1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:08,400 Now, this is something I've never had the pleasure of unboxing before. This is 2 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:12,800 an NVIDIA branded GeForce GTX. It is a 3 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:16,240 reference card, so it has a completely 4 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:19,279 black box all on the outside. It's 5 00:00:16,240 --> 00:00:21,520 completely black. 6 00:00:19,279 --> 00:00:26,560 Better go clean my lens. There. That's better. Okay. So, what we want I want to 7 00:00:23,279 --> 00:00:30,000 do is start opening this thing up. 8 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:32,399 It's got a nice uh glossy branding 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:36,640 finish on it to go with the overall matte black box. You can see here 10 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:42,640 something I've never seen on a graphics card box before and that is designed and 11 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:47,760 built by NVIDIA. So, we're going to go ahead open this guy up. We find a white 12 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:53,600 inside to the box. All right. Now, here's something. Dear valued editor, 13 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:58,160 uh something something. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this 14 00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:02,480 off because I don't know how much of that is confidential, but uh yeah. Okay. 15 00:01:01,359 --> 00:01:10,000 So, it's telling me a few different things. first of all that this is equipped with 192 CUDA cores and 192-bit 16 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:13,920 GDR uh GDDDR5 memory interface which is actually 17 00:01:12,159 --> 00:01:17,840 pretty cool because it allows the board partners to mix and match the densities 18 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:23,040 of the memory modules they're putting on so that they can achieve a 1 gig 19 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:28,640 capacity without an even memory bandwidth interface. So that's pretty 20 00:01:25,439 --> 00:01:32,560 cool. um has faster clock speeds over 21 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:33,920 the GTS 450, its younger brother, and it 22 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:38,640 has a little list of what all is going to be included in here. So, first we got some stickers. And these are nice 23 00:01:37,119 --> 00:01:42,560 stickers. I actually really like these. There's a an You can see there's a bit 24 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:46,320 of a H. It's hard to see that in the camera, but there's a pale There we go. 25 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:50,240 There we go. There's an NVIDIA next to that little logo. We got some NVIDIA 26 00:01:48,079 --> 00:01:56,000 logos. We got one of their NVIDIA characters and a GeForce GTX sticker. 27 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:58,560 Very nice. Okay, we have a driver disc, 28 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:02,479 which is empty. So, this is just a reference package that does not contain 29 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:06,560 a driver disc because it shipped out before there was a driver disc available 30 00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:10,000 for this particular card. Here's where some accessories would go if there were 31 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:14,879 any included, I suppose. So, let's go ahead and pull that out. All right, I've 32 00:02:11,599 --> 00:02:16,640 got a GTX 550 Ti reviewer guide, which 33 00:02:14,879 --> 00:02:20,959 is highly confidential, and you guys won't be looking at that. 34 00:02:18,879 --> 00:02:25,200 And then, what do we have down here? We've got a video card, which I will 35 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:30,560 assume at this point based on the evidence I've seen thus far is a GeForce 36 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:34,959 GTX 550. And then we have nothing underneath. So, this is a retail boxed 37 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:38,879 card that doesn't quite contain a full retail package. Oh, and then thank you 38 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:43,440 for buying in a bunch of different languages. Very nice. Nice touch. Okay, 39 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:48,920 so let's close up the box and we'll use that to look at the video card itself. 40 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:57,040 All right. So, here it is. This is the 41 00:02:52,959 --> 00:03:01,120 GTX 550 Ti. It features a very similar 42 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:04,560 look to the 560Ti reference design card. 43 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:06,400 That is the central fan with a flower 44 00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:10,319 style heatsink. So, if I spin this, you can see the heat sink a little bit 45 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:13,519 better. And let me see if it's got any heat pipes going on on there. Going to 46 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:19,360 have to try and get a different angle. No, it looks like this one, unlike the 560Ti, does not require a heat pipe 47 00:03:17,599 --> 00:03:24,640 cooler for optimal performance. So, NVIDIA has opted just for a standard 48 00:03:22,239 --> 00:03:30,000 flower heat sink cooler. You can see the shroud is recessed a little bit just 49 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:35,200 like the 560Ti. So, the fan actually sticks up a little bit above the top of 50 00:03:32,879 --> 00:03:38,879 the shroud. So, one of the things that it's likely that this does is if you're 51 00:03:36,959 --> 00:03:42,560 in an SLI configuration and your cards are close together, it should give your 52 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:46,879 fan a little bit more breathing room to pull in air around it and make sure the 53 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:50,400 card stays adequately cool. You can see something here that we've actually seen 54 00:03:48,319 --> 00:03:56,159 in the past from NVIDIA cards and that not all the PCIe pins are present on the 55 00:03:53,360 --> 00:04:00,799 bottom connector. That doesn't matter. Actually, all that is is uh they've 56 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:04,319 removed some of the unnecessary pins that they don't need. It will not affect 57 00:04:02,319 --> 00:04:10,000 performance or the bandwidth available to your card in any way, shape, or form. 58 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:14,560 You can also tell this is an engineering sample card by the fact that the PCI 59 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:18,479 Express lock is not broken off here. So, this card will not lock into a slot. It 60 00:04:17,199 --> 00:04:24,639 has a little piece here that will prevent it from doing so, so it can be easily removed by reviewers. All right, 61 00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:31,040 we've got an SLI connector. So, this card is SLI ready, but that is two-way 62 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:32,800 SLI and not three-way SLI, just so you 63 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:37,040 guys are aware because it's only got a single connector. That means it's only 64 00:04:34,639 --> 00:04:40,000 compatible with two-way SLI. On the back, we find the connectors that we're 65 00:04:38,639 --> 00:04:44,160 getting pretty used to seeing. We've got a mini HDMI as well as two DVI 66 00:04:42,639 --> 00:04:49,120 connectors. Although, please do note you can only use two of any any two of these 67 00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:53,840 three connectors at any given time. If you do install two cards in your system, 68 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:58,720 then you can run three monitors off of the two cards together to run NVIDIA 69 00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:02,160 surround with up to three monitors. Here on the back, you see one of the cool 70 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:09,360 things I was talking about before. 1 2 3 4 5 six memory modules, but it's a 1 gig 71 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:12,160 card. So NVIDIA very cleverly has 72 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:18,080 allowed their partners to use four lower density memory modules and two higher 73 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:21,919 density ones to achieve the five to achieve the 1 gig memory capacity. 74 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:27,440 Otherwise we'd be stuck with one of those odd capacities like we've seen on 75 00:05:23,759 --> 00:05:29,199 previous NVIDIA cards like 768 or uh 76 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:34,880 1280. You know those those sort of oddball memory capacities but NVIDIA has 77 00:05:32,479 --> 00:05:39,680 engineered the card to have excellent memory bandwidth. So they've increased 78 00:05:36,639 --> 00:05:41,919 it from 128 bit to 192bit, but they've 79 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:45,520 also managed to keep a nice round number on the memory capacity. So there you go. 80 00:05:43,759 --> 00:05:49,680 That's kind of cool. It also helps the board partners achieve slightly lower 81 00:05:47,280 --> 00:05:53,280 board costs by using these lower density chips to to get up to that capacity. So 82 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:57,199 it really is a win-winwin for everyone. The consumer gets more bandwidth, gets 83 00:05:55,280 --> 00:06:01,680 more memory, and the board partners save on some cost. And NVIDIA's engineers are 84 00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:06,080 clearly pretty clever right about now. So right here we've got a PCI Express 6 85 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:10,800 pin connector. So that is the only external power that this card requires. 86 00:06:07,840 --> 00:06:14,960 We can also clearly see the four pin PWM fan connector for that fan for the heat 87 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:20,000 sink. We can also see the power delivery in there. So fairly basic. Uh there's no 88 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:24,319 active cooling on the power. Well, okay, there's act. Okay, there's no heat sinks 89 00:06:21,759 --> 00:06:29,039 on the power circuitry, but what we do have is a fair amount of air flow is 90 00:06:27,199 --> 00:06:33,360 going to be coming from the fan and going over the power connect or the 91 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:36,960 power circuitry because there's absolutely nothing restricting the air 92 00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:44,479 flow out this way. So, what that means is that the GTX 550Ti is going to be a 93 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:48,720 fairly internal exhaust card cuz you can see here right along the entire top of 94 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:52,880 the shroud, there's a fairly substantial gap that's going to allow air to come 95 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:56,639 out this way, cool these memory chips, cool anything up here along the card. 96 00:06:54,880 --> 00:07:01,039 Uh, same thing along the bottom. You're going to see there's a fairly substantial gap there. So, while we're 97 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:04,720 going to be exhausting some of the air out of the back plate, most of it is 98 00:07:03,280 --> 00:07:07,919 going to be coming out the top, the bottom, and the back of the card. Like 99 00:07:06,319 --> 00:07:11,680 maybe 20% of it is going to be externally exhausted. Now, this isn't 100 00:07:09,919 --> 00:07:15,360 going to be a very hot running card, so I don't think that's going to be a huge 101 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:18,800 problem for you. Um, one last thing I should probably go over before we end 102 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:23,199 here is that it does support all of the usual NVIDIA technology. So, we've got 103 00:07:21,039 --> 00:07:27,520 CUDA, 3D Vision, I already mentioned SLI, already mentioned NVIDIA Surround, 104 00:07:25,759 --> 00:07:30,880 but all of that good stuff is supported. This is a gaming grade card. It's 105 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:36,479 targeted at people who are playing at 1680x 1050 or lower. So, don't expect to 106 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:40,720 be, you know, grabbing one of these if you're running on a huge 30-in monitor 107 00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:46,160 or anything like that. But, it is a gaming grade sort of a uh entrylevel 108 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:52,479 performance grade card. So, thank you for checking out my unboxing of the 109 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:54,319 GeForce GTX 550Ti or Tai if you prefer. 110 00:07:52,479 --> 00:08:00,160 Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and 111 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:02,080 other computer videos. Irk, I forgot to 112 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:05,360 mention Physex, and I also wanted to mention the just the clock speeds of 113 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:10,319 this particular card. So, it's clocked at 900 MHz, which is substantially 114 00:08:07,599 --> 00:08:14,240 higher than the old GTS 450, but the actual power consumption of the card has 115 00:08:11,919 --> 00:08:16,879 only gone up slightly. So, I'm really looking forward to getting this guy on 116 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:20,280 the test bench. Once again, don't forget to subscribe.