AMD has just announced the Radeon HD 4550 and Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards and it looks like AMD really wanted to turn up the heat on Nvidia in the entry-level market with these two new cards.

Both the Radeon HD 4550 and 4350 has double the amount of Stream processors (80) and texture units (8) compared to the Radeon HD 3470 and 3450, which they will be replacing over time, although neither card comes close to the Radeon HD 4650, both of which have 320 Stream processors and 16 texture units.

The stock clock speeds of the Radeon HD 4550 will be 600MHz for the GPU and 800MHz (1,600MHz effectively) for the DDR3 memory, although the 64-bit memory interface will be somewhat limiting. The Radeon HD 4350 will have the GPU clocked at the same speed but it will use slower DDR2 memory clocked at 500MHz (1,000MHz effectively). The Radeon HD 4550 will initially be available in 512MB and 256MB SKUs and the Radeon HD 4350 in 256MB SKUs, but we can see partners going beyond this.

The really interesting part is AMD's pricing, as the Radeon HD 4550 is expected to retail for around US$59 for a 512MB card, while the Radeon HD 4350 will go for a mere $39, albeit with half the memory. However, with the Radeon HD 4650 going for around $69, the Radeon HD 4550 could be in for a hard retail sale, although we're sure a lot of AMD's partners will be happy to have more choices.

Those looking for an affordable HTPC graphics card to use with an older motherboard that lacks HDMI output, then the Radeon HD 4350 looks like a bargain option and as both cards support UVD, there shouldn't be any problems playing back HD video even on a fairly basic PC.

Power consumption is another interesting thing, as AMD claims that neither card will draw more than 20W under full load, which is pretty decent for a desktop graphics card. Expect to see cards from all the usual suspects and we'd expect most of AMD's partners to announce products later today.

You can find AMD's press release here.

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