Review: Overclocking the GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Conclusions
Getting past the 1 GHz “barrier” with the GTX 550 Ti is possible, but not that easy. Success depends on the HSF’s ability to suppress heat and the overclockability of the individual graphics chips themselves. In our attempts, we needed to increase the voltage before we could bump the speed beyond 1 GHz. The memory chips are quite overclockable, considering the fact that they are not equipped with any HSF on top.
As for the performance increase, the overclocks yielded satisfying results. In certain games, at 1920×1080, the frame rates were increased to more than 30 FPS. Games that already ran at 30 FPS prior to the overclock gained additional frames per second, resulting in smoother gameplay.
There are factory-overclocked variants of the GTX 550 Ti, most of which are clocked at 1000 MHz or above by default. These can be your choice if you do not wish to meddle in all the overclocking complications, but that extra speed –which otherwise can be obtained by manually overclocking a standard card just like we did in this article- comes with an extra price. By overclocking the card yourself, you can get the additional speed increase without paying an extra. But, as we mentioned above, there is no guarantee that your GTX 550 Ti can be overclocked to match the frequencies of pre-overclocked GTX 550 Ti cards. The choice is yours to decide!
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