Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti Review: Bridging The Budget Gap

Features
By Don Woligroski
published

Nvidia has a sizable gap in its product line between the GeForce GTS 450 and the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB. The company is filling that gap with an all-new card called the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. Is this product a worthy competitor for AMD's Radeon HD 5770?

Benchmark Results: H.A.W.X. 2

H.A.W.X. 2 is an interesting title for us to test because of the controversy surrounding it. Nvidia suggests that the level of tessellation in the game is appropriate, while AMD counters that it is set to unnecessarily high levels in order to show a GeForce advantage.

We’ve decided to play with this one a little bit by forcing a specific tessellation level in the Radeon 5770 driver. We set it to 4x, an amount that we feel delivers the same visual experience as the application setting. Admittedly, we’ve set this level after casually watching the benchmark—no screenshots were taken to objectively measure the difference in tessellation—but from this perspective we think the visual quality is comparable during a real-world game play situation.

Will the lowered tessellation launch the Radeon HD 5770 into new heights of performance?

Not at all. The slight difference in frame rate doesn’t even push the Radeon HD 5770 to GeForce GTX 450 performance levels. It certainly does seem that this title favors GeForce cards. H.A.W.X. 2 is an actual game title and not a synthetic benchmark, so the result is valid.

Don Woligroski
112 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hardcore_gamer
    It consumes more power than the 6850, which is significantly faster.
    Reply
  • Pherule
    192-bit, good move there.
    Reply
  • AMD_pitbull
    So, when is the release date on this? Or is it going to be another paper launch by the green team?
    Reply
  • zooted
    So it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    The far superior, less power consuming 6850 is available for only $10 more..This card is pointless
    Reply
  • scook9
    zootedSo it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?To cost a lot clearly lol
    Reply
  • dark_lord69
    "On par with the 4870"
    "The MSRP of the new card is $149"
    Well.. in that case I'll stick with my 4870 that I bought for $80.
    Reply
  • sithtis
    zootedSo it consumes more power, and is louder than the 460 768, yet performs just about on par with the 5770? What was the point of this card?
    God i was thinking exactly the same... whats the point of that. a 460 768 cost around 140 and less noise less power better performance... i really really dont get it?

    6850 or 460 768 are the cards to get... here in Canada you can get a 5770 for less than 100$
    Reply
  • K2N hater
    @Don

    How about the minimal FPS? Any substantial change on FPS once all eye-candy settings are enabled?
    Reply
  • cleeve
    K2N hater@DonHow about the minimal FPS? Any substantial change on FPS once all eye-candy settings are enabled?
    Minimum FPS readings should be there for most of the games we've benched.

    As for adding eye-candy settings, not sure that makes sense for this class of card as it might push FPS down to unpleasant levels.
    Reply