Despite the low value of each individual card, the value end of the market is worth far more financially than the flagship cards. There are plenty of valid reasons to get a value card - computers for siblings, parents, or a low cost solution for HTPCs. Cheap AGP cards are a dime a dozen - the GeForce4 MX 440 has been around and there is a substantial used card market for better cards, both of which are cheap and satisfies the requirements of many of today's non-gaming or retro-gaming users. On the other hand, PCI express is too new to establish a large second hand market nor are there a lot of cheap cards out there available for purchase.That is, until now. Today we have in our hands Sapphire's X550 video card, ATi's newest entry into the value end of the video card market. Whereas the X600 family was marketed as a mid-range card, the X550 is being sold as an alternative for the X300 instead. In this gaming value segment, only the GeForce 6200 comes close in terms of pricing.
| GF6200 | X300 | X550 | X600 Pro |
Core clock (Mhz) | 300 | 325 | 400 | 400 |
Memory clock (Mhz) | 500 | 400 | 500 | 600 |
Memory interface (bit) | 128 | 64-128 | 64-128 | 128 |
Memory size (MB) | 128-256 | 128 | 128-256 | 128-256 |
At first glance, the X550 slots right in between the two cards. Be aware there are variations of the X300 and X600 families which will have slightly lower or higher clockspeeds, especially depending on the manufacturer.
