this card? We still don't know.

This is my only complaint, otherwise you guys did a good job and a thorough review.

We have not tested any of our graphics cards on a pure 24p display.