EVGA GTX 550ti Review + Benchmarks

[OnCue]

Back in 2011 when I first built my computer I had a budget of ~$100 to spend on a graphics card, and the one that happened to fall into that price bracket was the EVGA GTX 550ti. After upgrading to a 7950 last year, followed by an R9 290 this year, this card has pretty much been sitting in a box under my bed. Yesterday I broke it out and decided to see how it stacks up at 1080p in some titles from the last few years. 

 

The EVGA 550ti is built around the GF116 GPU on the 40nm manufacturing process and comes equip with 1gb of VRAM on a 192 bit bus, along with a clock speed of 952mhz (which I have overclocked to a modest 1066mhz.) 

 

 

Here are some pictures I took at the beginning of this year for the classifieds (I have since cleaned it, but I'm too lazy to take it out of the system).

   

 

I am actually amazed to see how efficient this GPU is. For it's power, I never see the temperature go above 65*C. Compared to my R9 290 which can run at upwards of 90*C, and my 7950 that stays around ~75. As you can see, this is the GPU at 99% load, with a temperature of a mere 35 *C! This is with the overclock and overvolting, and the fan speed at a nearly inaudible 40%. It can get up to ~65* when playing really demanding games, or when the fan speed is turned down to 30. 

As you saw in some of the pictures, the card uses a single 92mm fan on a 'flower-style' heatsink.  

 

 Call of Duty 4:

1080p, 4x AA. Shadows on. Specular map on. Depth of Field on. Glow on. Soften smoke edges on. Ragdoll on. Bullet impacts on. Model detail normal. Water detail normal.

-Max Card Temp 65 degrees C

-Min FPS 38

-Max FPS 110

-Avg FPS 69.38

 

 

Bioshock:

1080p, Graphics Quality: High (Vsync enabled by default   )

-Max Card Temp 62 degrees C

-Min FPS 44

-Max FPS 61

-Avg 59.725

 

 

Bioshock 2:

1080p, Vsync off, Shadow maps on. DX10 mode on. Graphics Quality: High. Actor Detail: High. Texture Detail: High. High detail post processing on.

-Max Card Temp 65 degrees C

-Min FPS 28

-Max FPS 167

-Avg 104.81

 

 

Assassin's Creed 3:

1080p, Environment Quality: High. Texture quality: Normal. Antialiasing: Normal. Shadow Quality: High.

-Max Card Temp 66 degrees C

-Min FPS 39

-Max FPS 62

-Avg 53.992

 

 

Dead Island

1080p, Vsync off. Texture quality: High. Shadows: High. Shadow Map Size: 1024. Foliage quality: High. FX Quality: High

-Max Card Temp 65 degrees C

-Min FPS 47

-Max FPS 88

-Avg 67.08

 

 

Far Cry 3

1080p, Vsync off. DX11 mode. MSAA off. SSAO. Textures: High. Ambient lighting: Medium. Shadow: Medium. Post FX: High. Geometry: High. Vegetation: High. Water: Medium. Environment: High

-Max Card Temp 65 degrees C

-Min FPS 22

-Max FPS 48

-Avg 35

 

 

TF2

1080p, Vsync off. Model detail: High. Texture detail: Very high. Shader detail: High. Water detail: Reflect all. Shadow Detail: High. Antialiasing 4x MSAA. Filtering mode: Anisotropic 16x. Motion blur off.

-Max Card Temp 67 degrees C

-Min FPS 75

-Max FPS 96

-Avg 85

 

 

Insurgency

1080p, Highest settings, 4xMSAA, AF 4X

-Min FPS 37

-Max FPS 110

-Avg 51.6

 

 

Minecraft

1080p all highest settings, Fancy graphics

-Min FPS 77

-Max FPS 388

-Avg 199

 

 

Battlefield 3

1080p, High Preset

-Min FPS 28

-Max FPS 43

-Avg 35

 

 

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

1080p, Textures- medium/high, Motion blur off, Dynamic shadows-off

-Min FPS 32

-Max FPS 58

-Avg 38

 

 

And there you go, the GTX 550ti is a pretty capable card on older games, and since you can pick them up for ~$40 on ebay, they seem to be a pretty good deal, but obviously it doesn't compare with something like an R9 290, or even a 750ti for that matter. 

[LemonSpice]

 

interesting not that many people do this great idea

[LemonSpice]

Also change text color to default please since night theme doesn't work with that text color

[OnCue]

Also change text color to default please since night theme doesn't work with that text color

Got it, thanks

[LemonSpice]

Great

[Darkman]

You know, it's sad since a 560ti? is slightly faster and better all around than my HD7770.

Great review, I like it.

[Imabigmac]

You know, it's sad since a 560ti? is slightly faster and better all around than my HD7770.

Great review, I like it.

I originally had 7770 with my prebuilt, I believe the 7770 was more on par with Gtx 560 non ti. I throw it back into my rig to test mantle and bf4 when mantle was released and well I got barely playable 30fps with mega drops on low. I was really sad and that was 1080p didn't even try 1440p.

[Darkman]

I originally had 7770 with my prebuilt, I believe the 7770 was more on par with Gtx 560 non ti. I throw it back into my rig to test mantle and bf4 when mantle was released and well I got barely playable 30fps with mega drops on low. I was really sad and that was 1080p didn't even try 1440p.

Really? I run BF3 (Don't have BF4.. ) and when I was using my i5 650 (first gen, and slowest i5 for desktops) I ran high without AA at 40-60FPS..

[ViruZ_HUN]

I got a GTX 550 ti refference:D

[Imabigmac]

Really? I run BF3 (Don't have BF4.. ) and when I was using my i5 650 (first gen, and slowest i5 for desktops) I ran high without AA at 40-60FPS..

Bf3 is what I started playing with The 7770 and it would be okay on medium with some AA, but bf4 destroyed it.

[Darkman]

Bf3 is what I started playing with The 7770 and it would be okay on medium with some AA, but bf4 destroyed it.

I don't like AA, it's the cause of flickering shadows and sometimes weird light flicker in games.. Some games like ETS2 don't have the issue.

[WillFromGA]

Damn, this gives me the idea of doing a 660 review. 

[Ruostunut kokis]

I remember I could play BF3 on my Asus GTX 550 Ti DirectCU on all the settings at the max, AA off, 1280x720 (monitor limitation, still applies for me btw).

 

The fan speed never gone above 40% for some reason, but it wasn't too loud (significantly quieter than my 590's fan. It's almost like reference 7970's fan... A jet engine). Temps stayed bellow 78°C at all times, with only exception being playing Blacklight: Retribution; it brought the temps to max 84°C. Not even benchmarking programs could've gotten the temps to the same level. Odd...

 

I paid too much for the 550 Ti at the time (100€, while I could've gotten it for under 70€), but it was my first gaming-level card. Not the best, but it was good enough for me. I still have it as a back-up card in case my 590 suddenly goes kaput.

[WillFromGA]

Also, I like how you formated this out. 

[harrynowl]

not three bad

 

I have some 9600GTs I'd like to do an SLI review for at some point, just busy and first thing is my cpu showdown

[OnCue]

Also, I like how you formated this out. 

Thanks I pretty much just figured out how spoilers worked so I wanted to try them out

[OnCue]

not three bad

 

I have some 9600GTs I'd like to do an SLI review for at some point, just busy and first thing is my cpu showdown

I'm excited to see that! I love old graphics card reviews for some reason, they're just really cool pieces of tech.

[OnCue]

I remember I could play BF3 on my Asus GTX 550 Ti DirectCU on all the settings at the max, AA off, 1280x720 (monitor limitation, still applies for me btw).

 

The fan speed never gone above 40% for some reason, but it wasn't too loud (significantly quieter than my 590's fan. It's almost like reference 7970's fan... A jet engine). Temps stayed bellow 78°C at all times, with only exception being playing Blacklight: Retribution; it brought the temps to max 84°C. Not even benchmarking programs could've gotten the temps to the same level. Odd...

 

I paid too much for the 550 Ti at the time (100€, while I could've gotten it for under 70€), but it was my first gaming-level card. Not the best, but it was good enough for me. I still have it as a back-up card in case my 590 suddenly goes kaput.

When I was first buying mine I had the choice between the EVGA and the ASUS, and I really picked the EVGA on looks, as you can see from the picture of my old system I wasn't great at color coordination :wacko: And 720p is kind of the sweet spot for a card like this, it even said on the box "recommended for a resolution of 1680x1050".

[OnCue]

I got a GTX 550 ti refference:D

Welcome to the club I love the fermi cards!

[harrynowl]

I'm excited to see that! I love old graphics card reviews for some reason, they're just really cool pieces of tech.

unfortunately the only board I have that can SLI has serious issues with quad cores (680i sli).

[TheHairyGoldfish]

Bf3 is what I started playing with The 7770 and it would be okay on medium with some AA, but bf4 destroyed it.

Really? I currently have an ASUS gtx 550ti and it handles relatively new games surprisingly well. Playing BF4 on medium graphics (1600x900) i would usually be getting 60FPS, sometimes 70 sometimes 40.

 

but recently the FPS has started to drop suddenly, and i also want to play Farcry 4, BF hardline & unity (which i foolishly pre ordered), so yesterday i bought a zotac 970 on amazon. 

[Ruostunut kokis]

Really? I currently have an ASUS gtx 550ti and it handles relatively new games surprisingly well. Playing BF4 on medium graphics (1600x900) i would usually be getting 60FPS, sometimes 70 sometimes 40.

 

but recently the FPS has started to drop suddenly, and i also want to play Farcry 4, BF hardline & unity (which i foolishly pre ordered), so yesterday i bought a zotac 970 on amazon. 

GTX 550 Ti's are nothing amazing nowadays, but seeing that you can find second-hand 550 Ti's for around 40 - 70€, you can get a surprising amount of power for a relatively low price.

[EllieThePurpleFuzzy]

I have a ASUS 550ti in my family PC :] and it's as lovely and reliable as a video card i've ever used~, ^w^. rad friend it be. sure it doesnt have the BIG GRAB THE TESTICLES RAW HORSEPOWER as like a HD 7990/R9 295X2 has but, for just being quiet and nice and happy...nothing much beats it.

[Nathaniel Vazquez]

I know this is a little late, but is this card able to use Physx?

[Ruostunut kokis]

I know this is a little late, but is this card able to use Physx?

It should. Didn't bother to check anywhere else but my Asus GTX 550Ti's box, and according to the box it is PhysX capable.