nVidia mid-range match-up, what should you buy?

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance.

Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

We tested the cards with the default Performance settings.

While the performance in 3DMark 2011 scales nicely with clock speed, given that the GTX550 we received will go on sale at almost exactly the same price as the GTX460, it's going to be tough. Remember that the GTX460 itself can be a good overclocking card.

Become a Patron!