ASRock Launches Radeon rx 550 low profile ,e Card Based on 7 Years Old Architecture

AsRock AMD RX 550 Low Profile – Earlier this week another odd news yet once again surfaced on the AMD side where ASRock introduced a low profile GPU setup for AMD’s 7 years old graphics card the RX 550 LP; LP is an abbreviation for Low Profile. 

What is a low profile GPU? An LP GPU is a set model graphics card that is designed for smaller form factor computers where size really matters. It also more than likely does not feature the capability to take an external power source; which most of the time results in inferior performance compared to its “full size” counterpart as a compromise.

The original design for RX 550 features 512 stream processors that are built on GCN 4.0 and was offered in 2GB or 4GB GDDR5 VRAM variants. ASRock’s LP build opts for the 4GB configuration only.

Size-wise, ASRock’s RX 550 LP is approximately 17 cm in length and 13.1 cm in width with a dual fan configuration that can be turned off when not under load. In addition, it also comes with a simple rear panel configuration which is one HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.4 that supports up to 5120 x 2880 60Hz but in reality, aside from casual browsing or working use, the RX 550 might not be the best option for such resolution.

AMD Radeon RX 550 Low Profile Specification

• Graphics Engine: AMD Radeon RX 550
• Bus Standard: PCI® Express 3.0 x8
• DirectX: 12 Ultimate
• OpenGL: 4.5
• Memory: GDDR5 4GB
• Engine Clock: Up to 1100Mhz
• Stream Processors: 512
• Memory Clock: 6Gbps
• Memory Interface: 128-bit
• Resolution: Digital Max Resolution: 5120 x 2880 @ 60Hz
• Interface:
  • 1 x HDMI™ 2.0
  • 1 x DisplayPort™ 1.4
• HDCP: Yes
• Multi-view: 2
• Accessories:
  • 1 x Quick Installation Guide
  • 1 x Full Height Bracket
• Dimension: 169.58 x 130.89 x 42.05 mm
• Net Weight: 260 g

Bottom line

One of AMD’s older Polaris lineup has somehow made a return in 2024 with ASRock (re)introducing the RX 550 as a Low Profile GPU. The RX 550 LP only comes with a 4GB variant and dual fan configuration.

Pricing-wise, it should realistically fill in the sub $100 price range considering how old the architecture is. And speaking of architecture, it might be best to consider lineups from its newer siblings instead as AMD has been shifting its official driver support from Polaris to RDNA and RDNA2.