MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Cyclone OC Review – GF116 Sees Daylight

Testing Configurations and System Setup

The new GeForce GTX 550 Ti card is going to be pitted up against some of the most recent competition to hit this $150 price point.  While NVIDIA was eager to show the performance gains over the GTS 450, you won’t find that card in our round up today.  Why?  You can find those for $89 after rebates making them WELL outside the realm of competition with this new offering.  We EXPECT the GTX 550 Ti to be faster than the GTS 450 and if it isn’t, NVIDIA has some other issues.

Instead, this is what our lineup will look like:

• NV GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Reference – $149
• MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Cyclone OC – $159
• AMD Radeon HD 5770 1GB – $129
• NV GeForce GTX 460 768 MB – $149
  

Does the new GTX 550 Ti have what it takes to best these other offerings?  And what about maybe the even more powerful Radeon HD 6850 1GB cards that you can pick up for only $10-20 more?

Here is our test system setup for the benchmarks:

• Testing Configuration
• ASUS P6X58D Premium Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-965 @ 3.33 GHz Processor
• 3 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1333 MHz Memory
• Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB HDD
• Corsair Professional Series 1200w PSU
• Benchmarks used: 3DMark Vantage, Unigine Heaven v2.1, Metro 2033, Lost Planet 2, Civilization V, F1 2010, Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2, 3DMark11