EVGA’s GTX 550 Ti “free performance” evaluation
DiRT 2
Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is a racing game that was released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. It includes many new race-events, including stadium events as your RV travels from one event to another in many real-world environments across four continents. Dirt 2 includes five different event types even allowing you to compete at new locations. It also includes a new multiplayer mode.
Dirt 2 is powered by an updated version of the EGO engine which was featured in Race Driver: Grid. This updated EGO engine also features an updated physics engine. We are using the Dirt 2 full retail game built-in benchmark at the highest “ultra” DX11 setting with 8xAA applied.
First we test at 2560×1600:
It takes the extra overclock we gave the GTX 550 Ti to beat the HD 5770 but our tested resolution is too demanding. What about 1920×1200?
This time the stock GTX 550 Ti is faster than the HD 5770. Let’s aim for the GTX 550’s target resolution.
The GTX 550 Ti gets the single-GPU DiRT 2 checkered flag on the DX11 pathway in a two-video card race as the GeForce pulls further away from the HD 5770 at 1920×1200 and at 1680×1050 resolutions. However, even the lowest priced GTS 450 can play this game satisfactorily at medium-high resolutions.
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.