MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II SLI Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II SLI Video Card Review - Packing a GeForce GTX 550 Ti GPU each, we have a pair of N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II video cards that we are going to evaluate against a Radeon HD 6950, GeForce GTX 570 and even an overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Ti. At a total cost of only $260 we will find out if this dual-GTX 550 Ti action has what it takes to compete.
 
Really nicely done article.

The comparisons of play-ability and costs are spot on.

Enjoyed reading it. good stuff for someone on a tight budget.:D
 
Nice comparison. However, since this is SLI 550's why not add an AMD Crossfire competitor? You can get 6790s for ~$130 (there's one as cheap as $115 after MIR). Seems like a logical competitor for this type of comparison.
 
Flyinfinni said:
Nice comparison. However, since this is SLI 550's why not add an AMD Crossfire competitor? You can get 6790s for ~$130 (there's one as cheap as $115 after MIR). Seems like a logical competitor for this type of comparison.
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probably because they didn't have any, and honestly it would of been a waste, 6950 was a good enough representation since the 6870 xf 6850 xf are in that performance range anyways.
 
Great article.

For someone packing GTX 460s in SLI on a 2560x1600 monitor this has been a very interesting read.

Mark I do have one question regarding the "Best Playable Setting".

At 2560x1600 with 16X AF, FXAA, and maximum in-game graphics options selected, the N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II SLI rig gave us about 39.6 frames per second average, compared to 50+ from all the other video cards in this test. That makes it 20% slower than its closest competing video card, the factory overclocked MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk. At those settings, the MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II SLI configuration was unplayable. We had to either disable AA, choose a lower resolution, or lower some other quality setting. In the end, we felt that lowering the game's resolution to 1920x1200 while maintaining 16X AF, FXAA, and maximum in-game settings gave us the best compromise in terms of performance and image quality.
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For someone that already owns a 2560x1600 monitor, would you still recommend 1920X1200 with AA over 2560x1600 without AA?


BTW, when a game does not support highest eye candy with my configuration, I always lower eye candy vs lowering resolution. Is this a good or bad practice?
Meaning that in essense this configuration ONLY support 1920x1200 well and should be avoided by 1600p owners?
 
It is neither a good nor a bad practice. What matters to your eyes is different than what matters to mine. Brent and I agreed on eye-candy over resolution, but whatever floats your boat should be more important to you.

I would not recommend the N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II SLI config for users over 1080p.
 
Flyinfinni said:
Nice comparison. However, since this is SLI 550's why not add an AMD Crossfire competitor? You can get 6790s for ~$130 (there's one as cheap as $115 after MIR). Seems like a logical competitor for this type of comparison.
Click to expand...

We are going to have a separate "cheap" CFX article as well, this one was focused on the NV side, GTX 550 Ti.
 
Interesting review.

Having gone through both SLI & CF setups, I would rather avoid both of them if at all possible now. The hassle and tweaking involved is tedious and just not fun to me.

So I would go for a 1 card setup any day rather than 2. ESPECIALLY 2 medium end cards, high end maybe cause you don't have any better option at the time you purchase, but medium end, really? Just sell your card & buy a better one.
 
Would have been nice to see the card in non SLI mode as a reference point compare to see, how much this dual card combo really offers.

Person wanting inexpensive upgrade, if adding a 2nd card in SLI with this current stuff means alot or little performance boost, why the single card reference point # would have been good info to see also.
 
Great card! I have one of these cards in the box used only once for sale for cheap on my FS/T! Hit me up!
 
This may make no difference to 99% of readers, but to the other 1%, these cards will be useless for bitcoin mining, which heavily favors ATi OpenCL processing.
When you do your cheap CF article, that may be worth mentioning.
 
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