Nvidia Geforce GTX 550 ti 1gb vs 3gb

[80sogre]

Hi,
I've just bought GTX 550 ti 3gb to upgrade from gt 430. all the reviews i read only seem to refer to 550 ti 1gb type. can anybody tell me the pros and cons of the 3gb version and what would it be comparative with ?

 

[lakshitharxx]

There won't be much difference between 1GB and 3Gb if you are not in a very high resolution..

P.S - I have never heard about 3GB GTX 550 ti.. 😀

 

[de5_Roy]

is your card like this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Club3D-GTX550-3072MB-PCI-E-HDMI/dp/B005GLXX5C/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331381840&sr=8-1-fkmr2
difference: not much.
imo, pros:
vram intensive apps will benefit ever so slightly from the extra gbs of vram.
might come in handy in sli if microstuttering is not a major issue.
decent upgrade from a gt 430.
low end physx, cuda, 3d vision card.
... can't come up with anything else atm.
cons:
gpu will likely choke long before being able to properly use 3 gb of vram. current more powerful gpu like 7970 properly uses 3 gb vram.
extra vram increases power consumption.
3 gb cards are usually costlier than 1 gb ones.
lower price, performance, efficiency ratios.
possibly get outperformed by a radeon hd 6790 or a 6850.

 

[80sogre]

thanks for taking the time to answer,
cheers

 

[80sogre]

thanks, i'm running windows 7 on an AMD phenom 2 840 x4@3.2. just upgraded from 4 gb of ram to 16. plus the gtx 550 ti 3gb card as mentioned.
will the 16 gb of ram make much difference ? i'll mainly be using this pc for blender and stop motion model animation.
i saw it written the 550 is not a gaming card so what is it good for ?

 

[de5_Roy]

for rendering, the ram upgrade should help.
nvidia released the 550ti to compete against amd's radeon hd 5770 and 6770. nvidia needed a replacement for their older gts 450.
i wouldn't call it a gaming card, but it can play games at 1650x1080 resolution over 30 fps. it can handle some games at 1920x1080 resolution.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-550-ti-gf116-radeon-hd-5770,2892.html

 

[80sogre]

Thanks again

 

[80sogre]

Best answer selected by 80sogre.