NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550Ti – A Relic Of the Past!

Although neither is it the latest nor any greatest, it is indeed a relic of its time. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti was launched in March 2011. Its launch price was 149 USD. This GPU was designed as a budget-friendly card for gamers. The Nvidia GTX 550 Ti is an entry-level graphics card but it still delivers somewhat acceptable performance in 2024. It maintains a special place in the hearts of retro gamers.

During the outdated era when NVIDIA was dominating the low-end graphics card market, the 550 Ti appeared as a budget-friendly option. The Nvidia GTX 550 Ti was positioned between the Nvidia GTX 460 and the GTX 560. Nvidia targeted the market segment looking for a budget-friendly option providing more value for money. The Nvidia GTX 550 Ti was well-known for delivering significantly improved performance and power efficiency compared to its predecessors. The Nvidia GTX 460 has a TDP of 160 watts while the Nvidia GTX 550 Ti has a TDP of 116 watts.

Let’s dive into an in-depth exploration of its features, performance, and relevance today.

Specifications

Design

First and the most crucial aspect of any technical gadget is its design. This factor plays a vital role in determining its fate. A good design can overcome any kind of anomaly in the processing. Considering this, Nvidia beautifully designed the GTX 550 Ti. The design of GTX 550 Ti was way ahead of its competitors back then.

This GPU is medium in size, making it suitable for most PC cases. It is best suited for ATX and MicroATX cases, providing ample space for the GPU. It can also be installed in Mini-ITX cases. Thus, it is important to check the case dimensions and do not forget to ensure proper airflow. The GTX 550 Ti comes with 2x DVI-D, and a single mini-HDMI 1.3a port. It provides a wide range of display options.

Dimensions

The GTX 550 Ti is smaller in size. Thus, it has small dimensions. It has a length and height of 210mm and 111mm respectively. Furthermore, it can be a good fit even if your small case has enough space for such a card. Adding to this, the GTX 550 Ti is generally a dual-slot design with a single fan which looks unique.

Memory

Let’s talk about the memory of GTX 550 Ti, which offers 1GB of GDDR5 memory, operating at a clock speed of 1026 MHz, along with an effective memory clock of 4.1 Gbps. Consequently, this provides the card with a memory bandwidth of 98.5 GB/s. The memory is accessed through a 192-bit interface, allowing for efficient data transfer. All these points made it a strong card for this low-range budget when it was released. Talking in the 2024 context, neh.

Key Features

The Nvidia GTX 550 Ti is a low-budget graphics card with adequate features. It has Microsoft DirectX 11 support along with NVDIA’s 3D Vision, Pure video HD quality, PhysX technology, CUDA technology with OpenCL support, and a scalable link interface. Furthermore, It features two dual-link DVI-I connectors and one HDMI 1.3a connector. It is capable of dual-link HDCP. Additionally, it supports PCI Express 2.0, and OpenGL 4.0. Compared with the other tight-budget GPUs in the market. All these features of GTX 550 Ti can easily fulfil the basic requirements of gamers and other users such as editors.

• 192 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 24 ROPs.
• 192-bit memory interface.
• 40 nm manufacturing process.
• GF116 graphics processor.
• 900 MHz operating frequency.

Cooling System

The cooler on the GTX 550 Ti is a single-fan design that is covered in a plastic body. The fan has a central position and provides cooling for the GPU core and memory modules effectively. Additionally, a metal heatsink is also attached to the GPU for cooling purposes. It is made up of aluminium with copper heatsink pipe that helps keep it cool.

Sensors

The GTX 550 Ti includes a collection of numerous useful sensors that are required to monitor the card’s functions. These sensors are very important for a better experience. Users can use these sensors either via its official graphics driver tools or through the MSI Afterburner. The GTX 550 Ti provides the following sensors:

Temperature Sensor

By far the most important sensor for GTX 550 Ti is its temperature sensor. It monitors the temperature of your Graphics card. Such information is necessary to ensure no overheating of the card would happen. Overheating can potentially lead to performance issues due to thermal throttling or it can even damage the card itself.

Fan Speed Sensor

This sensor generally measures the cooling fan RPM. Fan monitoring enables the user to verify whether the fan is functioning properly or not.

Voltage Sensor

The GTX 550 Ti also offers voltage sensors that monitor the voltage supplied to components. This sensor plays a vital role in monitoring your card’s stability while overclocking or underclocking. Unstable voltages can lead to a potential failure.

Power Consumption Sensor

The GTX 550 Ti is available in the market by different vendors. Some vendors provide power consumption sensors and some do not. The power consumption sensor is used to monitor the total power your graphics card is drawing.

Clock Speed Sensor

This sensor tells users when their card is not operating to standard. It monitors the clock speeds of your graphics card. The GTX 550 Ti has 192 CUDA cores, with a base clock of 900MHz along with a shader frequency of 1800MHz.

Performance

The GTX 550 Ti is capable of playing modern games at low settings in 1080p back. You can play games such as Crysis 2, Battlefield 3 and the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on low settings. Likewise, you will need to scale down the performance for demanding titles.

You can play GTA V in the GTX 550 Ti, however, you have to make a lot of low settings for it to get quite playable. This means balancing games at low to medium settings at 720p across demanding titles. By doing this, you will get 25-35 FPS.

Additionally, for Tekken 7, the minimum required graphics card is 550 Ti. Likewise, you will need to lower the graphics settings in this game too. This means that 720p at low to medium settings would do the job for the majority.

Resolution & Refresh Rate

GTX 550 Ti (GPU) offers a good resolution with a maximum digital resolution of 2560×1600. This maximum resolution is limited to the DVI-D port. Further, the Nvidia GTX 550 Ti provides a maximum analogue resolution (VGA Resolution) of 2048×1536. The Quality of your monitor affects the actual resolution output.

Furthermore, this Graphic card is generally 60Hz and supports 1080p. Higher refresh rates like 75Hz or 85Hz may be supported for lower resolutions if your monitor supports depending on the type of connection.

Requirements

If you’re thinking of adding GTX 550 Ti to your system, there are some requirements to connect it. Firstly, if we talk about power requirements, we need a power supply of a minimum of 400 watts. It should have a minimum of 24 Amperes on the +12 volt rail. Secondly, your motherboard should at least contain a minimum of one graphic slot. Thirdly, your PC should have Windows 10 32/64bit, Windows 8 32/64bit, Windows 7 32/64bit, Windows Vista 32/64bit, or Windows XP 32/64bit to set up this GPU.