Last week we were looking at AMD release a new card that manages to take top spot as the fastest graphics card currently on the market. From one extreme to another, we are checking out the new baby mid-range card from NVIDIA today in the GeForce GTX 550 Ti variant. And just like us though NVIDIA understands that $699 cards aren't for everyone, and really where the bread and butter is for these companies is the mid-range market, as that is what really sells. So the question is, how will this GeForce GTX 550 Ti be performing? Like most mid-range models lately, the NVIDIA partners have come out hard and fast with models that move away from the reference design with the one we're looking at today. - TweakTown

MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB CyClone Cooler Review

Looking at the card initially, you won't find anything too different to what we have seen before from mid-range cards and the Cyclone series. Looking a bit closer at the cooler and you can see a bit more of an aggressive styling which looks great. The cooler looks like it will deliver as always, thanks to those heat pipes coming out the top, but we'll find out later exactly what kind of temps are on offer. As for the rest of the card, we've got a single 6-pin PCI Express connector at the back of the card along with a single SLI connector across the top. The GeForce GTX 550 Ti Cyclone is an overclocked model, the clocks are slightly up from default.

Compared to those Radeon HD 5770's which are what this GeForce GTX 550 Ti goes against at the moment, it's also clear which is faster. Initially we looked at 3DMark 11 and saw both cards perform very close to each other, and we were a little worried that performance was going to be similar across the board. Once we got into the games though, we really saw the GeForce GTX 550 Ti pulling ahead. Getting more specific, this MSI version as you would expect performs extremely well. The decision to increase both the core and memory is a great idea and the new Cyclone cooler looks a little meaner than the previous version.

In the end the GeForce GTX 550 Ti version has a clear market and the reference cards should set you back around the $149 mark. Because we are seeing most companies offer an fancy version of the graphics card at launch, you should see these overclocked ones with upgraded coolers for around the $159 mark. It will be interesting to see if AMD become a bit more aggressive with the Radeon HD 6850 pricing which sees a lot of brands with overclocks and upgraded cooling for around the $189 mark, or if they combat these GeForce GTX 550 Ti head on with what will no doubt be the Radeon HD 6700 series coming next.

For now though, you'll probably find it easy to decide where to spend your money if your budget is in the $150 area. While a bit low end for us personally, you can see this is going to be a popular model for NVIDIA and its partners due to their aggressive price point and the fact that you're talking about a card that can not only handle low widescreen very well with in-game detail on the very high end but also mid-range widescreen with in-game details at medium. Strong performance for one of the most popular monitor sizes and an aggressive price tag make this a model that will attract a lot of people, especially the improved fancy designs.

Companies like MSI releasing these upgraded versions from launch are going to be the icing on the cake. The decent out of the box overclocks from day one are going to impress people and with NVIDIA saying 1GHz is an easy task, this will just going to be an really fun model to play with when you fire up Afterburner for some overclocking fun.