Asus launches new GTX550 Ti DirectCU graphics cards

Asus has announced that it is now shipping some new video cards that use the NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti GPU inside. The cards support HD Blu-ray playback and 3D content as well. The GTX550 Ti DirectCU has 192 CUDA cores and a design that is tweaked for increased performance while running color and with less noise production than older card versions.

ASUS says that the new card is 28% faster and has 20% more performance per watt than the GTS 450 card in the previous generation. The card also supports DirectX 11 and Tessellation along with 3D Vision, NVIDIA Surround and PhysX among other things. The card can also be used in SLI mode inside compatible PCs.

The cooling solution on the new video card uses heat pipes that touch the GPU directly to allow for up to 20% cooler running and it has Super Alloy Power VRM for clean power and better overclocking performance. Asus will also be offering the GTX550 Ti in standard, Top, and Ultimate versions. The Top GPU will be clocked at 975MHz, the Ultimate GPU will run at 1015MHz, and the standard GPU runs at 910MHz. The memory clocks are 4104MHz, 4200MHz, and 4104MHz respectively.