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I purchased a Dell Inspiron computer a couple of years ago for general household use with no plans to use it for gaming. However, I couldn't resist buying Starcraft II and Skyrim, so I bought this card as well to upgrade my computer.
The price of the card alone is impressive, since this is a mid level card which I was able to buy for under $100 (Amazon was running a special, so I think the normal price is $110 or so). This is probably the cheapest card available as of this review that will run modern computer games on the highest graphics settings.
Installation was very easy; it took about 10 minutes to open the case and put the card into the PCI-e x16 slot on my motherboard, and another 5 minutes to install the drivers which EVGA ships with the card. However, please note that this card requires a power supply rated at least 400 watts, and which has a 12 volt rail that can deliver 20 amps (one of those cords with a 6 pin connector). If, like me, you are upgrading a general purpose computer, you may have to upgrade your power supply at the same time.
The 550's real world performance was surprisingly good. In Starcraft II, I put all the graphics options on "Ultra" settings at a 1920x1080 resolution, which would usually be a tough job for a $100 graphics card. This Geforce card, however, never complained or dropped below 45 frames per second, and averaged around 60 fps. That's more than enough performance for a casual game player or casual video editor. As with the power supply, you should be aware that many games or video editing tasks will require a CPU that can match your graphics card, so your results may not be as good as mine if you have a low end CPU in your computer.
The one aspect of this card that I was most apprehensive about was overheating. I had heard some horror stories from people who had damaged their new graphics card by installing it into a computer that didn't have enough ventilation. My card never got above 74 degrees Celsius after an hour at 100% usage, and I have case with only one vent and fan. So while overheating is definitely not a problem, the flip side is that the card has a very large heatsink covered by a plastic case, and a powerful fan. The heatsink makes the card so large that it covers a second PCI slot, which shouldn't be a problem unless you are using three or four PCI cards for some reason. Slightly more annoying is the fan, which can get loud when the card is under a heavy load. I didn't think the fan noise was bad enough to deduct a star, but more sensitive users might disagree.
Lastly, if you use MSI Afterburner, you have plenty of control over the card. I normally don't overclock anything in my computer, but out of curiosity I did overclock the 550 by 10% for a little while before putting it back to normal. Overclocking took about 5 seconds with Afterburner, and you can even change the core voltage of the card with just a couple of clicks (only do that if you really know what you're doing!). During the short time while I had my card overclocked, everything seemed to work quite well. Of course, if you are changing your card's settings, there are no guarantees, but overclocking enthusiasts will find this card very easy to mess with. Even if you have no interest in overclocking, you can still use Afterburner to slow down the speed of the fan and make the card quieter; if you haven't changed any other settings on the card it should be no problem to slow down the fan speed a little.
Well, this review rambled on longer than I meant it to, so let me sum up: this card is quite cheap considering the performance it delivers, it's easy to install and use, and it is very good at everything that an average video card buyer would want to do. I unreservedly recommend the GTX 550 ti to anyone looking for a middle-of-the-road graphics card.
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This Item  EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti FPB 1024 MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 2DVI/Mini-HDMI SLI Ready Graphics Card, 01G-P3-1556-KR | Recommendations  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | $119.00 | -6% $65.99 Typical: $69.99 | $39.99 | -5% $37.99 List: $39.79 | $59.99 |
| Delivery | — | — | Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 7 | Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 7 | Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 7 | Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 7 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | — | Mojombos | Qthree-LeCheng | GLORTO STORE | Sxhlsellon | GLORTO STORE |
| graphics coprocessor | Nvidia GeForce | Nvidia GeForce | NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 | NVIDIA | NVIDIA GeForce GT610 | NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 |
| card interface | pci e | pci e | pci e x16 | pci e x16 | pci e x16 | pci e x16 |
| graphics ram type | gddr5 | ddr2 sdram | ddr3 sdram | gddr3 | ddr3 sdram | gddr3 |
| graphics ram size | 1 GB | 1 GB | 4 GB | — | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| output interface | DVI, HDMI | DVI | DVI, HDMI, VGA | DVI, VGA, HDMI | VGA | HDMI, VGA |
| memory clock speed | 4356 MHz | 800 MHz | 1334 MHz | 500 MHz | 600 MHz | 500 MHz |
| gpu clock speed | 951 MHz | 550 MHz | 700 MHz | 589 MHz | 600 MHz | 700 MHz |
| display resolution | 2560x1600 | 2560x1600 | 1920x1080,2560x1440 | 2560x1600 | 2560x1600 | 2560x1600 |
| fan count | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| GPU manufacturer | NVIDIA | NVIDIA | NVIDIA | NVIDIA | NVIDIA | NVIDIA |
Product information
| Product Dimensions | 12 x 1.97 x 8 inches |
|---|---|
| Item Weight | 2 pounds |
| ASIN | B004S5CCP4 |
| Item model number | 01G-P3-1556-KR |
| Customer Reviews |
4.2 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank |
|
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | March 7, 2011 |
| Manufacturer | EVGA |
| Language | English |
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2012
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- George DavidReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2012
Great card for the buck
