Reviews - Pro-Clockers! PC Reviews One MegaHertz At A Time

Introduction to the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti

The Fermi line is slowly growing for top to bottom. With the big dog currently being the GTX 580, extreme gamers can have their cake and eat it too. The GTX display levels of performance that has never been displayed in a single GPU video card before. But in order to own such a card will set you back at least $470. The series does trickle down to the GTX 560, which at $250 may or maybe be the best band for the buck but does offers good gaming qualities at a lower price point.

 But what if you wallet wants an even lower price point but don’t want to sacrifice performance? Nvidia recently released the GTX 550 Ti which can be had at $150 for a reference model. Sitting at the bottom of the Fermi series the card offers performance that surpass much of what AMD has to offer at the same pricing.

Our friends at Gigabyte released their first version along with all the other launch partners. Gigabyte did not release their based on the reference model. This card sports an overclock directly from Gigabyte and a custom cooling system. With all this card has going for itself, it just be your next card if you are working with a tighter budget.

Gigabyte’s take on the GTX 550 Ti

GV-N550OC-1GI masters the balance of overclocking ability and graphics card stability to provide gamers with a reliable gaming environment. Also, as opposed to the stereotype, GIGABYTE is able to maximize fan size to 10cm with the latest cooling design; this fan also includes a pure copper node inside. With a 10cm fan, the card is virtually silent that its noise level runs from 21.7 dBA to 28 the loudest. With these innovations, GV-N550OC-1GI runs 8.7% cooler than generic GTX 550 Fan sink.