An entry- level graphics card with good technical specifications for 2011 - this is all about the NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. The characteristics of this accelerator indicate that it is based on a slightly redesigned GTS 450 adapter . This is the adapter five years ago that will be discussed in the future.
Video accelerator niche
As noted earlier, NVidia's GeForce GTX 550 Ti belonged to entry-level gaming products. The characteristics of the technical specifications of this product indicate that it could pull most game applications at the time of release, but with far from maximum settings. Now this device is much better in performance than integrated video cards. However, this adapter certainly will not be able to compete with the latest accelerators of the last several generations of entry-level. Therefore, the list of tasks that this accelerator can handle is limited by the following software: office applications, video playback, web surfing on the Internet. And even the average three-year-old toys in terms of requirements in this case also go quite well.
Technical specifications for the graphics processing subsystem
GF116 is the code symbol for the graphics chip underlying the NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. The characteristics of this silicon solution indicate that it is manufactured according to the standards of 40 Nm of the technological process, and the chip core operates at a frequency of 900 MHz. The total number of shader processing modules in this device is 192, and their frequency is 1800 MHz. The number of TMUs is set at 32. on each conveyor. The ROPs in the GTX 550Ti are 24.
In turn, the software specifications of this product indicate support for DX version 11.0 and OpenGL with serial number 4.1. This graphic solution is aimed at installing in the expansion slot PCI-Express 16X. Its specifications must comply with version 2.0.
Thermal conditions, possible and maximum temperature values, accelerator power
At 116 W, the power consumption of the NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti is claimed. The connection characteristics of this accelerator indicate that it needs to additionally connect a separate six-pin contact from the power supply. This solution will compensate for the excess of standard for PCI-E 75 watts and supplement the missing 41 watts in the power supply system of the graphics adapter. The maximum temperature for this graphics accelerator is set to 100 0 C. In combination with a standard cooling system and even when solving the most demanding graphics specifications for the hardware specifications, the temperature of this accelerator does not exceed 70-75 0 C. The minimum allowable power supply for the PC equipped with such an accelerator is 400 watts.
Video memory
Only the same amount of RAM can be found on the NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti - 1 Gb graphics adapters. And only one standard is GDDR 5 . As a result, the graphics accelerators of this series cannot differ significantly in the speed of the memory subsystem. The clock frequency of the RAM chips is 4104 MHz. Another important feature of such a device is the capacity of the hardware interface for exchanging information with RAM is 192 bits. In this parameter, as in the type of memory chips, it does not lose anything to modern entry-level video cards and even outperforms integrated graphics adapters. The bandwidth of RAM is set at 98 Gb / s.
Competing Solutions
The main competitor was the Radeon HD5770 for the NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. The reviews , in turn, indicate that the solution from AMD was in most cases even more productive, although it was released much earlier. For example, in the same BulletStorm with high settings and image resolution of 1680 px x 1050 px, the HD5770 could produce 35-41 fps, and the GTX 550Ti - 29-35 fps.
The situation with the NVidia product in Crysis: Warhead is slightly better . With the same high settings and the same resolution of the displayed image, the representative of the "green" company could issue 18-24 fps, and the AMD solution - 19-25 fps. Of course, total dominance was not on the side of the HD5770, but in most 2011 gaming applications it was he who was ahead of his more recent competitor.
Cost today
At the moment, in an entirely new state, such accelerators are no longer available. They have long been discontinued, and stocks from warehouses are sold out. If you still need to buy such an accelerator, even in a used state, you need to pay attention to various trading platforms on the Internet. Today, for 2,400-3,000 rubles, you can become the proud owner of an NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti.
The characteristic of the technical parameters of this accelerator indicates that such a cost is entirely true. Owner reviews highlight the type of memory used in the framework of this device and the capacity of the physical RAM interface. It is due to these two significant advantages that this accelerator still outperforms integrated video cards in terms of performance.
Summary
In 2011, a kind of ticket to the world of gaming applications was the entry-level graphics adapter NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. Its characteristics at the moment are definitely not relevant, but nevertheless it can still cope with most of the modern least demanding tasks.