Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti Review: Bridging The Budget Gap

[falchard]

The 6850 ranges between $160~$200. So even though its only $10 for significantly better performance, its still considered in another price bracket.

Honestly, this review makes it appear nVidia bought a bunch of AMD GPUs then sold them as rebranded nVidia GPUs since the performance is so similar.

 

[nerrawg]

Good review of the card, however I would be more critical about its future. Both the 6850 and 6870 launched last year as replacements for the 5700 series cards and the only reason that the price hasn't dropped to $100-120 for the 6850 and $150-170 for the 6870 is the complete lack of competition from NVidia at these price ranges. If there was better competition there is no doubt that vendors could sell the cards at those prices and the production costs are not prohibitive.

Sadly for us as consumers the competition is the 550 TI: a card that epitomises the cliche too little too late. It barely bests the former generation 5770 and 4870s, and strangely enough Nvidia has castrated it to the point were there is quite a performance gap between it and the next card up the gen, the 560 TI. In fact the mid range 460, 6850 and 6870 all fall in between this gap - so where is the pressure on AMD? 3 genreations of '50 series, GTS 250, GTS 450 and 550 TI - where is the increase in performance? In 3 generations the performance has only bridged the gap between 4850 and 4870 performance!!! Where is the innovation.

Sorry for the rant but as an informed consumer I am very disappointed in this lack of progression by NVidia and I hope they get there act together. Until then I am going to postpone my GPU purchases as the last setup I bought was 2 x 4850 is crossfire for £140 ($200) over 2 years ago and the price performance (bar DX11) still is barely contested.

 

[saikyan]

They should have discontinued the mediocre GTS 450 and replaced it with this at $130. As it is there are few reasons to get this over a cheaper, proven 5770.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]cyrusfox[/nom]Tom seems like you may be giving Nvidia a little too much leeway with this lackluster offering. 550 would make a great choice if it was $30-$50 cheaper. As it stands. it is a horrible offering and much better cards are available at that price.[/citation]

How are we giving too much away? Our value conclusion mirrors what you've just said: "Launch pricing is always high, but the point is if the GeForce GTX 550 Ti sticker settles close to the Radeon HD 5770, it’s a good buy. If it’s priced closer to the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB, it’s going to have a tough time"

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]nerrawg[/nom]Both the 6850 and 6870 launched last year as replacements for the 5700 series cards and the only reason that the price hasn't dropped to $100-120 for the 6850 and $150-170 for the 6870 is the complete lack of competition from NVidia at these price ranges.[/citation]

Not quite correct: AMD said the 6800 series was made to replace the 5850 space. They made it clear the 5700 series will fight the $100-$200 battle for the forseeable future as they do what's needed in this price range.

There is no 6x00 series card on the near horizon to replace them. It may well be that they will stay in the channel until a 7000-series replacement is available.

 

[K2N hater]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Minimum FPS readings should be there for most of the games we've benched.As for adding eye-candy settings, not sure that makes sense for this class of card as it might push FPS down to unpleasant levels.[/citation]
Thanks for the reply.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]impiiety[/nom]This review makes me laugh, the games where the HD5770 outmatch the new GTX 550-ti are instantly shot down by the fact that they're AMD featured, whereas games like Aliens vs Predator where the GTX550 does indeed beat the HD5770, there is lack of information regarding the fact that it is an Nvidia favored game.[/citation]

Your response is probably causing more laughter than this review--Rebellion's AvP was developed with AMD as a partner. AMD has pushed this game as a benchmark since it was released as one of the first Dx11 titles. Calling it an Nvidia-favored game is ludicrous.

 

[KT_WASP]

I have a sinking feeling that Nvidia may EOL the GTX 460 768MB cards prematurely in order to get the money they are looking for with these cards. I mean, a MSI twin frozr OC edition of the 460 768MB retails at $150 right now with a rebate that brings it down to $130. I don't see how an informred consumer would even consider a 550ti at this time at that price point(Guess Nvidia is counting on the uninformed buyer?).

There are some other sites that show reference (stock) 550ti's against the HD 5770 and they pretty much are within a couple of frames per second depending on the game... HD 5770 winning some, 550ti winning others. One site reported that the Asus DirectCU version of the 550 ti is slated for a launch price of $170.... thats insane.

I think this is a case of.... and rightly stated by the author... Good card, bad price. Which is too bad really, because launching a card at a price where other, better performance cards, reside is a sure way to put a damper on the whole deal.

If Nvidia's launch price was $115-$120, then I would think there would be much more positive to talk about.. but this pricing just smoothers all else.

 

[silverblue]

This review makes the 5770 look more and more solid. It performs only slightly worse than the 550 Ti on average and uses a fair amount less power to do so. As mentioned before, the 550 Ti is priced far too closely to the 6850 to make it viable. Had NVIDIA put it squarely in the middle, that would've been much more sensible. Unfortunately, it's likely that AMD will cut prices on the 68xx cards and thus negate the 550 and 460 series entirely. As you pointed out, the lopsidedness of memory on those three memory controllers might even be reducing performance unnecessarily to the point that, in my opinion, a 128-bit bus would've made more sense and cost less. SLi doesn't look bad, though.

It's probably just as well that you didn't throw the 6850 in, really...

 

[yyk71200]

Why so expensive? I got my 460 768MB from local Fry's when my HD4850 died about two month ago for 149.99 and then got $20 mail in rebate.

 

[rolli59]

As a competition to the HD5770 is it not a little late?

 

[cknobman]

Your pricing is completely wrong for the 5570. You can get one right now for $119 and even $99 after rebate.

Kinda makes the 550 look like over priced junk.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Your pricing is completely wrong for the 5570. You can get one right now for $119 and even $99 after rebate.Kinda makes the 550 look like over priced junk.[/citation]

$5 off is 'completely wrong'? Are we being a little melodramatic maybe?

We try not to take rebates into account. You still have to shell out the cash.

 

[verbalizer]

Your pricing is completely wrong for the 5570. You can get one right now for $119 and even $99 after rebate.

Kinda makes the 550 look like over priced junk.

ooops, you mean HD5770 and not the HD5570.
I'll take that as a typo.

 

[frederico]

Thorough review but far too lenient on the price issue. Too many "ifs". Graphics card reviews are going to get annoying if they give every card a positive review "if the price drops".. which basically can be said for every graphics card ever made.. except maybe the ATI 2900

 

[_Pez_]

I still see that my Ati HD 5770 is great and very efficient ! I might get another one to crossfirex for cheap and perfomance. this article was awesome.

 

[Guest]

@ impiiety:"...The cards used are Overclocked variants, whereas the HD5770 is a stock model (bias more?)..."

It says very plainly in the text just before the list of benchmarks etc that as they had only the factory-overclocked models, they underclocked them to the reference card's speed. Perhaps the bias is in your head?

FAIL by you.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]frederico[/nom]Thorough review but far too lenient on the price issue. Too many "ifs".[/citation]

I totally disagree. The 'if' is the crux of the matter.

We all know pricing changes on a daily basis when it comes to graphics cards, and launch pricing especially is usually inflated.

The card is fine. If the price lowers, would it be a bad buy? of course not! The MSRP sucks, but who are we kidding? The 5770 MSRP is $150, too, and you can buy them for below $120. So the real question is, what is the price when you buy? And will the market push it down to 5770 levels?

Plain and simple, this card is good if priced close to the 5770: and plain and simple, it's bad if it's priced close to 460 768MB.

That's all there is to it. The 'if' is crucial. And the recommendation may change over time.

 

[Onus]

One big benchmark anomaly I've observed recently is Civilization V. I'd like to see that one included, because it looks like nVidia cards are totally blowing out AMD cards in that particular game; makes me hope there's a driver fix upcoming for AMD that will take care of it.

 

[shineon2010]

Bad Pricing and power hungry, pass on this.....

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]rolli59[/nom]As a competition to the HD5770 is it not a little late?[/citation]
This is common. You have to remember that at any given time there are pockets in each companies lineup that receive no direct competition from the other. For a period of time AMD had no direct competition for the GTX460's, but they did have cards positioned directly above and below. In a similar way Nvidia has the GTX460 positioned above and the GTS450 positioned below, but up until the GTX550Ti nothing directly competing with the HD5770.

However, I agree with others. The GTX550Ti would be an attractive buy if the MSRP were $20 lower. $130 would be worth it in my opinion. But that's the problem with releasing a brand-new card in this price/performance segment that competes with a much older one, which already has the benefit of several price drops as well as laxed below-MSRP pricing. When a new card arrives, the MSRP is basically the lowest price you're going to find it for.

At the same time I also understand the conclusion of the reviewer. The GTX550Ti is technically sound. It's a good performer, with low load temps and quiet operation. All it needs is a little time...

 

[belardo]

LOL - this is FUNNY on so many levels.

1 - The "State of the art" 550 Ti (Total idiot) card is 0~5% faster than the the 1+ year old ATI 5770. Really, other than for reference - 1280x1024 scores are useless for todays monitors. $120~140 means buying a 20" 1920x1080 monitor, $160~200 is a 21~22" model. I'm missing the 1920x1200 since its not so bloody narrow. I'd love to see a 26~27" that does 2560 x 1600 on the market.

So when comparing the results for 1920x1080, which is a STANDARD for today. The 550 is sometimes 0~3fps faster, sometimes slower.

2 - Price!? The 5770 is easily 1/3rd cheaper going for $100~125 vs, $150~160.

3 - Overclock.. Might as well compare an OC 5770...

4 - ATI 6850... it should have been included in this benchmark since its in the same price range. Newegg as them for $150~180 ($160 avg). It would really show what people are paying for. The 6850 is about 10fps faster than the 5770/GF550

5 - GF 460-768 price is $130~160.. again, about 10fps faster than the GF550. But oh yeah, the 550 replaces the older and faster card. hate it when that hapens!

6 - Stupid model names!? GeForce was given to the series. So WTF is GFX good for? If the 550 is almost the bottom end... why not GTS like the GTS 450 or GTS 250? There is no consistency. It doesn't donate feature sets.
"TI" okay... What is the difference between a TI and a NON TI card? Oh yeah, the letters on the box and in bios, nothing else. Why bother?

We know Nivdia will most likely skip the 600 series (What happened to the 300s?) so they too can be "7s" with ATI. So well we see:
Nvidia GeForce GT 720 mx
Nvidia Geforce GTS 740 Pro
Nvidia Geforce GTX 780 Ultra

The Geforce 550 or "GF550" is ALL we need to know what the product is.

Think I'll hold on to my ATI 4670 until the ATI 7670 comes out...

 

[buzznut]

And the naming schemes just keep getting worse. Good thing we have Tom's to sort out the relative power of these cards. I believe this is really deceiving to the general public, a GTX 550 Titanium sounds faster than a GTX 460. AMD did the same thing with 6850 and 6870, producing cards that were slower than the 5850/5870. These companies should be ashamed for using these deceptive tactics to sell hardware.

 

[spentshells]

These are overclocked cards against a stock 5770
up the clocks on the 5770 and it nullifies all of the results.

 

[cleeve]

These are overclocked cards against a stock 5770
up the clocks on the 5770 and it nullifies all of the results.

***NO***

This is incorrect.

Read the test setup and benchmarks section.
An overclocked card was underclocked to reference specifications to get the 550 Ti results.

The difference the factory overclock makes is highlighted on the overclocked page results.