14 DAY TRIAL // Since NVIDIA has decided to bolster its entry-level offerings with the brand-new 550 Ti model, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that PNY also came up with such a product of its own, namely the XLR8 GTX 550 Ti 1024MB graphics card.
The accelerated video processing unit (yeah, if you happened to be wondering, that's what XLR8 stands for) offers quite an interesting set of features, that will certainly make gamers interested in the new card, especially if we happen to be talking about users on a tighter budget, who don't really afford purchasing one of the more expensive card models in the GTX 500 Series family.
The PNY XLR8 GTX 550 Ti graphics card is not exactly that different from the reference model, the device packing 192 CUDA cores, a 900 MHz core clock and 1800 MHz processor core clock, as well as a 1024MB of GDDR5 memory with 98.5 GB/second memory bandwidth.
Naturally, the device also comes equipped with the standard GTX 550 Ti interfaces (Two Dual-Link DVI connectors, plus a mini-HDMI connector), not to mention extensive support for all of NVIDIA's trademark technologies, such as SLI, PhysX, 3D Vision Surround, PureVideo HD or CUDA.
"The GTX 550 Ti is a great performing product that's an exciting addition to our gaming line-up," said Nicholas Mauro, senior marketing manager, PC components for PNY, and indeed, this statement really has some value to it, given the MSRP and the extra offerings it involves.
Pricing for the new XLR8 GTX 550 Ti graphics card is set at the standard 150 US dollars, but what' really interesting to mention here is that, beside getting the card itself, users will also get some interesting bonuses, namely a full-length movie download from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, from 35 available titles, as well as a 3 month subscription to E-Sports Entertainment (ESEA) Premium Video Game Network.