Lyrical digression.
For quite a long time, NVIDIA did not receive any new products aimed at the middle price segment of gaming video cards. She was busy competing with AMD in the hi-end class and focused all her efforts on this particular field. However, she soon took into account the fact that not everyone is ready to pay for a video adapter from $ 150 and took up the development of a mid-range video card, which would be positioned as something in between in terms of speed and price between the budget and not very fast GTS 450 and quite expensive and productive GTX 460.
After the release of the reference sample, manufacturers such as Gigabyte, MSI, ZOTAC, Palit, Asus and other more or less well-known companies got down to business. This review will focus on the solution from Asus. Asus' GXT 550 Ti graphics card has a number of advantageous differences compared to the reference version. First of all, you need to pay attention to the proprietary DirectCu cooling system, which made it possible to lower the operating temperatures of the batteries, as a result of the increase in the service life of the video card. The next thing that catches your eye is the increased frequencies of the GPU and memory, which was achieved by factory overclocking. You will learn about these and other advantages of today's video card below.
Now let's move on to examining the configuration of the ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti DirectCU TOP
Equipment.
As usual, the box of a video card from Asus has a striking appearance and informational content in the form of a listing of all proprietary technologies of the company, as well as the frequency of the overclocked GPU, which is hard to miss. This approach to packaging design is unlikely to allow you to pass by without getting interested.
The technologies used are clearly shown on the back of the box.
In this case, we describe the proprietary cooling system DirectCU, the possibility of overclocking by increasing the operating voltage using the ASUS Voltage Tweak utility, the use of the recently appeared ASUS Super Alloy Power technology, and finally lists the available connectors for displaying the image.
Package Included:
- video card,
- instruction,
- disk with drivers,
- power adapter.
The appearance of the video card.
The video card is equipped with an improved DirectCU cooling system. The PCB is not large, but the cooling system does not completely cover it. The active cooling system consists of a centrally located 80 mm cooling fan, which, while providing high cooling efficiency with minimal noise, drives hot air inside the case without blowing it out of the system unit. The cooling fan is equipped with a special PWM speed controller.
A feature of the passive component of cooling - a radiator, is the use of direct contact with the graphics core of the video card using heat pipes. The essence of the tubes is to transfer heat from the core to aluminum radiators located under the casing of the cooling system. This technology is progressive and efficient and allows to achieve the highest quality cooling of the core, coupled with the active component of the cooling system. Today this solution is used everywhere in the latest developments of both AMD and NVIDIA.
The back of the board is dominated by the reference design. It is also worth noting the connector for the SLI bridge, which makes it possible to combine the efforts of two video cards.
The cooling system occupies two slots: active at the top, passive at the bottom. It is worth noting that only the graphics processor is directly cooled, while the rest of the video card is cooled using passive blowing.
There is a grill designed for the outlet of some of the hot air and connectors, among which are from left to right: HDMI, VGA (D-sub), DVI.
Specifications:
Core................................................. .............. "GF116"
Process technology ................................................. .40nm
Core frequency ................................................ 975 MHz
Effective memory frequency ............... 4104 MHz
Memory type ................................................ ..GDDR5
Memory size ............................................ 1024 MB
Memory width ................................. 192 bits
Technology and API support ................... DirectX 11 (Shader Model 5.0), OpenGL 4.1, NVIDIA CUDA Technology, NVIDIA PhysX Technology, NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Technology, NVIDIA 2 -Way SLI Technology
Connectors ................................................. ...... HDMI, VGA (D-sub), DVI
Power consumption .................................. 116 W
Heat dissipation.
To monitor the temperature of the graphics core and test the efficiency of the cooling system of the monitored video card, the FurMark utility was used. For more informational content, two tests were carried out, in the first, the propeller rotation speed was set in automatic mode, in the second, the maximum rotation speed was set.
Cooler automatic speed control
With automatic regulation of the cooler rotation speed, the GPU warmed up to 72 degrees, which is quite an acceptable result, considering that the fan worked at only 29 percent of the total power, thereby significantly reducing the noise level.
Maximum level of cooler speed
After manually setting the rotational speed to 80 percent of the maximum value, the GPU temperature dropped significantly - up to 52 degrees under load, but now the language cannot be called a quiet video card.
Plain
In the absence of load, the frequencies of the GPU and memory are automatically reduced in order to reduce the temperature and heat dissipation of the GPU. In this mode, the noise of the CO operation, the power level of which is only 14 percent of the maximum value, becomes barely distinguishable against the background of the operation of the rest of the system unit.
Testing in games.
For comparative testing of a number of video cards, including our ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti DirectCU TOP, the following configuration was used:
1. Intel Core i7 920 processor.
2. Motherboard ASUS P6T.
3.3x2 Gb Samsung Original DDR3-1600
4. WD 1 TB WD1001FALS Caviar Black SATAII
5. Thermaltake Mambo case.
6. ASRock USB 3.0 PCI-Exp x1 Dual Port Board.
7. Power supply unit from OCZ for 850 watts.
1. Test of performance of video cards in the game Crysis Warhead
2. Test the performance of video cards in the game Far Cry 2
Based on the results of gaming tests, we can say that the main participant in our review and testing is not in a very favorable position relative to more expensive solutions, but it still shows an acceptable level of performance in Full HD resolution and maximum details within its price segment. The graphs also show that the factory-overclocked Asus graphics card takes a higher performance bar than its main competitors such as the MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti Cyclone II and Sapphire HD 5770.
3. Comparison of video cards in the synthetic test 3Dmark11
As in previous tests, this also shows the same trend. The increased operating frequencies of the core and memory have a positive effect on performance, as we see in the comparison of the GTX 550 Ti from Asus and MSI. Overclocking. MSI Afterburner 2.0 was used to overclock ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti DirectCU TOP. With the help of the utility, the voltage across the core was raised, after which the GPU frequency was increased to 1074 MHz, and the operating frequency of the video memory was increased to an impressive 5152 MHz. After these simple manipulations, there was an approximately 10% increase in performance in most games. Conclusions. The recently released ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti DirectCU TOP accelerator, like previous solutions from Asus, does not cease to meet the standards of quality, convenience and safety inherent in this company. Once again, we are pleased with the high-quality DirectCU cooling system, excellent overclocking potential, high-quality materials from which the video card's printed circuit board is made. Yet, despite the obvious advantages and benefits, there are also disadvantages. The main and, perhaps, the only one of which is the price, which at the moment practically corresponds to the video adapter GeForce GTX 460 with 768 MB, the performance of which is significantly higher. Overall, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti DirectCU TOP is an excellent graphics card for low-cost gaming systems, capable of delivering excellent graphics and performance at high graphics settings in most games. 
