SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4550 DirectX 10.1 100252HDMI 512MB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

Pros: First let me say I'm not a gamer so don't read this thinking it's about gaming. This card installed into my Win7 x64 system extremely easily. The motherboard had ATI HD3450 video embedded graphics already which kept the machine rating at a 3.4. After installing this card (and using the same Win7 beta drivers) the machine scored a 4.8. The extra horsepower is VERY noticable when using Photoshop or editing video files. Since this card is fanless it contribute NO noise at all. It also came with 2 low profile brackets. One for DVI/HDMI and one that only offers DVI.

Cons: None really. Being fanless you'll want to install it in a case that already has good cooling. That's about the worst thing I can say so far. Oh wait, I forgot. The heat sink is mostly on the front side of the card, but there is a small portion on the back side so if the PCI-e slot on that backside needs all the rom it won't fit. Are either of these really a con? Not for me.

Overall Review: At $29 shipped after MIR rebate and email promo discount this thing is a no-brainer. As of June 2009 the current ATI Win7 x64 v9.5 Beta drivers are pretty stable. I'm pretty happy with this card

Pros: Fan less heat sink. Its quiet. The thing pumps out more performance than i had ever imagined, and it wasn't even intended to be as powerful as it it. Bought it just do display a picture and watch HD content on my PC. I was just toying around and installed Unreal Tournament 3. At 1280x1024 with details set to 1 or 2 the game flies! Its not what the card was intended for me to do, but its pretty cool to know how much it handles for the price i payed

Cons: Gets kinda warm. Needs adequate case fan airflow.

Overall Review: I would buy it again if i was doing a similar build.

Pros: Bought this for use in an HTPC ouputting to 1080p over HDMI. I am using a 32" Vizio TV. The picture and the sound worked right out of the box after drivers were installed (fresh ones from the website), although windows recognized it and used default drivers until the correct ones were installed. Everything worked great, except the picture was slightly blurry from either the TV or the graphics card resizing the image over HDMI, like it wasn't native resolution, althought he TV and the graphics card oth were ouputting 1080p resolution. I tried the RGB connector and it was clear as native resolution. I ended up returning the card and using the onboard video RGB connector.

Cons: Two minor design flaws are present: 1. The RGB connector is too high int he riser. When it's plugged in properly it is almost impossible to remove from the slot because as you lift the card straight up (to disconnect it from the MB), the RGB connector hits the case about 2mm up. I would up disconnecting the RGB connector fro the riser just to remove the card 2. The HDMI female connector is not centered in the riser. When you plug in the cable the male end hits the slot and does not get plugged in all the way. I hope I'm explaining that correctly. It still makes a connection albeiet a loose one.

Overall Review: Would have been 5 stars if not for those two blaring design errors in the placement of the RGB and HDMI females. (was not counting the trouble with the TV as I believe it was a problem with the TV)

Pros: Excellent Performance in HP Slimline s3300f. Ended up buying an additional unit for a second HP Slimline s3300f. The HD4550 employs an oversized heatsink and has no fan, so no noise. Exceptional image quality for text, photographs, video, and movies, but I am not a gammer, so I cannot address that feature.

Cons: Runs warm, 72degrees centigrade, so I added a 12 volt 40 mm fan to chasis case with silicon attachment pins, directly across from HD4550 heatsink, and set it to run at 5 volts instead of 12 volts, so no noise and a 36 degree temperature drop.

Overall Review: The board draws 25 watts at full load, and has HDMI, DVI, & D-Sub connections. A great product for driving 2048 x1152 high density/high resolution monitors:Samsung 2343BWK. Do not use fan pinout on video card, unless an ATI fan for that board is used, else too much current draw, and the board may be damage. I draw current from a 4 pin molex.

Pros: I replaced a previous gfx card in my HTPC with this one as it had double the throughput of the previous one. Due to the fact that I use a shuttle I do not have room for a graphics card with a fan on it. I was able to get this card working almost immediately on Windows XP MCE. I uninstalled the previous version of CCC that I had and installed the newest version FROM THE ATI WEBSITE (I left the old gfx card driver intact incase I need to switch it back in). I did NOT touch the driver disk that came with the card. After installing the new version of CCC I rebooted and the card worked immediately with HDMI, audio included. Install time was about 20 minutes (I did some additional fiddling). For those having trouble with installation make sure you run windows updates, this is required to get HDMI working as MS released several driver updates to allow windows to properly handle HDMI and audio. If you have a cracked version of windows, you're out of luck.

Cons: Unfortuantely CCC cannot detect the card temperature, most likely because Sapphire did not include a thermometer on the card, this would have been very nice as my card is not only in a bad position for air flow but also I do some intensive stuff with it so I would like notice if it overheats. My case runs a bit warmer but considering its a Shuttle, idling at 40C is acceptable.

Overall Review: For the price, it is well worth it to get. Installation was simple if your OS is up to date.

Pros: Plays games like Bioshock, Prey, Oblivion, COH, Mass Effect, Portal surprisingly well although I am not gonna quote framerates. If you are the type of person going to install Fraps and are interested in actual FPS in these games, you probably aren't going to like this card. Its not slow, more like what I would call adequate. I average, depending on the game, a resolution of 1280x960 and medium settings. Its pretty close to buttery smooth, maybe a quick hitch or lag every now and then. No fan, no noise whatsoever. I have found that fanless cards sometimes are so quiet that you can hear the circuitry which defeats the purpose of fanless, but nothing like that from this present card. My whole aim for this card was not for a HTPC, I have an older HP laptop for that. But I have to say that the video is gorgeous with .MKV x264 encoded with handbrake. Have not tried Blu-ray yet but I'll get to it. Does not add a lot of heat to the case, I am guessing that it uses ~18 watts

Cons: Clocks are 600 core 750 mem, which is different than advertised, but easily fixed with the ATI driver. Had a little trouble setting this up with a specific Viewsonic vx2035wm 16x10 20 inch LCD. As soon as the driver loaded then the display would report no signal at 1680x1050 under DVI. I would have to reboot and then it would be fine as long as the analog was used. Booting into safe mode worked fine under DVI, but not with the proper loaded driver. Very weird but as soon as I plugged up my 4:3 Samsung, it was smooth sailing under DVI. It is undoubtedly a monitor/display driver problem, and it needs to be fixed, but I liked my samsung better anyway. This card would run so much better with more bandwidth, so if you are to overclock, start with the ram. This card kind of reminds me of a Chevy Aveo with a V6 in it. Plenty of power, really small wheels. I think if they were to put a 128-bit memory bus on this card, there would be no reason for the 4650.

Overall Review: My whole philosophy regarding computers is efficiency. Of course a 9600 gt gets much better performance per watt of power, but in terms of absolute efficiency this card rocks. It is about as powerful as a 6800 gt or a 7600 gs in older games and as good or better than a 7600 gt in newer games. I consider this true progress when we have more performance for less power. A decent mild gaming card and a superb media card all for 18 watts max. All in all Daddy likes.... My build is SFF using an XFX 630i mobo, 4GB crucial ddr2, an intel core 2 duo E7300 @ 1.6 Ghz passively cooled and at less than 1 volt, My trusty Chaintech AV710 Envy 24GT Antec TruPower 430 Ultra Microfly black SFF case Sapphire 4550 @ 600/850

Pros: Smooth playback of all files tested so far. Got this for my HTPC, so it will handle mainly movies. I have the DVI going to a 720p DLP projector and a 110" screen, and the dsub to a small lcd monitor for times when I don't want to turn the projector on. Using spdif out of the motherboard, so I can't comment on HDMI, but I assume it will be there when I need it!

Cons: Failed to install the latest catalyst drivers with vista ultimate, but it works fine with the included driver cd.

Overall Review: Doing my homework, I realized that I would need something a little beefier than onboard video with 780g + athlon 64 x2 5050e for dvd and hd playback. I've thrown a lot at it and haven't seen a hiccup yet.

Pros: FAST delivery from newegg.com Low cost for good graphics card. Silent running. Works in Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit without a single bump. Haven't tried any games with it yet, but it plays netflix, etc without a bump either.

Cons: Gets hot. Make sure you have a case that moves the air out of the guts of your puter in a rapid, quiet, and timely manner.

Overall Review: Used this in my wifes new computer I just built for Her. Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit, picked it up, installed the drivers, and bingo! I have not used the included CD, and don't have any need to. I generally don't use those ATI CD's. I usually get drivers from trusted online sources, or as in the case of Windows 7, download directly from it's massive data base of various drivers.