Re: looking for video card with best HDMI picture

I’m guessing a bit on the performance of the 5550 vs the 5670.  I know for certain that the 5670 will have all the bells and whistles enabled by default in the drivers, but the 5550 last time I checked (when they first came out) didn’t have all the best settings checked by default in the drivers even though it was capable of the same quality when forced.

There is an option called smooth video in the drivers.  Checking that box will set the card to disable post processing options that the engineers think it can’t handle.  At the time of the review I saw (which was so long ago I can’t find the review anymore), only the 5670 and higher weren’t disabling any post processing with smooth video checked.  Unchecking smooth video allows  you to set the options manually and the 5550 with DDR3 was capable of all the same post processing.  The reviewer thought that it was just an oversight and thought that the engineers would enable all the post processing on the 5550 as well. 

Ah, I found it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3601/the-final-word-on-the-best-radeon-htpc-card

The 5550 is very similar to the 5570.