MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE Video Card Review @ [H]

MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE Video Card Review - Today we evaluate MSI's high-end GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST line with the flagship overclocked Gaming Edition MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE. With falling prices on AMD Radeon video cards we will compare it to the AMD Radeon HD 7850 to see which will emerge as the victor in the sub-$200 price price range.

hardocp seems to have a special affinity for Nvidia's Kepler generation. They have always exaggerated Nvidia cards and underplayed AMD cards at the same price point across the product stack.

"Overall, Radeon HD 7850 is a much better competitor, performance wise, to the GeForce GTX 650 TI BOOST. It's a lot better than the Radeon HD 7790, which was just killed by the GTX 650 Ti BOOST. However, even though it is better competition, it still comes out under-performing the MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE. We experienced higher and better gameplay settings with the MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE that resulted in a better gameplay experience. "

You realize the HD 7850 you tested is running at 860 Mhz. Why wouldn't you pick a factory OC'ed HD 7850 at 1 Ghz to pit against your favourite Nvidia card which comes OC'd out of the box I mention these cards because you would argue about stock performance. we have HD 7850 cards clocked at 1 Ghz out of the box for USD 170 which is 10 bucks cheaper.

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161428
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131472

thats a 16% higher clock. HD 7850 scales very well. even a stock HD 7850(860 mhz) overclocks to the 1.1 - 1.15 Ghz range with voltage tweaking. for proof you can look at the ASUS HD 7850 review mentioned below. HD 7850 at 1 Ghz would close the gap in Metro while matching in Farcry 3, Crysis 3 and beating it by >10% in Tombraider and Hitman.

this GTX 650 Ti OC at 1.2 Ghz cannot beat a HD 7850 OC at 1.1 Ghz even in games where it does well.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013..._directcu_ii_video_card_review/4#.Ui1gpH_3x8E

Farcry 3 1920 x 1080 Ultra 2X MSAA HDAO

HD 7850(1.1 Ghz) - 35.8
GTX 650 Ti boost (1.2 Ghz) - 33.0

HD 7850 OC(1.1 Ghz) will not lose a single game to this GTX 650 Ti boost OC(1.2 Ghz.) including Metro Last Light where the diff will be 0 - 2%. In games like Hitman, Tombraider the HD 7850(1.1 Ghz) beats GTX 650 Ti boost OC(1.2 Ghz) its by 18 - 20%.GTX 650 Ti boost is a slower card than HD 7850 no matter which way you try to spin it. Just as the HD 7950 is faster than GTX 760 and was proved in your hardocp review.

btw with just a 10% diff in Crysis 3 you pushed the HD 7850 to a lower setting. On the contrary the HD 7950(1.15 Ghz) beat the GTX 760(1.28 Ghz) by 25% in Tombraider which would allow for higher AA settings like SSAA. but you came out with a different conclusion

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/6#.Ui2MlX_3x8E

"With these prices in mind, the MSI N760 OC, at stock settings, technically beat out, in raw performance, the Radeon HD 7950 Boost. The gameplay experience was the same. However, when we overclocked both, the Radeon HD 7950 turned around and provided the technically higher raw performance. However the gameplay experience was still the same."

So you see even when AMD wins by 20 - 25% gameplay experience is same and when Nvidia wins by 10% gameplay experience is different. right. this is hypocrisy. the bias is very obvious. hardocp does not want to accept that AMD offers better performance and price at every price point.
HD 7850 vs GTX 650 Ti boost , HD 7870 vs GTX 660, HD 7950 vs GTX 660 Ti / GTX 760 , HD 7970 vs GTX 670 and HD 7970 Ghz vs GTX 770.

The MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE would be a perfect selection for the best gameplay under $200.

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That title should go for the GTX660, there are plenty of cards for under $200 or even less AR.

Stoly said:

That title should go for the GTX660, there are plenty of cards for under $200 or even less AR.

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the best card below USD 200 is a HD 7870.

www.amazon.com/Graphics-Exclusive-DirectCU-Solution-HD7870-DC2-2GD5-V2/dp/B008DW91X4/

www.amazon.com/HIS-Mini-DiplayPort-Express-Graphics-H787Q2G2M/dp/B007HYIRES/

www.amazon.com/Sapphire-DL-DVI-I-SL-DVI-D-PCI-Express-100354OC-2L/dp/B00A2J4ROE/

if you have any doubts look at the ASUS HD 7870 Direct Cu II review. faster than GTX 660. scales brilliantly with OC and matches or exceeds GTX 660 Ti when OC'd.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/05/15/asus_radeon_hd_7870_directcu_ii_v2_review/4

the worst part of this review is they make a statement saying GTX 650 Ti boost provides the best gameplay under $200 when there are HD 7870 cards for USD 180 - 200. this should be enough to prove hardocp's complete disconnect with the reality.

With ATIs crap drivers and stuttering gameplay issues I for one would always picked nvidia considering i still have a 5000 series ATI card still in my PC and have tried ATI cards also in the past to switch it up nvidia will always be getting my money now because I have never had any issues with nvidia cards ever even back when nvidia first came out.

raghu78 said:

So you see even when AMD wins by 20 - 25% gameplay experience is same and when Nvidia wins by 10% gameplay experience is different. right. this is hypocrisy. the bias is very obvious. hardocp does not want to accept that AMD offers better performance and price at every price point.
HD 7850 vs GTX 650 Ti boost , HD 7870 vs GTX 660, HD 7950 vs GTX 660 Ti / GTX 760 , HD 7970 vs GTX 670 and HD 7970 Ghz vs GTX 770.

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You are so kinda AMD ridiculous fan boy or what???.. More FPS does not mean better gameplay experience... And thats the main Focus of [H]OCP review, smooth gameplay and better gameplay experience, AMD cards can show 60FPS that feels like 25FPS.. Nvidia cards show 50FPS that feels like 50FPS, And thats why with AMD the frame pacing "fix" received a big cut-off of MAX and average FPS.. Do not wanna be rude, but you are kinda stupid thinking more FPS= better gameplay, the better gaming experience comes with the most stable possible frame rating, the lowest possible frame time, thats why they stated that kind of things about a GTX 650TI boost vs 7850. Do you like to play at 45FPS that feel like 15?... Or 30 that feel like 30??..

And i aclare something, im not green team fanboy, i've use geen and red teams cards, my secondary rig are built in AMD, and one of my brother are built too in AMD,so i know very well about AMD cards and their choppy gameplay experience... Even on AMD gaming evolved titles like tomb raider ..

Araxie said:

You are so kinda AMD ridiculous fan boy or what???.. More FPS does not mean better gameplay experience... And thats the main Focus of [H]OCP review, smooth gameplay and better gameplay experience, AMD cards can show 60FPS that feels like 25FPS.. Nvidia cards show 50FPS that feels like 50FPS, And thats why with AMD the frame pacing "fix" received a big cut-off of MAX and average FPS.. Do not wanna be rude, but you are kinda stupid thinking more FPS= better gameplay, the better gaming experience comes with the most stable possible frame rating, the lowest possible frame time, thats why they stated that kind of things about a GTX 650TI boost vs 7850. Do you like to play at 45FPS that feel like 15?... Or 30 that feel like 30??..

And i aclare something, im not green team fanboy, i've use geen and red teams cards, my secondary rig are built in AMD, and one of my brother are built too in AMD,so i know very well about AMD cards and their choppy gameplay experience... Even on AMD gaming evolved titles like tomb raider ..

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the smoothness issue is not a problem with AMD single GPUs. there are enough reviews with frametimes on the web to prove the case. I agree it is a problem with CF. but that argument does not hold for single GPUs.

What I find disconcerting is when an AMD card wins even by 25% and there are higher graphics settings which can be run its ignored or not considered. but at the slightest hint of 10% difference a higher setting can be turned on the Nvidia card for a better gameplay experience. btw that 10% improvement is available in factory OC'd HD 7850 cards out of the box. the constant effort to downplay an equal / faster AMD GPU as a slower GPU is very obvious.

raghu78 said:

the smoothness issue is not a problem with AMD single GPUs. there are enough reviews with frametimes on the web to prove the case. I agree it is a problem with CF. but that argument does not hold for single GPUs.

What I find disconcerting is when an AMD card wins even by 25% and there are higher graphics settings which can be run its ignored or not considered. but at the slightest hint of 10% difference a higher setting can be turned on the Nvidia card for a better gameplay experience. btw that 10% improvement is available in factory OC'd HD 7850 cards out of the box. the constant effort to downplay an equal / faster AMD GPU as a slower GPU is very obvious.

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No man, even on single GPU it present very lack of smooth gameplay... When you are AMD user and switch to a NVIDIA card you notice a big difference on the experience all seems to be more fluid.. When you are NVIDIA user and switch to a AMD card even if are a much more powerfull card you said inmediately "something its wrong".. The experience its complete diferent, I bought recently 4 7950 for a mining rig i made for a friend, i took one of the cards and i've tested for a long time, and i loved it, the OC potential, the higher framerate, it feels so powerfull much more than my actual 660TI (stock clocked at 1333mhz)... But the experience was completely diferent with vsync and 60FPS rock solid i've tested LOT of games, including AMD gaming evolved titles, and the experience was repeted one and other time, always the same, 60FPS that feel like 45FPS or even less on games like the witcher 2, just cause 2 or battlefield 3... Then after that time i've returned to one of my 660TIs and it was really like pass from a older weak card to a new powerfull one, even being a slower (but still enough for my 1080p 60hz panel)... And i pretty sure thats what [H]OCP mean in their review with gaming experience even being obvious the fact of more FPS in the red side i can understand that feeling of more FPS not mean better gameplay..

an enthusiast gold award for a 650 ti boost?

i wanna see 650 ti boost sli numbers.
these little sckrs may stand between a 770 and a 780 for the price of a 7970..

Emm, I'm disappointed in this review on multiple levels.

That a green card performs better than a red card, or vice versa is fine with supporting data. But comparing a $150 card to a $174.99 factory overclocked card when there are much closer comparisons possible as described in other posts is misleading. An example of this can be found here which took less than 2 minutes to find :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025

A 7870 under the price of a 650Ti.

At any rate, I find this review misleading and not up to [H]'s usual level.

Araxie said:

No man, even on single GPU it present very lack of smooth gameplay... When you are AMD user and switch to a NVIDIA card you notice a big difference on the experience all seems to be more fluid.. When you are NVIDIA user and switch to a AMD card even if are a much more powerfull card you said inmediately "something its wrong".. The experience its complete diferent, I bought recently 4 7950 for a mining rig i made for a friend, i took one of the cards and i've tested for a long time, and i loved it, the OC potential, the higher framerate, it feels so powerfull much more than my actual 660TI (stock clocked at 1333mhz)... But the experience was completely diferent with vsync and 60FPS rock solid i've tested LOT of games, including AMD gaming evolved titles, and the experience was repeted one and other time, always the same, 60FPS that feel like 45FPS or even less on games like the witcher 2, just cause 2 or battlefield 3... Then after that time i've returned to one of my 660TIs and it was really like pass from a older weak card to a new powerfull one, even being a slower (but still enough for my 1080p 60hz panel)... And i pretty sure thats what [H]OCP mean in their review with gaming experience even being obvious the fact of more FPS in the red side i can understand that feeling of more FPS not mean better gameplay..

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I run both amd and Nvidia cards, and I disagree with just about everything you said.

You clearly have a bias one way or the other and are letting it fool you into thinking the way you do.

also if you are going to go off on a rant, at least make it more readable than that one.

I understand the sentiment that some of you are having regarding the prices of the cards being compared. The problem David has to face is writing a review perhaps a few weeks in advance while having to face fluctuating card prices. He also probably doesn't have an unlimited quantity of cards to choose from. This review should be taken as a part of a whole series of other reviews out on the Internet.. none of us should be just using one site for the basis of ALL our decision making. It is fair to criticize if you feel the review was biased in some way but it is really hard to know if it is as you are not privy to how the entire article was written.

Just using the 1st two examples of "the best card below USD 200 is a HD 7870"

http://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Exclu...dp/B008DW91X4/ - during the past month, according to "the Camelizer" plugin, this card was been sold on Amazon from between $240 and $198, and currently is $220.

http://www.amazon.com/HIS-Mini-Dipla...dp/B007HYIRES/ - during the past month, this card on Amazon has been between $220 and $180, currently at $185.

Prices for video cards jump around more than Mexican jumping beans, not even taking into account the price variances between stores. The SAPPHIRE 100354OC-2L mentioned by Yakk as being cheaper than a 650Ti, is $210 (before rebate) at Newegg but $185 at Amazon. And at Newegg the ASUS GTX650TI-OC-2GD5 GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB is available for $150 ($135 with rebate) while other 650Ti cards are a little over $200. So perhaps comparing video cards mostly on price isn't the best way to compare between 2 cards since prices vary greatly and fluctuate often!!

I didn't read the article as I usually buy Galaxy video cards but also I feel that the 650ti and 7890 are both "dead men walking". Ryan at PCPerspective has mentioned twice recently about AMD possibly releasing new cards in October, while just today I read that a GeForce GTX 750 Ti might be released within a few weeks.

Probably the worst review slash add I've ever seen on this site. While I personally find nothing wrong with the card , this quote "The MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE would be a perfect selection for the best gameplay under $200" is an absolute joke !

iTYPE said:

Probably the worst review slash add I've ever seen on this site. While I personally find nothing wrong with the card , this quote "The MSI N650Ti TF 2GD5/OC BE would be a perfect selection for the best gameplay under $200" is an absolute joke !

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And how is it a joke? For below $185, this card will give you good performance for those on a budget.

However, I'd rather pick up a similarly priced 7870 or 7950 (when on special). Just remember, the prices on those two cards tend to fluctuate often.

Prices are changing rapidly, there is a difference between starting a review, finishing a review, and publishing a review. We can only base our comparison at a given time's prices, I lack the ability to travel through time to see what prices will be like 3 weeks from now. The 7850 is what readers wanted us to be comparing the 650 Ti Boost too in past reviews, we did that this time since prices at the time we started the review matched perfectly. The 7850 is still good performance competition to the 650 Ti Boost.

Prices often fall like this just before a new generation launch, we try to keep up, but you must understand price changes are out of our control and after a review has been finished, we can't go back and change everything. I wouldn't change anything anyway, the 7850 is still the better comparison than the 7790 now. I stand by our results and our conclusion in this review, the 650 Ti Boost IS faster than a 7850 and allows a better gameplay experience, fact.

Brent_Justice said:

Prices are changing rapidly, there is a difference between starting a review, finishing a review, and publishing a review. We can only base our comparison at a given time's prices, I lack the ability to travel through time to see what prices will be like 3 weeks from now. The 7850 is what readers wanted us to be comparing the 650 Ti Boost too in past reviews, we did that this time since prices at the time we started the review matched perfectly. The 7850 is still good performance competition to the 650 Ti Boost.

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The question is why you pitted a factory OCed 650 Nvidia card against a stock 7850 AMD card. I read every GPU review on this site and I have not seen an AMD card win the battle (even the price/performance battle) in the Kepler generation.

PS I have never owned anything but Nvidia cards.

To make matter worse you OC the 650 and not the 7850. I know the article is published as a review of the 650 Ti Boost, but once you turned it into a comparison you should have OCed both cards.

rinaldo00 said:

The question is why you pitted a factory OCed 650 Nvidia card against a stock 7850 AMD card. I read every GPU review on this site and I have not seen an AMD card win the battle (even the price/performance battle) in the Kepler generation.

PS I have never owned anything but Nvidia cards.

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They test the card that can test no more than that... Its the same in the game performance ewviews, why theres always a 7970 GHZ edition vs a stock 680?... Thats the card they had at the moment, They test the cards that were supplied, nothing more... Why people rage when are compared a 650TI boost vs a stock 7850 but no when are compared 7970GHZ vs stock 680?..

Araxie said:

They test the card that can test no more than that... Its the same in the game performance ewviews, why theres always a 7970 GHZ edition vs a stock 680?... Thats the card they had at the moment, They test the cards that were supplied, nothing more

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Because this review was based on price and a OCed 7850 is still cheaper than the 650 boost. If you are going to help or hurt a company's sales I think a review site should make the match as even as possible.

Why people rage when are compared a 650TI boost vs a stock 7850 but no when are compared 7970GHZ vs stock 680?..

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Oh people raged about that too.

JoseJones said:

I would like to have also seen the NVidia 760 used to be able to compare them.

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The 760 is way outside the price range of these cards at $250, the 650 Ti Boost and 7850 are sub-$200 cards.

The competition for 760 is the 7950 right now with similar price points.

rinaldo00 said:

To make matter worse you OC the 650 and not the 7850. I know the article is published as a review of the 650 Ti Boost, but once you turned it into a comparison you should have OCed both cards.

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Our reviews are always a comparison. We include comparison cards in every single video card review since day 1.

rinaldo00 said:

The question is why you pitted a factory OCed 650 Nvidia card against a stock 7850 AMD card. I read every GPU review on this site and I have not seen an AMD card win the battle (even the price/performance battle) in the Kepler generation.

PS I have never owned anything but Nvidia cards.

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At the time the price points to standard 7850 matched the price point of the card being reviwed perfectly. For our comparison cards, we often use "stock" clocks as a baseline to compare with, since there are varying overclocked cards with different clock speeds, and we can't arbitrarily pick out just one.

Having one video card with one overclock matching in price isn't enough to justify a comparison across a whole line and the intended performance from AMD or NVIDIA. We can't use one video card to justify the price of the entire line. So we use the stock clock.

Now, what we can do, and have done before, is to include a separate apples-to-apples page where we overclock the competing card and make a comparison. We've done it in the past, and we'll do it again as the need warrants. We understand this is an increasignly useful and appealing test to do that our readers wants. Understand it is extra testing, beyond the normal review testing, and we do so as is needed. Sometimes it is not feasible, other times it is. I'll be making an effort to include these comparisons more in future reviews since it is widely accepted that our readers want more of it. Please don't cry fowl if you fail to see it in every review.

Brent_Justice said:

Our reviews are always a comparison. We include comparison cards in every single video card review since day 1.

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Then why OC one card and not the other?

rinaldo00 said:

Then why OC one card and not the other?

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Read above. And to add to that, it has never been standard practice to do so. We have never set a precedent of including overclocking both video the card being reviewed, plus the competing card, in every review. Perhaps you haven't read many of our reviews.

Brent_Justice said:

Read above. And to add to that, it has never been standard practice to do so. We have never set a precedent of including overclocking both video the card being reviewed, plus the competing card, in every review. Perhaps you haven't read many of our reviews.

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As I've said I read EVERY video card review. I know you only OC the card being reviewed, that is why I said this:

I know the article is published as a review of the 650 Ti Boost, but once you turned it into a comparison you should have OCed both cards.

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Then you said this:

Now, what we can do, and have done before, is to include a separate apples-to-apples page where we overclock the competing card and make a comparison. We've done it in the past, and we'll do it again as the need warrants. We understand this is an increasignly useful and appealing test to do that our readers wants. Understand it is extra testing, beyond the normal review testing, and we do so as is needed. Sometimes it is not feasible, other times it is. I'll be making an effort to include these comparisons more in future reviews since it is widely accepted that our readers want more of it. Please don't cry fowl if you fail to see it in every review.

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Which is true and I do enjoy those reviews, what threw me is when this was put into the pull quote on the GPU review page.

With falling prices on AMD Radeon video cards we will compare it to the AMD Radeon HD 7850 to see which will emerge as the victor in the sub-$200 price price range.

I then expected the apples-to-apples test since you tried to match the cards as apples-to-apples (price wise anyway) That is why it felt like more of a apples-to-apples review than a video card review. How can you claim a card as the victor in the sub-$200 price range when one is OCed and the other is not?

I suppose I was a bit frustrated seeing AMD loose again, which might sound strange coming from a guy that never owned their products. Am I pulling for the underdog maybe?

Sometimes you just have to accept the color of the trees for what they are. Doesn't mean it won't always be that way, it's always changing. Sometimes xx is winning sometimes yy is winning. Neither are a bad option.

I got my MSI 650 Ti Boost 2GB for $105 AR a few weeks ago (the single fan model). Best card under $106.

Seriously give them a break, they have to quote MSRP, and 7870s generally MSRP over $199.

PS the card never worked, it's being RMA'd, so the NVidia Experience has kind of sucked so far.

Brent_Justice said:

Prices are changing rapidly, there is a difference between starting a review, finishing a review, and publishing a review. We can only base our comparison at a given time's prices, I lack the ability to travel through time to see what prices will be like 3 weeks from now. The 7850 is what readers wanted us to be comparing the 650 Ti Boost too in past reviews, we did that this time since prices at the time we started the review matched perfectly. The 7850 is still good performance competition to the 650 Ti Boost.

Prices often fall like this just before a new generation launch, we try to keep up, but you must understand price changes are out of our control and after a review has been finished, we can't go back and change everything. I wouldn't change anything anyway, the 7850 is still the better comparison than the 7790 now. I stand by our results and our conclusion in this review, the 650 Ti Boost IS faster than a 7850 and allows a better gameplay experience, fact.

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http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013..._directcu_ii_video_card_review/4#.Ui6GU3_3x8E

oh is it faster. why is the GTX 650 Ti boost OC slower than a HD 7850 OC. For every person who knows what these GPUs are capable of the HD 7850 is a faster card. almost everybody who buys a GPU overclocks and those who want guaranteed performance buy factory OC'd GPUs. the only time when a person buys a stock card is when the price is much lower. at the same price a user will always pick the highest factory OC'd card.

your conclusion is only indicative of your inherent bias towards Nvidia cards in this entire Kepler generation. the number of cards being reviewed from the Nvidia side is far more than that from the AMD side. its indicative of your lower interest in AMD cards this entire generation.

There are a lot of factory OC'd HD 7850 cards out there. Just as your HD 7950 OC vs GTX 760 OC vs GTX 660 Ti OC showed the HD 7950 as the clearly faster card so will a HD 7850 OC vs GTX 650 Ti boost OC or HD 7870 OC vs GTX 660 OC comparison. its just that Nvidia cards are clocked higher to win stock review comparisons. Nvidia cards launched well after the competing AMD cards. so its no surprise.

But anybody with a little bit of an idea about GPUs will not fall for the stock comparison. the avg HD 7850 with voltage tweaking does 1100 - 1150 mhz just as the avg HD 7950 boost. a golden HD 7850 / HD 7950 will hit 1.25+ Ghz speeds. there are scores of users on ocn who have proved the GTX 650 Ti boost OC is no match against a HD 7850 OC just as a GTX 660 OC cannot keep up with HD 7870 OC. also factory OC'd cards are there if you are going to argue about stock performance.

anyway hardocp has made up their mind with their Nvidia recommendations for this Kepler generation. lets see if things change for the upcoming generation.

There haven't been any new AMD GPUs lately genius. We fully covered the new 7790 on it's launch, plus a few retail cards. We've reviewed all the other cards, 7990/7970/7950/7870/7850 before that, there hasn't been anything new to evaluate. While on the NVIDIA side, there has been with the GeForce GTX 700 series which is more recent. We covered the new 650 Ti Boost at launch, and a few retail cards, and have included the 7790 in those reviews in every review except for this last one where we upped the competition to the 7850. Sub $200 cards are fully covered at this point, we won't do anymore.

Now it is time to do more GTX 760's, GTX 770's and GTX 780's, those we have not done a lot of, and that's the newest thing on the block. Right now manufacturers are coming to us with designs based on the new GTX 700 series. We are always evaluating the newest thing, and right now AMD has nothing new we haven't done in-depth, it's not just us, it's the add-in-board partners who aren't developing anything new on the AMD side (mainly because the next gen is most likely right around the corner.) When there is, of course we'll cover those in-depth. We are also still waiting on the Eyefinity Frame Pacing driver to cover that.

Your bias is noted.

[H] you spent years creating a smart user group of like minded enthusiasts who all stood up for your reputation.
Read the comments. We are not a bunch of half-wit dumb-chucks. We are seeing your trend of biased reviews. I myself have ten years of better ones under my belt, and am sad at the low level tactics you are producing recently.
It isn't a big surprise as big money has pushed its way into all tech sites. We all need a pay check. Don't we all? You used to run this site way back as a team. We all see now there is no team. Not the same site at all.
Sad.

Brent_Justice said:

There haven't been any new AMD GPUs lately genius. We fully covered the new 7790 on it's launch, plus a few retail cards. We've reviewed all the other cards, 7990/7970/7950/7870/7850 before that, there hasn't been anything new to evaluate. While on the NVIDIA side, there has been with the GeForce GTX 700 series which is more recent. We covered the new 650 Ti Boost at launch, and a few retail cards, and have included the 7790 in those reviews in every review except for this last one where we upped the competition to the 7850. Sub $200 cards are fully covered at this point, we won't do anymore.

Now it is time to do more GTX 760's, GTX 770's and GTX 780's, those we have not done a lot of, and that's the newest thing on the block. Right now manufacturers are coming to us with designs based on the new GTX 700 series. We are always evaluating the newest thing, and right now AMD has nothing new we haven't done in-depth, it's not just us, it's the add-in-board partners who aren't developing anything new on the AMD side (mainly because the next gen is most likely right around the corner.) When there is, of course we'll cover those in-depth. We are also still waiting on the Eyefinity Frame Pacing driver to cover that.

Your bias is noted.

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brent if you say you do a lot of reviews of custom AIB cards of newly launched cards how is it that other than the launch review of HD 7850 there was no HD 7850 partner card reviewed for more than a year till you reviewed the ASUS HD 7850.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013..._directcu_ii_video_card_review/4#.Ui6iKH_3x8F

why did the same rules not apply for the HD 7850 for more than a year. can you point me to a hardocp review of a HD 7850 anytime in 2012 after the launch review in Mar 2012.

same with the HD 7950 boost edition after its launch in Aug 2012. don't argue that HD 7950 boost is just an overclocked HD 7950. it was a new SKU especially designed to address reviewers who were talking about stock performance. Well informed users have all along known that HD 7950 OC = GTX 670 OC and HD 7970 OC = GTX 680 OC. AMD AIB partners shipped many good models like HIS HD 7950 Iceq x2 boost (950 mhz), Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-x(950 mhz), MSI HD 7950 TF3 OC BE (960 mhz). Few like Gigabyte updated their existing cards with revised clocks. Gigabyte HD 7950 OC(900 mhz) cards were updated with boost clocks upto 1000 Mhz.

http://www.gigabyte.in/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4121#sp

But from Aug 2012 upto date there has not been a single HD 7950 boost partner card reviewed. why ? because hardocp did not want to admit that the HD 7950 was the price performance leader from Oct 2012 when it hit USD 300 - 320 price point and improved performance with the Never settle drivers. whats better AMD added excellent game bundles throughout the last 12 months with Never Settle, Never Settle Reloaded and Never Settle Forever to add further value. today AMD added Saints Row IV and there is the expectation that BF4 could also find a place in the GOLD rewards program.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6393/amds-holiday-plans-cat1211-new-bundle
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6724/amd-announces-new-winter-video-game-bundle-never-settle-reloaded
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7218/amd-announces-never-settle-forever-bundle
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7297/saints-row-iv-added-to-amds-never-settle-forever-gold-tier

from the time Kepler launched this site has been a assembly line of Nvidia card reviews with a few AMD cards thrown in between. Also your logic of only testing newly launched cards is illogical as you fail to address the changes in the market in terms of pricing and performance improvements through driver updates.

funkydmunky said:

[H] you spent years creating a smart user group of like minded enthusiasts who all stood up for your reputation.
Read the comments. We are not a bunch of half-wit dumb-chucks. We are seeing your trend of biased reviews. I myself have ten years of better ones under my belt, and am sad at the low level tactics you are producing recently. It isn't a big surprise as big money has pushed its way into all tech sites. We all need a pay check. Don't we all? You used to run this site way back as a team. We all see now there is no team. Not the same site at all. Sad.

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well said.

As someone who owns an equal number of green and red cards, I have to agree there is a trend of bias towards Nvidia on HardOCP. I find it mostly in text descriptions, where the same things/differences/facts/observations are described and emphasized differently.

Have to agree with raghu on this one, lots of reviews I read here that are Southern Islands vs Kepler have had odd choices for comparisons. GTX 760 vs Radeon 7870 Ghz, GTX 650 ti Boost vs Radeon 7790.

Not an AMD diehard either just to get that out of the way. (last AMD card I owned was a 9800XT and I have a GTX 760 currently)

edit: Corrected, thanks raghu was referring to this review. http://hardocp.com/article/2013/06/10/galaxy_geforce_gtx_650_ti_boost_video_card_review/

Meeho said:

As someone who owns an equal number of green and red cards, I have to agree there is a trend of bias towards Nvidia on HardOCP. I find it mostly in text descriptions, where the same things/differences/facts/observations are described and emphasized differently.

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Eh, I generally read most of the review and just glance over the conclusion. I go here for the numbers and occasionally the opinions on "smoothness", but I try to form my own conclusions based on the numbers.

AllBlackFan said:

Have to agree with raghu on this one, lots of reviews I read here that are Southern Islands vs Kepler have had odd choices for comparisons. GTX 760 vs Radeon 7870 Ghz, GTX 650 ti vs Radeon 7790.

Not an AMD diehard either just to get that out of the way. (last AMD card I owned was a 9800XT and I have a GTX 760 currently)

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you mean GTX 650 Ti boost vs HD 7790. GTX 650 Ti has the same 128 bit memory bus of HD 7790 and is a slower card. GTX 650 Ti boost has 192 bit memory bus and is a much faster card than HD 7790. but as usual i guess hardocp could never find a HD 7790 priced on par with GTX 650 Ti

for hardocp the logic/strategy goes something like this. pick the costliest partner card for a AMD product and compare it with something above its performance class from the Nvidia stack. so that they can keep complaining that how AMD does not provide good performance.

when they did the ASUS HD 7870 review it was well known that it was one of the worst priced HD 7870 cards. even when there were scores of other HD 7870 cards priced on par with GTX 660 prices they chose to ignore it. because comparing a HD 7870 against GTX 660 would mean a definite recommendation for HD 7870. both at stock and OC'd. In fact when overclocked its a no contest because HD 7870 scales much better than GTX 660 due to a 256 bit memory bus and 32 ROPs.

the fact is the product stack lines up like this and at every price point AMD provides better price perf .

HD 7790 vs GTX 650 Ti
HD 7850 / HD 7850 OC vs GTX 650 Ti boost / OC
HD 7870 / OC vs GTX 660 / OC
HD 7950 boost vs GTX 760 / GTX 660 Ti
HD 7970 / HD 7970 OC vs GTX 670 / GTX 670 OC
HD 7970 Ghz / OC vs GTX 770 / OC

If hardocp wants to know how wrong they are let them throw in a HD 7850 , HD 7870, GTX 650 Ti boost, GTX 660 overclocking review just as they did HD 7950 OC vs GTX 760 OC vs GTX 660 Ti OC review.

I admit i have a slight preference toward nVidia but i have to agree that i 'sensed' a little bias toward nVidia on [H] graphic card reviews lately, apparently im not alone.

raghu78 said:

almost everybody who buys a GPU overclocks and those who want guaranteed performance buy factory OC'd GPUs.

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Eh, no. The majority of people who buy gpu's, do not overclock actually. From what you see/read on forums, is not indicative of the real world. These type of reviews are very ideal for those kind of consumers.

Factory oc'ed gpu's, only give you guaranteed performance at their stock clocks. Your amd bias is hilarious. And to think people on the net, claimed the [H] as being AMD biased.

And this is why we have the forums. You can digest the documentation and come up with your own conclusion if you do not agree with ours. See how that works? I have done this for 16 years, and there is always a group of people that say we are biased one way or another. That changes sides all the time and sometimes we get called for bias towards both Red and Green at the same time. As for the person above suggesting, "It isn't a big surprise as big money has pushed its way into all tech sites." AMD spends a lot more advertising money with HardOCP than NVIDIA ever has, so I will have to call bullshit on your "paid off" assumptions. However, if you know where the big pile of NV checks are that I am missing, please let me know.

tonyftw said:

Eh, no. The majority of people who buy gpu's, do not overclock actually. From what you see/read on forums, is not indicative of the real world. These type of reviews are very ideal for those kind of consumers.

Factory oc'ed gpu's, only give you guaranteed performance at their stock clocks. Your amd bias is hilarious. And to think people on the net, claimed the [H] as being AMD biased.

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You can't reason with that guy. He's an AMDefender all the way. I find his assertion almost everyone overclocks GPU's funny as hell. Almost everyone I know or have helped with setting up systems refuses to OC their GPU. What I hear most of the time is they don't want to have warranty problems.

tonyftw said:

Eh, no. The majority of people who buy gpu's, do not overclock actually. From what you see/read on forums, is not indicative of the real world. These type of reviews are very ideal for those kind of consumers.

Factory oc'ed gpu's, only give you guaranteed performance at their stock clocks. Your amd bias is hilarious. And to think people on the net, claimed the [H] as being AMD biased.

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neither do you have statistical data to back your statement that majority do not overclock. nor do I have data to back my statement that majority overclock. why don't we leave it as just our opinions ?