MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone OC Video Card Review

Introduction

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the latest addition to the GeForce GTX 500 series from NVIDIA, coming with a nice USD 150 suggested price, putting it between the GeForce GTS 450 and the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB. The MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone OC comes with a custom GPU cooler and factory-overclocking, costing only USD 5 above the reference model. Let’s check it out.

In the table below we compare the main specs of the video cards included in our review. They are all DirectX 11 parts. The prices listed below do not include rebates. With them, the price of the Radeon HD 5830 drops to between USD 130 and USD 145, and the price of the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB drops to between USD 130 and USD 140. Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review, except for the GeForce GTX 550 cards, that we are publishing the suggested prices according to NVIDIA and MSI.

Video Card	Core Clock	Shader Clock	Memory Clock (Real)	Memory Clock (Effective)	Memory Interface	Memory Transfer Rate	Memory	Shaders	Price
GeForce GTS 450	783 MHz	1,566 MHz	900 MHz	3.6 GHz	128-bit	57.7 GB/s	1 GB GDDR5	192	USD 110 – USD 140
GeForce GTX 460 768 MB	675 MHz	1,350 MHz	900 MHz	3.6 GHz	192-bit	86.4 GB/s	768 MB GDDR5	336	USD 150 – 170
GeForce GTX 550 Ti	900 MHz	1,800 MHz	1,025 MHz	4.1 GHz	192-bit	98.4 GB/s	1 GB GDDR5	192	USD 150
MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone OC	950 MHz	1,900 MHz	1,075 MHz	4.3 GHz	192-bit	103.2 GB/s	1 GB GDDR5	192	USD 155
Radeon HD 5830	800 MHz	800 MHz	1 GHz	4 GHz	256-bit	128 GB/s	1 GB GDDR5	1,120	USD 156 – USD 175

You can compare the specs of these video cards with other video cards by taking a look at our AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table and NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table tutorials.

NVIDIA is targeting this video card to users playing at 1680×1050 and this will be the resolution we will be using in our review.

Now let’s take an in-depth look at the MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone OC.

Introduction

Contents