14 DAY TRIAL // Although there are still a few more days to go until March 15 when Nvidia GeForce plans to make the GTX 550 Ti official, some Hong Kong-based retailers have already started selling the card in their stores, as one image that made its way onto the Web seems to prove.
The card pictured is built by Galaxy and the sticker placed right bellow it says that it costs $1180 Hong Kong dollars, which translates into about $150 US.
No other details are provided in the image, except for the fact that the card packs 1GB of DDR5 video buffer and uses a 192-bit wide memory interface.
As we know from previous leaks, the GTX 550 Ti is powered by the recently developed GF116-400 GPU that packs 192 CUDA cores, 32 texturing units and 24 ROP units.
The GPU clock is set at 900MHz while the 1GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 4,100MHz, providing 70% more bandwidth than the GTS 450, the graphics card it is meant to replace.
In addition, 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.
Performance wise, the card is expected to sit right between the GTS 450 and the GTX 460 768MB, and Nvidia says it delivers 20% better performance per watt than the GTS 450 as well as 28% faster performance.
Although everything sound pretty good until know, what I am worried about is the $150 price tag associated with the GTX 550 Ti, as this would make it just as expensive as a wide number of GTX 460 768MB graphics cards that are already available on the market.
In addition, some GTX 460 768MB come with rebate coupons that knock as much as $20 off the price of the card, not to mention that Newegg has even a Sparkle model that is listed at $129.99 ($109.99 with rebate).
However, nothing is really certain until Nvidia actually makes the GTX 550 Ti official, so the price could prove to be much lower when the card launches. (via XtremeSystems)