Ok this is not really on topic, but the reason I created this thread was to make sure I've made the right decision. The thing is - I've already purchased EVGA GTX550Ti last week. I was actually thinking about returning it, and your comments only pushed me further towards RMAing the card. But today, while playing GTA IV I've noticed a very strange phenomenon. If you ever played the game, you know that when you change the graphics options, there is a fraction at the bottom of the screen, telling you how much RAM would be used with the intended settings. With my old GDDR5 1GB RHD5670 it was always limited to 970-something mb. The new GTX550Ti I ordered is also GDDR5 1GB. That's what it said in newegg description, that's what it said in the manual, and that's what it said on the box. But while playing GTA today, I was changing my visuals settings. and I noticed the game was no longer limited to 1GB. Instead, it read a much higher number, in 19-hundreds mb. I thought it was surely a mistake, and the game would crash if I went over 1GB. But nothing like that happened. I comfortably played the game using 1300-1400 mb of RAM, with very little lagging and pretty good FPS. I was shocked by that, immediately restarted the game, and it still worked at the same settings. Then I fired up the EVGA Precision tool that came along with the card and it further reassured my hopes.
So, here I am - my graphics card is somehow managing 2GBs of RAM, instead of 1. How is that possible??? Is it possible that they sent me a wrong card? I did do some overclocking in the same Precision tool, could that somehow change something?