EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: Excellent history with eVGA, reasonable size & power requirements, the GTX 550 Ti is the single best budget mid-range card out there

Cons: Minor con: I would prefer the regular sized HDMI port, but it won't fit with 2 DVI ports and it is the common configuration.

Overall Review: I buy a lot of video cards and this has been my favorite for the last year. It is powerful, yet doesn't require a ton of power and doesn't break the bank. Make sure you register the card with eVGA within the first 30 days to get the warranty, which has very good service, if needed. It is a bit of overkill for the Media Center PC I put it in, but it does perform its "duties" very well.

Pros: This is a lot faster than the 450. It runs a lot of games like SC2 at medium resolutions. Everything was set to ultra at 1280x1024 and ran nicely at a low widescreen res as well. Got a 7.4 WEI rating, 0.2 higher than the 450. It's also not very long so it hits in quite a few cases. There's no reason to go to a better card unless you're running the latest games at 1920x1080.

Cons: none

Overall Review: It's a double height card so leave room.

Pros: If you're looking for a great value don't confuse "budget" with poor quality. I recently put together a new rig and this was the only card in my budget. To my surprise it's rub EVE online, Starcraft 2, and Left 4 dead 2 all on Max settings at 1080p with NO slow down at all. I am so happy I'm going to get a second for SLI when money permits.

Cons: Wish I had gone with a 2 GB card just for a little extra performance but I can't find a real con for this card.

Pros: Shorter than my old GTX 280 Superclocked by about an inch or so. Much lighter (About half the weight). Uses half the power at only 20 amps. But it actually seems to have higher performance. I was surprised because at first I thought it was just going to be a really cheapo card just by how it looks and feels, but it runs pretty well so far. I played Rift on Ultra settings at 40-60 FPS which isn't too bad. It's only been a couple days though so I'll have to wait and see how it does it the long run, if it holds up well I might get another. I would reccomend installing the EVGA Precision program and turing up the fan speed to 60-70% though, the auto setting on EVGA cards seem to run them too hot. You guys with small cases will like it too cause it's short (about 8 1/2" + the 6pin pci power plug that sticks in the back) even though it does take up 2 slots.

Cons: Only con is the free Mafia 2 game card wasn't in the box when I got it. I'm not taking an egg off for that though until I give NewEgg a chance to make it right, which I'm sure they will.

Overall Review: As with all EVGA products - MAKE SURE YOU REGISTER IT WITHIN 30 DAYS!! Or you loose out on your warranty and any freebies. Sytem Specs: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard Xtreme Phase w/ SLI and CrossfireX, TurboV -------- Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor -------- Memory - 12Gb OCZ Platinum SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) OCZ3P1600LV6GK -------- COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case -------- OS - Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit

Pros: Runs very cool. 27 C/81 F during idle. If I touch it, my finger will warm up the GPU. There are 3 settings it shifts through. 50/101 Mhz, 405/810 Mhz, and 951/1903 Mhz GPU/Processor clock. The temperature goes up 10 degrees C per clock increase. 27/37/47 C. This thing is just really cool. It's a pretty small sized card compared to some of the earlier nvidia's I've had. I was expecting a boat anchor, but it's really not. It's about the size and weight of a GTS 250. The graphics are pretty snappy. I'm running this on Linux, and am doing some phoronix benchmarks on it to see how it fares. Just finished one while typing this. Getting 175.5 FPS in a 1920X1200 Urban Terror Benchmark. It's not a new game obviously, but it gives you an idea of what it can do at high res. EVGA has an extended 10 year warranty available on this thing with a step-up program to the latest card at a decent discount. Not bad for $110 bucks. Not owning a paperweight is a big selling

Cons: It's made in China. The serial number is not on a easily viewable portion of the card once installed. The serial number is also printed on cheap pre-cut tape on the board, so you have six ways to lose it instead of one.

Overall Review: I was looking at the 560 and 580 instead of this card. But seeing the recent price drops, ATI's new high end slamming the market, and other signs of life and impending death- I got the feeling a new generation of Nvidia cards will be coming out shortly. It just smells like rain's comin. So I am going with good enough, and then dropping major coin when the new architecture comes out. It's a bad time to go heavy when the sands are shifting under your feet, so this card fits the bill for me.

Pros: The GTX 550 really is a nice card overall, and it's a lot of card for the money. A lot of people slam the GTX 550's in general, and I think unjustly so. Many forums and reviews talk about how the GTX 460, 560, and higher perform better. Of course they do. The higher the card, the higher the performance, and the higher the price. But not everyone is dealing with an unlimited budget or wants to spend that much. Fan is silent. HDMI v1.4a. Open GL 4.1. DirectX 11.

Cons: Mine arrived defective. It had an issue with faulty capacitors that caused the card to hum any time it was under load. Even with speaker volume at a decent level you could still hear the hum which sounded like having a digital dog whistle in your ear. Not sure if this is a video card or driver issue, but in SC2 it recommended many settings to be medium or low. I ran everything at highest setting anyway. My average FPS range was 40-60. EVGA did not have the most current drivers on their website. They told me to get the ones from the NVIDIA website instead. The fanspeed setting range in Precision is 41% to 77%. EVGA said that's how they set the fan range to be on this particular card. Only a two year warranty. EVGA used to give lifetime warranty on all their cards. Now they play games and give every card a different warranty. I've owned three different EVGA cards this year. Two of the three arrived defective. That's pretty darn bad.

Overall Review: Other than the defective capacitor issue, I thought this was a great card for the money. It came with some nice promo software too. Newegg's and EVGA's RMA service was excellent. You have to watch the last two letters of the model number. It determines if you will have a 1, 2, 3, 5 year, or lifetime warranty. If you do not register within 30 days of purchase date you will only have 1 year. Some identical cards have different warranties and are only on EVGA's site. This card is only just a little bit faster than my 9800 GTX+ SC 512MB, but it supports all the latest technologies and has double the memory. System Information: ASUS Striker II Extreme MB 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo E8400 ASUS Royal Knight CPU cooler Arctic Silver 5 EVGA GeForce GTX 550 FPB 1GB 4 x 2GB Kingston HyperX Blu RAM Thermaltake Black Widow 850W PS 2 x WD 500GB RAID drives in mirror 2 x Lite-On DVD-RW burners 3.5" drive w/ memory card reader Rosewill Challenger mid-tower Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Pros: -Great card for a casual gamer. -Runs Bad Company 2 on High with no issues. -Runs cool after hours of nonstop game-play. -Played Battlefield 3 Beta for 3 hours on max settings, no lag issues nor temperature issues. The resolution used was 1440x900 if anyone is wondering.

Cons: None

Overall Review: -I had my worries that this would NOT run the Battlefield 3 Beta at medium settings. The 1440x900 resolution has a lot to do with it too. The game ran great but if you're using a higher resolution....you might want to look at some different cards.

Pros: *This is all in comparison to my XFX GTX 260* -Good cooling -DirectX 11 -OpenGL 4.1 -1GB Memory -Good budget card -Short -Low power consumption

Cons: -Not very future proof -Only 192 Cores

Overall Review: Playing WoW card can peak at 100% load when on ultra settings and a lot of effects are in view. Playing Portal 2 card never went above 70% load. Idles at about 35-38C, under load at 100% 71-73C. Fan auto adjusts well to changing temperatures. Overall if you're looking for a budget card buy this, if you have a bit more to spend get a 560 or 570. This card will last for probably 2-3 years until it's "outdated". I'm happy with this card for now, another great card from EVGA. Note: The sticker on the top is the warranty sticker, don't peel it off like I did. -_-"