Yes its refurbished. but who cares. Put x2 of em in SLI for only 200$ and it's gonna give you gtx 680 fps. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...x-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14130744-L02C
in sli x2 550 ti should get 40fps gtx 680 gets 40fps in the same metro 2033 game http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=41577
SLI doesnt scale linearly though, and some games have 90% performance while others have 70%. I would estimate that dual 550Ti would still be 30-40% slower than a single GTX680 in Metro 2033 only and the 680 would still provide more future proofing resources.
Here is a comparison bee the GTX680 and the 6970: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/555?vs=509 Why is that important? Well these benchmarks showing the 550Ti in SLI have the 6970 compared against them. So you can see how much better a 680 is than a 6970, which will help as a reference in these benchmark pictures: EDIT: Tweaktown wont let me link anything so just take my word on it for now. It looks like on average that 550Ti in SLI is between 5-15% faster than a single 6970. Which means a single GTX680 is about 25-50% faster depending on the game. Still, it is probably a good deal for modern upper-midrange performance being only $200-240~
There were there when I posted, I guess TweakTown doesnt like hotlinking. Ill fix them after work. EDIT: if you right click the "Click here to enlarge" and select view image, it opens the image perfectly fine.