14 DAY TRIAL // While the rest of the world still has a few more hours to wait until Nvidia makes official the GTX 550 Ti graphics card, Asia has already started to get its first taste of Nvidia's latest card as various companies, including Inno3D, have already started to make public their solutions based on the GF116-400 core.
Compared to Nvidia's reference solution, the Inno3D GTX 550 Ti will get a custom cooling solution as well as an in-house designed printed circuit board (PCB) that should allow the card to offer better thermal performances and improved overclocking headroom.
According to Inno3D, the open fan design should allow for better PCB cooling, as more airflow reaches that region, and is 30% more effective than Nvidia's reference design.
Power is delivered via a 3 +1 phase system, 3 phases go to the GPU while the forth is used for the memory, and the card uses only solid state capacitors and high-quality ceramic inductors.
Specs wise, the Inno3D GTX 550 Ti doesn't stray too much from Nvidia's stock clocks as the core runs at 920MHz (only 20MHz higher than stock) while the GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1025MHz (4100MHz effective).
At the heart of the GTX 550 Ti, lies the GF116-400 core that is comprised of 192 CUDA processors, 32 texturing units, 24 ROP units, and a 192-bit memory bus that is connected to 1GB of video buffer.
Compared to the GTS 450, the graphics card it's meant to replace, the GTX 550 Ti is anywhere between 15% and 20% faster.
The GTX 550 Ti has a TDP of only 116W (10W more than the GTS 450), features two-way SLI support, two dual-link DVI-I ports and one mini HDMI port.
Nvidia is expected to officially release the GeForce GTX 550 Ti sometime later today at an estimated retail price of $150 US. (via tech.sinmin.cn)
