14 DAY TRIAL // Nvidia plans to expand its 500-series graphics card line with the addition of a new board called the GTX 550 Ti which is based on the upcoming GF116 GPU and is expected to launch on March 15, according to some early leaks that started spreading around the Web.
The GeForce GTX 550 Ti was mentioned for the first time yesterday, when VR-Zone found it listed in one of Nvidia's beta drivers.
According to the same website, the GF116 will undergo a similar transistor-level rework to that of its older GF110 and GF114 siblings, enabling it to deliver better performance-per-watt.
As a result, the card should end up about 35% faster than the AMD Radeon HD 5770 in DirectX 11, and about 20% faster in DirectX 10, making it nearly as fast as the GeForce GTX 460.
Just like in the case of the GF106 core, the GTX 550 Ti will have one of the 64-bit memory controllers disabled, leaving the GPU with a 128-bit wide memory bus which is connected to 1024MB of GDDR5 memory.
As far as the PCB design goes, Nvidia's upcoming graphics card will feature a similar printed circuit board to that of the GeForce GTS 450 and is expected to carry 3-phase voltage regulation module (VRM) for the core and a single-phase for the memory.
The cooling solution will also remain unchanged as the TDP is expected to increase with only 4W, in comparison to the GTS 450, reaching 110W.
There will be two dual-link DVI-I ports and one mini HDMI port for display output.
It's interesting to note that the 550 Ti will use the GTX moniker, a designation reserved by Nvidia for its most powerful cards, instead of the GTS prefix that was used for the 450 and the previous 250.
As VR-Zone reports, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is expected to be available on March 15, 2011 for an estimated $200 US.