GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) vs. GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi)

The GTX460(1GB) is notably faster; the GTX550 will sell only by virtue of it's GTX5xx heritage, despite it's substandard performance. IMO, the GTX550 should be an $89 card given it's performance.

thanks a lot im glad i started using this site to buy my parts otherwise i'd probly have gone with the 550

The molex adapter should be fine.
This HD5830 is both much cheaper than the GTX 550 Ti and about 15% faster at high resolutions as well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Or this HD5850 is the same price and nearly 50% faster than the 550, 10-15% faster than the GTX 460.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/ite...

I personally would snatch up the 5850 that is going for $140 or so. If you want to stay with nvidia for any reason then gtx 460 hands down however current gen cards do require a lot more care and attention to stay alive for any length of time longer than a few months due to quality concerns.

so what like i'd have to buy a graphics card fan ?

and i wanted to get those cards because i have an SLI motherboard, sorry about that.

eventually i plan on getting a second one. but now im starting to think maybe its not worth doing idk

Amazing ho9w people act when it comes to cards. If you are not comfortable then go ahead with the gtx 550ti as it's needs are less than that of the gtx 460 but do not offer the performance for the dollar. Sli later maybe maybe not as sli is more demanding than a single card setup.

i have a 750w power supply so i have the PSU to support an SLI setup, that's all i was saying. i've never used SLI so i dont know how much more effective it is or if it's even worth it to buy a card thats SLI capable versus just buying a better card. if you had that setup with a 750w + SLI mobo which card would you pick up?

What motherboard is in your system?

if i were you i'd take 5850 jyjjy listed, it has damn good value, probably best on market right now, and performance.

A pair of GTX560's, oh wait I did!  

2 460s or 560s in SLI would be a nice combo. SLI works great. I had a 5850 crossfire setup for around a year and various driver issues with each driver release.

I finally got fed up after the February driver release and the AMD driver team still hadn't fixed issues with BFBC2 (the game had been out almost a year!).

After going to SLI (late Feb 2011) with no driver issues and great performance, it will take a lot of convincing for me to go back to AMD cards any time soon. SLI just works as advertised.

And in some cases, better.