Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti Review: Bridging The Budget Gap

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zooted

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So it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?
 

scook9

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[citation][nom]zooted[/nom]So it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?[/citation]
To cost a lot clearly lol
 

sithtis

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[citation][nom]zooted[/nom]So it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?[/citation]

God i was thinking exactly the same... whats the point of that. a 460 768 cost around 140 and less noise less power better performance... i really really dont get it?

6850 or 460 768 are the cards to get... here in Canada you can get a 5770 for less than 100$
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]K2N hater[/nom]@DonHow about the minimal FPS? Any substantial change on FPS once all eye-candy settings are enabled?[/citation]

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.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]AMD_pitbull[/nom]So, when is the release date on this? Or is it going to be another paper launch by the green team?[/citation]

Looks like they're for sale on NewEgg right now.
 
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Guest

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Btw ... from what I gather its 5 - 7 % better than the 5770 but costs about 30% more than the 5770 ... i dont think that its worth it !
 

cleeve

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[citation][nom]zooted[/nom]So it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?[/citation]

To be fair, we only had factory overclocked cards to test for power readings as we said in the article. having said that, chances are a reference GTX 550 Ti would have pushed 80 watts in our load test. 25 watts isn't a big deal, really. Assuming you live in a place with high electricity rates like 16 cents/killowatt hour, we're talking a difference of 0.4 cents per hour of gaming between the 5770 and GTX 550 Ti. That's under a gaming load, at idle the difference would be infinitesimal.

As far as noise, all of the cards have about the same nominal levels. under load the Zotac is as loud as the 5770, the MSI is a bit louder but as we mentioned in the article the MSI cooler doesn't get that loud during regular operation, and keeps the GPU a lot cooler. Also, the GTS 450 shares the same cooler as the GTX 550 Ti reference card, and it's quite quiet.

In any case, it's not as cut and dry as you might think by simply glancing at the charts.
 

cleeve

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[citation][nom]ignanik[/nom]Btw ... from what I gather its 5 - 7 % better than the 5770 but costs about 30% more than the 5770 ... i dont think that its worth it ![/citation]

Absolutely right!

However, this often changes to fit the market after unreasonably high launch pricing. If the 550 Ti falls to within $10 of Radeon 5770 pricing it'd be viable.

That's obviously not the case yet, though, and the Radeon 5770 is easily a better buy at $125 right now.
 

zooted

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[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Absolutely right! However, this often changes to fit the market after unreasonably high launch pricing. If the 550 Ti falls to within $10 of Radeon 5770 pricing it'd be viable. That's obviously not the case yet, though, and the Radeon 5770 is easily a better buy at $125 right now.[/citation] The thing is, it was supposed to bridge the gap between the 460 and the 5770, but it performs way too close to the 5770 side of the spectrum.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]zooted[/nom]The thing is, it was supposed to bridge the gap between the 460 and the 5770, but it performs way too close to the 5770 side of the spectrum.[/citation]

To me, the point is price/performance. There's not really bad cards anymore, just bad prices.

Launch pricing usually sucks, but the bottom line is if it settles close to the 5770 it's good, and if it costs close to a GTX 460 768MB its not. :)
 

cyrusfox

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[citation][nom]sithtis[/nom]God i was thinking exactly the same... whats the point of that. a 460 768 cost around 140 and less noise less power better performance... i really really dont get it?6850 or 460 768 are the cards to get... here in Canada you can get a 5770 for less than 100$[/citation]

Yep, read anands review, pretty much said the same thing. 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.
 
my guess is in 4-6 weeks, teh 550 will be about $125-130, and will be competitive at that price.

right now the 450 is priced about like a 460SE, and performs similarly (the SE would pull ahead at 1920x1080 res, or with AA enabled because its wider memory bus (256 vs 192) and all same-speed RAM.
 

verbalizer

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this is my second look at the GTX 550 Ti.
I may have a better opinion than the first time I read about it but it's not by much...
summary:
still not that overly impressed, give me the 460 768mb version instead.
 

rohitbaran

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[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Absolutely right! However, this often changes to fit the market after unreasonably high launch pricing. If the 550 Ti falls to within $10 of Radeon 5770 pricing it'd be viable. That's obviously not the case yet, though, and the Radeon 5770 is easily a better buy at $125 right now.[/citation]
5770 is available for $110 on some sites.
 
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Guest

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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. The cards used are Overclocked variants, whereas the HD5770 is a stock model (bias more?), and from what can be seen, the HD5770 still seems to be pushing ahead of the GTX550 even though it's an older card and significantly cheaper if picked up second hand. Can anyone tell me one logical reason WHY this card would be bought over the HD5770 other than clear fanboyism?
 
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