EVGA’s GTX 550 Ti “free performance” evaluation
Test Configuration
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7 920-reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz; 21x multiplier for 3.97 GHz, Turbo is on.
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
- 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC1800 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
- GeForce GTS 450
- EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti; 1GB, at EVGA (951/2178MHz), reference (901/2180MHz) and overclocked (1030/2200MHz) clocks
- GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1.0 GB reference design and clocks (833/2004 MHz), supplied by Galaxy/Nvidia
- GeForce GTX 570, 1.2 GB reference design and clocks (732/1900 MHz), supplied by Nvidia.
- ATI Radeon HD 6950 (2GB 800/1250 MHz) supplied by AMD
- ATi Radeon HD 6870 (1GB, reference clocks, 900/1050 MHz) supplied by AMD
- Diamond Radeon HD 5870 (1GB reference clocks)
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1GB, reference clocks 850/1200MHz), on loan by a friend
- Onboard Realtek Audio
- Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
- Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
- Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
- Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
- Philips DVD SATA writer
- HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD; ASUS VG236 120Hz 1920×1080 twenty-three inch LCD with 3D Vision kit supplied by Nvidia/ASUS for 3D Vision evaluation.
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 11.2 WHQL driver for all Radeons except for HD 5770 (11-4 beta); highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; surface performance optimizations are off; “use applications settings” are checked
- NVIDIA GeForce release candidate 267.59 for GTX 550 Ti; WHQL 266.58 used for the other GeForce cards. High Quality
- Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
- DirectX July/November 2010
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is forced off in the control panel.
- Varying AA enabled as noted in games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 ; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
- All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.
The Benchmarks
- Vantage
- 3DMark11
- F.E.A.R.
- X3:Terran Conflict
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Call of Duty 4
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
- Wolfenstein
- Left 4 Dead
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Mafia II
- Call of Juarez
- Crysis
- Warhead
- Lost Planet
- World in Conflict
- Far Cry 2
- Just Cause 2
- H.A.W.X.
- Resident Evil 5
- Alien vs. Predator
- STALKER, Call of Pripyat
- Dirt 2
- F1 2010
- Metro 2033
- Lost Planet 2
- H.A.W.X. 2
- Heaven 2
We have got an interesting project going. Let’s check our results.
I am just getting around to it but i must say very nice review apoppins! As always your vast selection of games and benchmarks is top notch. Its so complete. I know you used it a lot, but I wouldve liked to have seen 1680 x 1050 results for every game. You may have only skipped it when the 550ti was doing very well at 1920×1200 and thats fine. But i feel like 1680×1050 is intended for this card and although at times it can obviously do well at higher resolutions, the 1680×1050 should be the starting point in all the test.
Dont get me wrong, your review was great. I just think cards intended for a certain resolution often get reviewed in much higher resolutions which doesnt do them much justice. Your review does do the 550ti justice though, its very full and useful.
Thank-you!
Again, the reason for leaving 1680×1050 out came down to time. Or a lack of it.
I did try to compensate by finding settings that approached playability and I hope we can revisit the GTX 550 Ti in another article. I did some further testing of the GTX 550 Ti in the HD 6670/6570 launch article, in fact.
Galaxy is sponsoring our May contest – the prizes will include a GTX 550 Ti and a GTX 560 Ti.