After careful consideration I have decided to transfer all hardware review activities to a new domain. I purchased Hardwareasylum.com in 2012 and have been working hard to build a new and improved Ninjalane on that domain. If you are reading this you have reached one of the archived articles, news, projects and/or reviews that were left behind during the site migration.
Please update your bookmarks and be sure to visit the new and improved Ninjalane at Hardwareasylum.com
EVGA GeForce GTX550 Ti FBP Video Card Review and SLI Performance
Author: Will West
Published: Friday, March 25, 2011
Conclusion
We found ourselves reconsidering our feelings for the GTX 550Ti after using the EVGA GTX 550Ti FPB. The biggest reason is the small, yet effective, overclock that gave us the overall performance we expected from the GTX 550Ti in the first place. Then to see the EVGA GTX550 Ti FPB able to handle an even higher overclock really makes this card worthwhile to look at for a general purpose computer and budget gaming rig.
When mentioning budget for a video card we tend to only consider performance of the card and not the overall value of software and extra goodies. EVGA has gone the extra mile and included some great overclocking software so increase card clocks and also test that those clocks are stable enough for gameplay.
With EVGA you also get the value associated with their online community, game server access and 3DMark 11 benchmark included with each GTX 550 Ti video card purchase, clearly an excellent value for the budget gamer.
In this review we looked at not only the EVGA GTX 550 Ti but the performance associated with running two of these cards in SLI. As our performance charts had shown in most cases we saw a 2x performance increase over a single card which often rivaled the faster GTX 560 Ti. While we don't expect many budget gamers to take the SLI upgrade path it is available and is an excellent way to get more from your system long after the initial system build.
When mentioning budget for a video card we tend to only consider performance of the card and not the overall value of software and extra goodies. EVGA has gone the extra mile and included some great overclocking software so increase card clocks and also test that those clocks are stable enough for gameplay.
With EVGA you also get the value associated with their online community, game server access and 3DMark 11 benchmark included with each GTX 550 Ti video card purchase, clearly an excellent value for the budget gamer.
In this review we looked at not only the EVGA GTX 550 Ti but the performance associated with running two of these cards in SLI. As our performance charts had shown in most cases we saw a 2x performance increase over a single card which often rivaled the faster GTX 560 Ti. While we don't expect many budget gamers to take the SLI upgrade path it is available and is an excellent way to get more from your system long after the initial system build.
Good Things
Incredible value in software
Lots of overclocking potential
The right kind of performance for the GTX550 Ti
EVGA great community and gaming support
Factory overclocked goodness
Lots of overclocking potential
The right kind of performance for the GTX550 Ti
EVGA great community and gaming support
Factory overclocked goodness
Bad Things
Lack of a Mini-HDMI adapter
EVGA GeForce GTX550 Ti FBP Video Card Review and SLI Performance
Furious 5 of 5
http://www.hardwareasylum.com
