1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:08,800 This video marks the launch of a couple of interesting things. So, this is the 2 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:11,599 MSI GTX 550Ti or TAI, which is a 1 gig 3 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:17,039 brand new video card, brand new GPU from NVIDIA, and it also marks the 4 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:20,080 introduction of the Cyclone 2. So, the 5 00:00:17,039 --> 00:00:22,640 Cyclone cooler was incredibly popular, 6 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:25,920 still is incredibly popular on the LA previous generation cards from MSI, but 7 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:30,720 it looks like they've made some improvements to it, and they've made enough improvements to call it an 8 00:00:29,119 --> 00:00:34,559 upgraded Cyclone 2. So, let's find out what's up with the Cyclone 2 once we get 9 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:38,399 things opened up. First of all, this is an OC edition card, so that means it is 10 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:42,399 factory overclocked. It is ready for 3D Mark 11, which is one way of saying it 11 00:00:40,160 --> 00:00:46,800 is a DirectX11 card. It's compatible with MSI Afterburner, which is awesome. 12 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:52,320 It's overclocking utility for monitoring temps, all that good stuff. It supports 13 00:00:48,879 --> 00:00:54,520 CUDA, SLI, PhysX, 3D Vision, as well as 14 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:59,840 NVIDIA Surround if you run two of them together. It uses MSI's military class 15 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:05,680 concept, including solidstate chokes and solid caps for no coil wine and up to 10 16 00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:08,640 years lifetime. We've also got a 3-year warranty in the USA and Canada. Oh, and 17 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:13,439 here's one interesting difference between the Cyclone and the Cyclone 2. 18 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:19,360 The propeller blade now allows for up to 20% more air flow. 19 00:01:16,439 --> 00:01:23,119 Interesting. Yes. Okay. What do we got in here? Okay. More of the same 20 00:01:24,119 --> 00:01:33,040 stuff, right? Oh, here's some specs on the Cyclone 2. Here we go. So, 9 cm PWM 21 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:38,079 fan up to 40% more air flow to cool down the GPU memory and power modules all at 22 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:41,840 once. Multiple heat pipes. So, it has it looks like two heat pipes through the uh 23 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:46,240 window there, though it's hard to say yet. Hybrid heat sink design. So, it 24 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:52,640 combines aluminum extrusion, heat pipes, and fins for maximum cooling. 25 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:54,720 Nickelplated copper base rounded design. 26 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:58,880 Okay. Oh, prevents dust accumulation. Okay, I did not know that. Ultimate low 27 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:04,320 noise. Yes, that I knew. The cyclones of the our original Cyclone was a very very 28 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:08,560 uh low noise cooler. And propeller blade. So that provides up to 20% more 29 00:02:06,479 --> 00:02:12,800 air flow versus a traditional design. It's based on the same thermal mode with 30 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:17,599 the same RPM. Interesting. Okay, so let's go ahead and get this box opened 31 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:23,440 up. Don't see anything particularly fascinating on the back. Uh see, it's a 32 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:25,680 PCI Express 16X card. It requires a 33 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:29,680 minimum 400 watt greater system power supply with a minimum 12vt current 34 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:34,640 rating of 24 amps. And everything else on there is fairly 35 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:38,800 irrelevant. Yeah. All right. This is an interesting way of 36 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:42,879 packing the card. I don't know if this is a retail card, just so you guys know. 37 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:48,319 So, I I'm not quite sure if the retail cards will come like this. This is a uh 38 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:53,120 a tech tips card, but there you go. It is. Well, you know what? Look, okay, 39 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:56,800 let's not fault them for their methods. Let's let's evaluate based on what was 40 00:02:55,440 --> 00:03:01,200 the objective and did they achieve it. The objective was keep the card in place 41 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:07,680 and protect it during shipping and they did achieve it, however inelegantly. All 42 00:03:05,239 --> 00:03:12,800 right, let's look at the accessories. We've got a two Molex to single six pin 43 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:17,920 PCIe power adapter. We've got one of them little mini HDMI to full size HDMI 44 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:23,599 adapters. That could be useful as very few TVs have a native mini HDMI cable. 45 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:27,599 We've got a DVI to VGA adapter, which by the way, I know I'm always knocking the 46 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:30,959 DVI to VGA adapter, but for this particular card, very appropriate 47 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:36,080 because you may have an older VGA monitor that you would want to run off 48 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:39,440 this card because it's low res and this 49 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:42,080 card is going to be optimized for 1680x 50 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:45,680 1050 or below. That's the kind of price point that this card exists in. So, hold 51 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:51,120 on. Let's see if we got anything else down here. Yes, we do. MSI hides their 52 00:03:48,799 --> 00:03:54,319 driver CD since they know that you should probably not use it. You should 53 00:03:52,640 --> 00:04:01,439 throw it away and download the latest off the NVIDIA website. And we've also 54 00:03:57,599 --> 00:04:03,280 got a little guide for something. Yeah. 55 00:04:01,439 --> 00:04:06,720 Okay. And then a quick users guide which basically shows you how to install a 56 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:10,319 PCIe card. But if you watch Linus Tech Tips, then you probably already know 57 00:04:08,239 --> 00:04:13,599 that because I have covered that in the past. All right. So, what I'm going to 58 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:17,759 do is I'm just going to flip this over and that'll make a nice little platform 59 00:04:15,599 --> 00:04:23,160 for my card. and let's get the 560 TI or 60 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:28,720 TI onto the platform so we can check it 61 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:33,919 out. All right, so the first thing the most noticeable thing about this about 62 00:04:30,639 --> 00:04:36,160 this new Cyclone 2 cooler to me is that 63 00:04:33,919 --> 00:04:41,120 they've added like a little like blade style shroudy thing on it. So each one 64 00:04:38,639 --> 00:04:44,240 of these actually kind of looks like the like the blade of a curved sword or 65 00:04:43,280 --> 00:04:50,720 something like that. And I think that's the effect they're going for cuz they got like these little uh these little 66 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,840 jaggy things here, right there, which would be pretty nasty if you were 67 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:58,240 cutting someone open with them. So that's uh it's a very aggressive look to 68 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:03,040 the cooler itself. The overall design of it looks fairly similar to the original 69 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:07,039 Cyclone and in that it has the uh the normal flower heat sink here. It's got 70 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:11,120 the heat pipes and then those heat pipes are used to carry heat out to this nice 71 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:18,400 dense fin array. So, what that means is we're not wasting any of the cooling 72 00:05:15,039 --> 00:05:20,320 capacity of this fan. So, the any air 73 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:24,639 that's blown downward is going to be cooling the GPU through the aluminum 74 00:05:21,919 --> 00:05:28,320 fins here. And any air that is blown out to the side is going to be cooling the 75 00:05:26,479 --> 00:05:32,240 GPU because the heat pipes are going to be carrying the heat up to these fins. 76 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:38,800 And then it can carry the heat out this way, out this way, and in every which 77 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:40,080 way. MSI over the reference design has 78 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:43,360 also added a couple other things. They've actually got a heat sink here on 79 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:48,560 the voltage regulators. And you're going to see that that's going to get a ton of 80 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:51,280 air flow from this fan. When it spins, it'll just be blowing over those heat 81 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:55,440 sinks. I don't think we'll have to worry about those running warm at all. And 82 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:58,800 they've also added a little stiffening plate. So, this is interesting. You can 83 00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:02,880 see right here, a little MSI branded plate. And it looks like what that's for 84 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:06,400 is just to hold the PCB rigid when you've got it installed in your case 85 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:11,199 because it's not really connected to anything else. And that's something that 86 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:13,080 I've really felt should be included with 87 00:06:11,199 --> 00:06:17,600 more graphics cards. 88 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:21,600 Sorry. Especially as they start to get heavier and 89 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:28,400 heavier. All right, let's start taking off these little protective covers. 90 00:06:25,919 --> 00:06:32,479 off the DVI port. It's off the SLI connector, off the mini HDMI. There we 91 00:06:30,639 --> 00:06:35,840 go. Okay. So, another thing I wanted to point out about this card right here is 92 00:06:33,919 --> 00:06:39,680 that you can see that some of the pins on the PCI Express connector appear to 93 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:42,800 be missing. This is by design. This is not a defect in your card. These are 94 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:48,720 unnecessary for performance and bandwidth, and NVIDIA has deemed them to 95 00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:50,720 be perfectly fine to remove. The card is 96 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:56,720 still PCI Express compliant, so you don't have to worry about any motherboard compatibility issues or 97 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:59,520 anything like that. The Cyclone 2 fan is 98 00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:02,720 actually a four pin PWM controlled fan. And uh I don't know what the noise 99 00:07:01,280 --> 00:07:08,960 characteristics of it are like, but if it's anything like the old one, it's probably a pretty pretty 100 00:07:06,039 --> 00:07:12,000 dec. Here we've got a six pin PCI Express power connector. That's all 101 00:07:10,479 --> 00:07:18,960 we're going to need as far as external power goes for the GTX 550 TI or TI. On 102 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:23,360 the back of the card, we actually see one of the cooler innovations that 103 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:28,880 NVIDIA has brought about with the GTX 550 TI. They've actually given their 104 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:31,680 board partners the capability of mixing 105 00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:35,520 and matching different capacities of memory on the card. So, I'm not sure 106 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:43,280 which ones are which, but my guess would be that these four are all totaling up 107 00:07:39,039 --> 00:07:45,520 to uh 512 megs and these two together 108 00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:51,599 are 512 megs to give us our 1 gig capacity. Because the 550 Tai has a 109 00:07:49,199 --> 00:07:55,639 192bit memory interface, which is significantly more than any other 110 00:07:53,199 --> 00:08:00,960 previous generation card in this price bracket, but it only has six memory 111 00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:04,639 modules. So, how does it have a 1 gig capacity, which would imply that it 112 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:07,680 would have to have either four or eight memory modules? Well, it's because 113 00:08:06,479 --> 00:08:12,800 they're mixing and matching the capacities to give us that extra 114 00:08:09,759 --> 00:08:14,800 bandwidth, but also that extra that nice 115 00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:19,680 round even capacity. So, that's a pretty neat thing that NVIDIA has brought about 116 00:08:17,039 --> 00:08:23,199 on this generation of cards. Here at the back, we find something we're pretty 117 00:08:21,039 --> 00:08:28,479 used to seeing on MSI cards and NVIDIA cards in general. We've got two DVI 118 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:32,240 ports, one HDM, one mini HDMI port. And these, only two of these three can be 119 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:36,959 used at any given time. If you do run two 550 ties, you can run three monitors 120 00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:42,159 off of the two cards together. But for an individual card, you're either using 121 00:08:38,719 --> 00:08:44,800 DVI DVI, DVI Mini HDMI, or DVI Mini 122 00:08:42,159 --> 00:08:49,040 HDMI. We've also got our typical MSI branded exhaust port here. Although with 123 00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:53,680 Cyclone cooler, not a whole lot of the exhaust is going to be going to the 124 00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:58,959 outside of the case anyhow due to the design of the cooler. The 550 is a 125 00:08:55,440 --> 00:09:00,959 fairly um low power consumption, low 126 00:08:58,959 --> 00:09:04,640 heat out heat output card though, so I wouldn't worry too much about the 127 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:09,959 overall case temperatures being affected by having the exhaust going out into 128 00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:12,040 your case. The SLI connector is up 129 00:09:09,959 --> 00:09:16,000 here. And as you can see, there's only one of 130 00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:21,519 them. So, that's going to support two-way SLI, but not 3-way or 4-way SLI. 131 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:26,080 I mean, really, honestly, those features would be pretty unnecessary on a card at 132 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:32,880 this price point. Anyway, so, thank you for checking out my unboxing and first 133 00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:36,240 look at the GeForce GTX 550 Ti from MSI 134 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:38,240 featuring the Cyclone 2 cooler. 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