WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:08.400 Now, this is something I've never had the pleasure of unboxing before. This is 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:12.800 an NVIDIA branded GeForce GTX. It is a 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:16.240 reference card, so it has a completely 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:19.279 black box all on the outside. It's 00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:21.520 completely black. 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 00:00:23.279 --> 00:00:30.000 do is start opening this thing up. 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:32.399 It's got a nice uh glossy branding 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.640 finish on it to go with the overall matte black box. You can see here 00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:42.640 something I've never seen on a graphics card box before and that is designed and 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 00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:53.600 inside to the box. All right. Now, here's something. Dear valued editor, 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 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:02.480 off because I don't know how much of that is confidential, but uh yeah. Okay. 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 00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:13.920 GDR uh GDDDR5 memory interface which is actually 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:17.840 pretty cool because it allows the board partners to mix and match the densities 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:23.040 of the memory modules they're putting on so that they can achieve a 1 gig 00:01:20.080 --> 00:01:28.640 capacity without an even memory bandwidth interface. So that's pretty 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:32.560 cool. um has faster clock speeds over 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:33.920 the GTS 450, its younger brother, and it 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 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 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. 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:50.240 There we go. There's an NVIDIA next to that little logo. We got some NVIDIA 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:56.000 logos. We got one of their NVIDIA characters and a GeForce GTX sticker. 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:58.560 Very nice. Okay, we have a driver disc, 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:02.479 which is empty. So, this is just a reference package that does not contain 00:02:00.240 --> 00:02:06.560 a driver disc because it shipped out before there was a driver disc available 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:10.000 for this particular card. Here's where some accessories would go if there were 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 00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:16.640 got a GTX 550 Ti reviewer guide, which 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:20.959 is highly confidential, and you guys won't be looking at that. 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 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:30.560 assume at this point based on the evidence I've seen thus far is a GeForce 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:34.959 GTX 550. And then we have nothing underneath. So, this is a retail boxed 00:02:33.200 --> 00:02:38.879 card that doesn't quite contain a full retail package. Oh, and then thank you 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:43.440 for buying in a bunch of different languages. Very nice. Nice touch. Okay, 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. 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:57.040 All right. So, here it is. This is the 00:02:52.959 --> 00:03:01.120 GTX 550 Ti. It features a very similar 00:02:57.040 --> 00:03:04.560 look to the 560Ti reference design card. 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:06.400 That is the central fan with a flower 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:10.319 style heatsink. So, if I spin this, you can see the heat sink a little bit 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 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 00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:24.640 cooler for optimal performance. So, NVIDIA has opted just for a standard 00:03:22.239 --> 00:03:30.000 flower heat sink cooler. You can see the shroud is recessed a little bit just 00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:35.200 like the 560Ti. So, the fan actually sticks up a little bit above the top of 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 00:03:36.959 --> 00:03:42.560 in an SLI configuration and your cards are close together, it should give your 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 00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:50.400 card stays adequately cool. You can see something here that we've actually seen 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 00:03:53.360 --> 00:04:00.799 bottom connector. That doesn't matter. Actually, all that is is uh they've 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:04.319 removed some of the unnecessary pins that they don't need. It will not affect 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:10.000 performance or the bandwidth available to your card in any way, shape, or form. 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:14.560 You can also tell this is an engineering sample card by the fact that the PCI 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 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, 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 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:32.800 SLI and not three-way SLI, just so you 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:37.040 guys are aware because it's only got a single connector. That means it's only 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:40.000 compatible with two-way SLI. On the back, we find the connectors that we're 00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:44.160 getting pretty used to seeing. We've got a mini HDMI as well as two DVI 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:49.120 connectors. Although, please do note you can only use two of any any two of these 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:53.840 three connectors at any given time. If you do install two cards in your system, 00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:58.720 then you can run three monitors off of the two cards together to run NVIDIA 00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:02.160 surround with up to three monitors. Here on the back, you see one of the cool 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 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.160 card. So NVIDIA very cleverly has 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:18.080 allowed their partners to use four lower density memory modules and two higher 00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:21.919 density ones to achieve the five to achieve the 1 gig memory capacity. 00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:27.440 Otherwise we'd be stuck with one of those odd capacities like we've seen on 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:29.199 previous NVIDIA cards like 768 or uh 00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:34.880 1280. You know those those sort of oddball memory capacities but NVIDIA has 00:05:32.479 --> 00:05:39.680 engineered the card to have excellent memory bandwidth. So they've increased 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:41.919 it from 128 bit to 192bit, but they've 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:45.520 also managed to keep a nice round number on the memory capacity. So there you go. 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:49.680 That's kind of cool. It also helps the board partners achieve slightly lower 00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:53.280 board costs by using these lower density chips to to get up to that capacity. So 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:57.199 it really is a win-winwin for everyone. The consumer gets more bandwidth, gets 00:05:55.280 --> 00:06:01.680 more memory, and the board partners save on some cost. And NVIDIA's engineers are 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:06.080 clearly pretty clever right about now. So right here we've got a PCI Express 6 00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:10.800 pin connector. So that is the only external power that this card requires. 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 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 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:24.319 active cooling on the power. Well, okay, there's act. Okay, there's no heat sinks 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 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:33.360 going to be coming from the fan and going over the power connect or the 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:36.960 power circuitry because there's absolutely nothing restricting the air 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 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:48.720 fairly internal exhaust card cuz you can see here right along the entire top of 00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:52.880 the shroud, there's a fairly substantial gap that's going to allow air to come 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:56.639 out this way, cool these memory chips, cool anything up here along the card. 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 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 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:07.919 going to be coming out the top, the bottom, and the back of the card. Like 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:11.680 maybe 20% of it is going to be externally exhausted. Now, this isn't 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 00:07:12.960 --> 00:07:18.800 problem for you. Um, one last thing I should probably go over before we end 00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:23.199 here is that it does support all of the usual NVIDIA technology. So, we've got 00:07:21.039 --> 00:07:27.520 CUDA, 3D Vision, I already mentioned SLI, already mentioned NVIDIA Surround, 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:30.880 but all of that good stuff is supported. This is a gaming grade card. It's 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.479 targeted at people who are playing at 1680x 1050 or lower. So, don't expect to 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 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:46.160 or anything like that. But, it is a gaming grade sort of a uh entrylevel 00:07:44.400 --> 00:07:52.479 performance grade card. So, thank you for checking out my unboxing of the 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:54.319 GeForce GTX 550Ti or Tai if you prefer. 00:07:52.479 --> 00:08:00.160 Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and 00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:02.080 other computer videos. Irk, I forgot to 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:05.360 mention Physex, and I also wanted to mention the just the clock speeds of 00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:10.319 this particular card. So, it's clocked at 900 MHz, which is substantially 00:08:07.599 --> 00:08:14.240 higher than the old GTS 450, but the actual power consumption of the card has 00:08:11.919 --> 00:08:16.879 only gone up slightly. So, I'm really looking forward to getting this guy on 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:20.280 the test bench. Once again, don't forget to subscribe.