Winners
Thanks to everyone for entering this competition, it’s been hard choosing between the heart felt pleas and the humourous requests for an upgrade. It’s a shame it had to be whittled down to just five as I could easily have picked 10 or more of you.
However, five is the magic number in this instance, so please ladies and gentlement, put your hands together for our winners:
Steve Q
ET3D
Curis Golen
Jordan
Balazs
I hope you all provided legitemate email addresses with your entries. I’ve sent out confirmation emails of your win(s). Please send over your addresses and I’ll get the prizes out to you as soon as possible.
As to the rest of you, thank you once again for entering. We hope to have another competition soon so watch this space.
Update: This competition is now closed
Are you desperate for a GPU upgrade? Still languishing with a 2XXX series ATI card? perhaps an 8 series nVidia? Well, today HIS and XSR are here to help. While we don’t have anything monumentally powerful up for grabs we do have 5 GPUs to give away. That’s right, 5 opportunities to win a monstrous, passively cooled HIS 5550 1GB edition. Yea man. Now we’re playing with power.
Jokes aside, these passively cooled cards have a decent ammount of memory, they support DX11 and with their passive cooling, would be great for a media centre of HTPC.
So what do you need to do to win one of these cards? Simple.
1: “Like” us and our kind sponsors on Facebook using the buttons below.
2: Post here, stating the reason you need an upgrade so badly, you want a 1GB passively cooled 5550.
As long as you do the above 2 things, you’re in. This competition will run from 3 weeks starting today, culminating on the 24th of November. The winners will be those who post the most, creative or legitemate reason for needing one of these cards. Perhaps your own GPU is too old? Perhaps your PC is broken without a new card? Whatever the reason, post it here and we’ll select the top 5 answers to win one of these fine GPUs.
i need an upgrade because my laptop has just died and i want to build a pc but money is tight
Well… The main reason is that I have Geforce 8800GT, which is quite old. Another reason is that it’s passively cooled – my current card works on around 60dB, I believe, therefore I cannot play any games when my family members are at home – we live in one room, and with that – I could do it.
Have you ever been sat there playing games on a nice HD 22″ monitor, with all your nice sounding and feeling peripherals… but you have to turn everything to low. All the time. On pretty much every game.
Being a student it’s pretty hard to get a nice graphics card. Well, whilst still being able to eat. So stuck with an 8 series nVidia card that is around 5 years old, I think I should win a nice shiney ATI card so I can buy and play newer games and play older games the way they are meant to look.
(Note; this current GPU won’t even run BFBC2 at native resolution )
Please help. I like to eat and I like to game. I just can’t do both!
I want to win cause i need a powerfull quiet upgrade from my current 8600GT
My graphics card has sadly died, so looking for a new one :(
Well simply put, I’m a gamer, yet I do not have the power needed to play…
I’m currently running on a nVidia GeForce 9600M GT, and I agree it isn’t bad, and I’m sure I could have worse, but knowing what I have now, go back and read the first sentence… hopefully I’m not the only one seeing the problem.
And while I may not have to best system to use the HIS 5550 to its fullest, it would certainly give me a hand in raising my fps level in certain games.
Thanks a lot to XSReview and HIS for this competition, and I wish the best of luck to the other participants.
I don’t need one but hoped I could win for my sister. Majority of the time she’s playin HoN, on a ATI 1800xt and several times I visited her I was asking if it’s some kind of Nintendo EMU-rom game she’s playing, those times really makes me nostalgic and thinking about getting a NES!
And yes, there’s really a girl playin in the HoN community and she’s badass!
I try to play from time to time but it`s not a very good experience as i play with onboard video. A HIS 5550 would be great for me i could really see some details here and there. Could help me game properly!
I have an old pc which is used by my wife for her work,we only use the motherboard graphics, and although its okay for the work she does… When she is having a break, she can’t watch BBC iplayer because its too jerky/keeps hanging.
I would like to get something better for her, and winning this comp would mean we could go out for a meal, instead of going to amazon!
Thanks for reading this sob story.
Our Dell PC came with HD 4350 which is absolutely useless these days. An upgrade is urgently required!
Hi, i would really need a new graphics card because my PC is very old, i bought it in 2007 and i’m now in the last year of high school and next year i would like to study at a university computers and 3D design but my buget is low and i can’t buy a new graphics card.
And of course trying some new games would not be bad.
to keep long story short, i spent nearly all my funds to build a media center. well it’s quite nice and silent now, but hell, if i can get those passive cooled beast 5550 it will help to play some games too. that would be really nice. so i hope i have some luck to win it. :)
good luck to other participant too! :)
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra FTW!!!!
But seriously, I really need to upgrade my video card, aside with my pentium4 2.8Ghz
i want this card as i am on onboard graphics and want to play battlefield 3.
My old love, an ATI 9600XT is badly weak now. When it sees the actual games (like BF3, Crysis) I hope that it’s heart won’t broke!
An upgrade from an Inno3d 9400GT with a crappy noisy fan will be a blessing
I upgraded everthing but ran out of money when i got to the Gpu.. my gtx7800 just does not cut it anymore…..help
I would love to win a passively cooled HIS 5550.
I bought the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle when it was released a few months ago, only to find out later that the bundled games would only work with AMD/Nvidia graphics.
And that’s the problem, I’m running integrated Intel graphics so I can’t play any of those games and that’s my reason for entering this competition (thanks for making it worldwide too).
i have an integrated X300 gpu that can run nfs:most wanted very good but nfs:carbon isnt that fast , if this card can do the same and run nfs:carbon fast it will be cool .
In my main rig back home I’m still running a 7900GT. But thing is I don’t have money to upgrade to something a bit more efficient. After all that thing is such a power hog.
I need an upgrade because my 8800gt died of age and now i had no money so i am stuck with igp hd 3200wich feeds from 533 mhz memory its pure pain for any gaming.
If i win or not thanks anyway for doing this.
I have my little cousin that likes gaming but ho is stuck with a 9500gt which he can play games only on 640×480 and he gets very sad sometimes. He is just 13 and I would like to make him a present. I have been a HIS fan since 9200 times.
Please help me give him a new year present.
Thank you! :D
My sister owns a PC with and old IGP and she likes to edit her movies and her PC cant handle HD movies so this GPU would really help her out. Thanks for this contest
The plastic pins holding the heat sink onto my old Radeon x1550 melted and came out a few weeks ago, so now I have a couple of rubber bands holding it on. I have to take it off every few days to replace the toothpaste I’m using as TIM as it dries out, but I keep breaking the bands since baking them makes them brittle. Soon I’m going to run out of rubber bands and have to go back to my Intel GMA 900 graphics.
I am a gamer too gaetan. But you are luckier than me because you have a 9600GT. I have an XFX 9400GT. I could have gotten a beeter one for the same price if I had just waited for a couple of weeks. Frankly, I can’t even play Crysis 2 on 800×600 and with gamer settings without lagging.
Anyway XSReviews, I’m not begging for this GPU because I have already won something for you. I’m here to show some support for XSReviews. Though it would be great to get a new GPU.
Actually, I can’t play anything, my computer will just shut down from overheating… I haven’t found any solution :/
I like this videocard for upgrade, because is silent!
And is powerfull for my needs.
I desperately need a new card currently running at GTX 8800 paired with a Phenom II X2 550 on a motherboard that will only support upto ddr2 1066. Have you priced out ddr2 these days?
I want the card for my wife-she still uses a Riva TNT or a Ati Rage card(I have to open the case and look)!
She can finally play games, watch videos, surf the web the way I do.
I am building a computer for my sisters high school. She goes to a small school that has little money for computer and do not have the skill set to build there own. I am planing to build a computer for there art department but I only have a ati 1300 almost anything would help.
I need a passively cooled 5550, a card slower than almost any 8800, because I’m a major movie buff who doesn’t play games, and my four EVGA GTX580 Classifieds are just two noisy. I have to turn up the volume so loud that the neighbours complain and my movie experience is ruined.
I really want this GPU because i am running on a 9700M GT and need parts for a new computer so i don’t miss out on all the new epic games.
I need This Card As A Gift To My Fiancee For Her Low End Gaming PC.
Currently stuck with two 8800GT’s, one of which I revived by baking it in the oven… These things run loud and hot. Was hoping to have DX11 support and the ability to easily run in my monitor’s native resolution.
I would like to upgrade my gpu, because my current gpu is integrated into the MB (Ati x1250) and it drains from the Ram, is verry slow, doesn’t accelerate HD content. Plus I would be happy to be able to play some basic games from time to time and I’m AMD fan :) cheers, Hristo from Bulgaria
I need an upgrade for my htpc. I think this is one of the best gpu at all for this solution. I hope i will win because this gpu is just perfect for my htpc!
I desperate need an upgrade…
http://i41.tinypic.com/33jibfn.jpg
since this is a passive cooling HD550 this would be perfect for my ITX-HTPC project. it’s silent and fast decoding perfect for silent HTPC.
since this is a passive cooling HD5550 this would be perfect for my ITX-HTPC project. it’s silent and fast decoding perfect for silent HTPC.
My reason is the same as many others out there. I am not any more deserving than the rest, but I still want to win as much as everyone else. I currently have a HD4650 in my do everything rig. My plan is to upgrade this when I can afford an HD6850, and move this to my HTPC which currently sports the integrated graphics from an AsRock 780 series motherboard. It would be nicer though to have a passive graphics card in the HTPC, that way I could play games on it as well.
I want one of the cards becuase with my actualy computer i only can play minecraft in low settings
why did you guys erased my comment? :(
ok, im planing to upgrade my retro web pc ( someday) and this card looks perfect for the job!
now im using…
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/upgradeg.jpg/
Basically I’ve been fiddling around trying to scrape together a HTPC-build, this would definitely be the kick I need to actually get it done! :)
I currently own ATI X1950 which was a good card about 5 years ago by now is’t barely hanging in there. An upgrade to HIS 5550 would be a great addition to a new system build that is way way overdue.
For the last 5 years I have been using my original 8800GTX. I had never before built a computer, and I had decided that with the advent of DX10 I would go all out and spend my savings (college part time job) on building the most up to date rig at that time. For the last 5 years my card has weathered several moves from state to state, tons of new games played are decreasingly lower settings, and numerous upgrades of the parts around it. Part of me does not want to ever get rid of this card, but an equally large part of me would love to be able to play the newest games at semi-decent settings. XSR and HiS please help a poor graduate student out by upgrading his card. My old 8800 is experiencing age related effects like constant high temps and an inability to do 2 or more graphics intensive processes at once (no video and games simultaneously). Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely, Poor Graduate student Rosh
I’m currently living with my sister to save money. I won a Gigabyte HD5850 in May and had planned to use it in my first ever build for later this year/early next year. Instead, I installed it on my sister’s computer, which just had onboard graphics, so that I could play games and watch HD movies. I already have quite a few components for my build so when I finally get the rest, I’m going to takeout the HD5850. This would leave my sister with just the onboard graphics. If I won the passively cooled HIS 5550 1GB edition, then I would give it to my sister to be used in her computer. She’s not a gamer so this card would work just fine for her. Thanks!
I need an upgrade so bad ! Because my 11 year old computer is so slow (pentium4 2.0GHZ). I can not paly any complicated games and have to wait so long for open my facebook or any other page. and movies are so bad i would like to watch the bluray. I am so frustrated.
I need a powerful graphics card as we have some problem with our central heating system and winter is coming…
Getting this card would mean life to me! Lemme tell you why.
My sister is a movie addict who used to watch all her (and not-my-type) movies on ‘MY’ PC(‘P’ here stands for ‘Public’ :/ )
So we started saving money for building an htpc.Everything was fine, got a 42″ screen with a decent system.But that was not enough.I hadn’t thought of getting a decent GPU for running Blue Ray movies.But i was pennyless, so was her.
Then, I had to make the sacrifice.Did I mention that I had a quadcore with GTX 275 ? I switched my PC with her’s so that she wouldn’t be disappointed.I still couldn’t play games while she’s watching movies.Now I’m saving money to get her a decent card, so that I can have ‘MY’ PC back in my room.
Its like having a gaming rig near you, but can’t get your hands on whenever you want to!
Now, winning this contest would mean something,don’t ye think ?
Good Luck to all.
I need an upgrade because my GPU is playing up (has faint lines running down the screen for some reason when playing games) and Skyrim comes out on Friday!! Also with Bioshock Infinite and Arkham City on my list I want to be able to run these games to the max!
In addition to my last comment, I am a piss poor student!
Well, am in for the competition. If i get the card i win, else i will win next time.
My VGA onboard is Ati HD3200 ,it not support DX 11 in win 7 .
I need upgrade VGA for HTPC, mini game … And passively cooled HIS 5550 1GB edition is best choice for me.
My parents recently died in a freak auto-correct accident. Some guy who was texting and driving stopped to ask directions, and after he drove away a missle struck where my parents stood. Can anyone tell me why the heck the iPhone contains a code for a surgical air strike??
They were dirt poor, my parents, but they loved me very much, and after they died I learned that my father had prepared a special gift for my 23rd and a half birthday (a special occasion which has been celebrated in our family for generations, though nobody knows why). He knew I wanted an HTPC but couldn’t afford one, so he spent the last couple of years building an HTPC case out of sawdust and spit (well, I hope it’s spit).
The case is a work of art, and I would like to honour his memory by using it, but I still lack the funds to create the HTPC I want out of it. A low profile card such as the HIS 5550 would go long way towards fulfilling this vision.
As with many, I also do not necessarily deserve this card, however, I desperately need it. The current system that it would be going into is an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ based system, with 2GB DDR400 RAM and an onboard Nvidia 6200 PCI-E GPU, with a physical PCI-E x16 slot available for a dedicated GPU. It’s what I’ve been trying to get set up as my family’s media center rig for the last few years, but simply can’t afford a GPU for it, much less a quiet one, which is necessary for it’s intended purpose.
This, at the very least, would tide me over for awhile, until such a time comes along at which I can then use this GPU in a more up-to-date system, when the opportunity were to arise.
Btw, Zotac products are just plain epic in form and function, I get all “giggity” just looking at them :)
Sorry I was talking about Zotac, lol, I saw the background image on here and it made me all “giggity”, causing a brain fart and system-wide drooling, lol. HIS GPUs are epic AMD cards as well, and I’ve used quite a few brands altogether. HIS definitely sets at the top of the pile for AMD cards, imho. Thanks for this awesome competition.
My brother’s birthday is just around the corner, I wish I could win one of these. It would be a surprise gift for him. He loves Minecraft, and this card will definitely provide better visual enhancement over the current FX5500 card.
I need to get a passively cooled HIS 5550 1GB edition for a friend of mine who is still using an ancient 8400. He is playing WOW and desperately needs a better GPU but doesn’t have the money and is too stubborn to enter one of these competitions (even this one after I told him you are giving 5 of them). He always says he doesn’t win anything and stuff, so please make him a Christmas present in the form of an awesome new GPU ^^
I’m building a full passive HTPC.
I have still to buy PSU, case and graphic adapter.
But I dont want this graphic card, pls. pass it to someone who wants to play battlefield 3 at high settings..
I want this card for my HTPC which currently chugs on with the IGP of a AMD 780 chipset based motherboard. This Radeon 5550 will be a nice upgrade to it and I need it badly. The 5550 will be quite an upgrade over my existing IGP and it will help me play games that brings my IGP to its virtual knees. It’s 1GB frame-buffer will help keep this smooth and would also enhance HD videos. Passive cooling means my setup will still be as cool running as earlier.
Hope I will win this time. Thanks.
Because the integrated x1250 in my media centre was embarrassing for the guy who had to borrow it last LAN. Trying to play games on a big TV is hard enough, let alone when you can barely run the game on low.
This 1GB passively cooled 5550 would be a great addition to my gaming HTPC.
I just play in pubs or internet cafe as we call it here for the new games that are out. I’m planning to upgrade my very old system and this giveaway would be a very big help for me budget wise.
I don’t have much time, I’m having to use some cobbled together hardware made from a toaster, a radio and a quargial ionoscope to post this message to you, I don’t know how long before it burns out. (One eyed billy from Botswana did the soldering, his skills are not what they used to be)
I’m from the future, and shit has all got real up in here! After the Social Media wars of the early 20th century, only two companies managed to fight out through the ensuing technical battle, and all computers on the planet are now controlled by Facebook and Twitter. Hell, even going to the bathroom automatically posts to Facebook with consistency and colour!
There is a small band of us who are trying to undo this, and we have most of the hardware needed to complete this, but we cant get the machine to boot, it just keeps giving us beeps telling us that there is no graphics adapter present.
We need this graphics card as a matter of urgency to prevent total world domination by facebook, and restore privacy to everyone!
Please help us, and humanity.
…END OF TRANSMISSION…
Can anyone imagine having to sell ones GPU for cash to be home for christmas back in 2010? howabout being stuck with an on-board HD4200 until now?
being an avid gamer I have games in my closet, steam account and some borrowed from friend that I have not even installed since then… its not that I don’t have the time, its just that I can’t bear the laggy framerates…
I have been trying to get a good card or a better one.. I know that the the HD5550 is not meant for gaming… but… if you could all ease my pain just a little??
Just got my 5550 today. The box is surprisingly small, but I’m happy that the card is DDR3 and not DDR2 as I thought it might be (since that’s what’s listed on the HIS site).