Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Review

KFA² GeForce GTX 550 Ti White Preview

Manufacturer: KFA²
UK price (as reviewed): TBC
US price (as reviewed): TBC

KFA² has taken Nvidia’s modest new GeForce GTX 550 Ti GPU and run with it. By the looks of the card, it’s run a marathon at sprinter speeds too, as the card has an extra 6-pin power connector and some heavy-duty VRMs. There’s an 8+1 phase power circuit, which uses some fancy low-c capacitors and a CHiL CHL8212 power controller chip. The card also features a white PCB to denote its potential overclocking prowess.


The MOSFETs have their own heatsink too, and as the attractive metal-shrouded cooler uses a 4-pin 80mm fan that blows down onto the PCB, this heatsink receives some active cooling, albeit second-hand. Meanwhile, on the back of the card you'll find a pair of NEC-Tokin 0D108 Proadilizer chips to handle decoupling at higher frequencies than 1GHz, while also reducing electrical impedance and replacing the need for the usual bank of capacitors that are required for decoupling.

To accommodate the hefty power circuitry, the card is also longer than a typical GTX 550 Ti card at 230mm. The pair of 6-pin power connectors (which both have to be used) are mounted on the end of the card too, so you’ll need an extra 50mm of clearance on top of that for these.


The card’s heatsink is a fairly extravagant affair, with four heatpipes and a large bank of aluminium fins. The heatsink is important, as the card ships with its GPU pre-overclocked from 900MHz to 1GHz, meaning that the 192 stream processors operate at 2GHz. The Hynix memory is also pre-overclocked by KFA², from the typical 1.026GHz (4.104GHz effective) to 1.15GHz (4.6GHz effective).

Where to Buy

KFA² cards are stocked at many online retailers, including:

• CCL Online
  
• Dabs
  
• eBuyer
  
• Novatech
  
• Scan
  
• Yoyotech