NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Video Card Review @ [H]

Nice work guys - I know some will complain about choices of games, etc but the results show what they show - best bang for buck in that price segment...and I thought PC gaming was dead a year ago, seems reports of said death were premature. This level of performance/price, AMD or Nvidia is important and essential to keep costs down in owning a rig that can play anything. PC s/ware prices MUST be lower than console to compete overall, this IS the best platform for gaming, good work NV..
 
snowcat said:
I have a 2 GB 7850 card, which doesn't get included in a lot of benchmarks nowadays. Thanks for using it as a comparison, and I enjoyed seeing the results. I have no problems running it for 1080p gaming, and these results back it up.

However, if I were in for a new card at that price range, the 650Ti Boost definitely makes sense now. I usually spend $150-$200 on video cards, so this new entry hits a great sweet spot.

Terrific review, as always.
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1) Download Asus Voltage Tweak.
2) Overclock that 7850 to at least 1150MHz without voltage increase.
3) Destroy any GTX650 Ti Boost in virtually any game.
4) Enjoy and erase any regret.
 
funkydmunky said:
Looks like a good card. But compared to the massively under-clocked 7850 with AAA bundle @ similar $$? :(
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Exactly. Any 7850 I've ever heard of will go up to 1150MHz without voltage adjustment. Many will go over 1200MHz with a minor voltage bump. At those speeds, the 7850 will dominate even an overclocked GTX650Ti boost.

All AMD needs to do now is release a GHz edition bios for the 7850 that clocks any 7850 to 1150MHz and the show's over for the GTX650Ti Boost at this price level.
 
Might be time to replace the GT 430 in my HTPC now that steam games with local co-op are starting the replace the ROMs I play with friends.
 
anubis44 said:
1) Download Asus Voltage Tweak.
2) Overclock that 7850 to at least 1150MHz without voltage increase.
3) Destroy any GTX650 Ti Boost in virtually any game.
4) Enjoy and erase any regret.
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Hate to say this...but that argument is getting old. Saying "well, i'll be in the lead again if I OC more" is what people say when they lost an apples to apples comparison on COTS cards. Some of us don't OC and will not OC; user OC will never be risk free. We buy a card..use it and carry on.

Kyle and company always do an excellent job at the proverbial Pepsi challenge.
 
Business6 said:
(ffs let's figure out a nickname for it)
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How about "Boosty?" :D. Great review and great card. But something in me feels like THIS should have been the GTX-650ti and what passes as a Ti now should be the vanilla 650. I mean, asides from maybe clock speeds, there isn't a difference between 640 and 650, right?
 
Not sure where people are getting the comparisons between the 650 TI Boost and the 480 GTX. The 480 GTX ~ 570. I have my doubts about that.


Maybe it's time HardOCP revists the GTX 480/580? I think it would great. For example, I normally buy the best video card I can afford and I don't upgrade until I see some major improvements. (8800 640 GTX -> 275 GTX -> 480 GTX.) It would be fantastic to see where the 480/580 stand today.
 
martinmsj said:
Not sure where people are getting the comparisons between the 650 TI Boost and the 480 GTX. The 480 GTX ~ 570. I have my doubts about that.


Maybe it's time HardOCP revists the GTX 480/580? I think it would great. For example, I normally buy the best video card I can afford and I don't upgrade until I see some major improvements. (8800 640 GTX -> 275 GTX -> 480 GTX.) It would be fantastic to see where the 480/580 stand today.
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I would think that GTX-580 owners are sitting pretty right now, especially if they're using 1080p monitors. If I had one, I sure as hell wouldn't feel the desire to upgrade at all. That said, even though used prices on the 580 have come down, there's no way I'd get one now. The 660's are a little more attractive right now. Sure - they're slower than a 580, but they have more VRAM (Skyrim mods), and consume less power. I don't know. It's a toss up.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Hate to say this...but that argument is getting old. Saying "well, i'll be in the lead again if I OC more" is what people say when they lost an apples to apples comparison on COTS cards. Some of us don't OC and will not OC; user OC will never be risk free. We buy a card..use it and carry on..
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It isn't and old argument when it comes to this round (and do you know what w[H]ere you are?). AMD had released the whole 7800/7900 lines very underclocked. In fact they had to re-release cards as "Boost" or "GHz editions" just because they couldn't compete at how underclocked they were. People who knew how a O/C slider bar works, already knew that every AMD card dominates its price range. When the game bundles are factored in, it is a clear win @ any price point.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Hate to say this...but that argument is getting old. Saying "well, i'll be in the lead again if I OC more" is what people say when they lost an apples to apples comparison on COTS cards. Some of us don't OC and will not OC; user OC will never be risk free. We buy a card..use it and carry on.

Kyle and company always do an excellent job at the proverbial Pepsi challenge.
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Yep, all most all consumers DO NOT overclock. AMD is screwing up by releasing their cards at low clock speeds.
 
i would like to have seen a 660 non-ti thrown in the mix just to see how close the 650 ti boost comes to it. that would shake up the price points in the $200ish range alot, considering that a 660 non-ti can be had for $184 after rebate. Thats only $10 more than the 650 ti boost.....
 
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Trepidati0n said:
Hate to say this...but that argument is getting old. Saying "well, i'll be in the lead again if I OC more" is what people say when they lost an apples to apples comparison on COTS cards. Some of us don't OC and will not OC; user OC will never be risk free. We buy a card..use it and carry on.

Kyle and company always do an excellent job at the proverbial Pepsi challenge.
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Fair enough though I do really want to see an OC comparison between the 650 ti, 650 ti boost, 7790, and 7850.

On the other hand what I do have an issue with and would like a response, is they make the statement in the conclusion that is there a slight performance increase for the 650 boost over that the 7850 and I can't find any data that they have given that supports that statement. I'll elaborate, if the it was in fact that the case that 650 ti boost was faster I should be able to look at the data they've given and find that to be true but in fact I have found that it's either a tie or in slight performance favor to the 7850.

In the fps at highest playable settings.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer higher playable settings, its a tie between the two
The 650 ti boost doesn't doesn't have higher performance in more games, both win at 3 games.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer better fps on average between all six games, its a tie in average fps.
The 650 ti boost doesn't win by a higher percentage on average for the 3 games it wins vs the 7850 wins. They both have an average of 8% higher fps then their competitor in their respective games.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer a larger performance increase in a single game. They tie at 11%

In the apples to apples comparisons.
The 650 ti boost and 7850 tie at 4 wins a piece.
The 7850 has a slightly higher average fps in the 8 comparisons.
The 7850 in the 4 games it wins, wins by a larger percentage difference in fps on average.
The 7850 has the largest performance difference in its favor in a single game as well.

At no point to do I see the 650 ti boost offering slightly better performance that isn't matched by the 7850 or even slightly surpassed by the 7850. So either I am missing something, my math is incorrect, Kyle and Brent made a mistake, or their conclusion is based on some information that wasn't covered in the charts. Either way It would be nice to know what's going on.
 
this will be my next mid range card simply because i like nvidia drivers better. also, it seems to fair better in the titles i play more. lastly, according to some other sites, they have less framerate deviations. however, if amd really starts to drive prices down on their cards again, i might, might, might consider them again.

great review kyle/brent.
 
martinmsj said:
Not sure where people are getting the comparisons between the 650 TI Boost and the 480 GTX. The 480 GTX ~ 570. I have my doubts about that.


Maybe it's time HardOCP revists the GTX 480/580? I think it would great. For example, I normally buy the best video card I can afford and I don't upgrade until I see some major improvements. (8800 640 GTX -> 275 GTX -> 480 GTX.) It would be fantastic to see where the 480/580 stand today.
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yep thats exactly what i'm wanting, benchmark round up on last gen and current gen cards with current games and drivers.

what i can tell you is that my 560 Ti SLI setup is able to still handle any current game at 1080p with at least high settings and sometimes some AA, in terms of raw power my setup is fairly close in performance to a single 580 but the 580 has the VRAM advantage and often i can't run the highest of high settings due to hitting the VRAM wall of only having 1gb cards, this is one of the main reasons i'm looking to upgrade to kepler based card and to the AMD guys out there sorry, I'm not an AMD hater but their drivers/driver support and crossfire microstudder issues will keep me in the nVidia camp, plus i've owned so many nVidia cards over the years starting with the Geforce 256 and not one has ever died on me after years and years of use, heck my 8800 GT is still kickin away in my brothers computer as we speak.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Hate to say this...but that argument is getting old. Saying "well, i'll be in the lead again if I OC more" is what people say when they lost an apples to apples comparison on COTS cards. Some of us don't OC and will not OC; user OC will never be risk free. We buy a card..use it and carry on.

Kyle and company always do an excellent job at the proverbial Pepsi challenge.
Click to expand...

I don't think you quite understand the amount of headroom AMD left on the table specifically with the 7850, and just how goddam Fisher-Price easy it is to overclock it to 1050MHz. Forget the Asus software if you're not willing to fidget. You'd have to have difficulty tieing your own shoelaces if you can't do it.

You can literally open the AMD catalyst control panel and do the following:

1) click the performance tab,
2) accept the AMD overdrive agreement
3) slide the big green button to 'enabled'
4) click 'configure graphics overdrive'
5) slide the power control slider all the way to the right (+20%), and then
6) slide the GPU clock slider setting all the way to the right (1050MHz).

Voila! You've got a faster card than the GTX650 Ti Boost! Right in the freaking AMD driver without even messing around with 3rd party overclocking programs. If you can't follow these 6 fail-safe, easy steps, I feel sorry for you. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have yet to hear of any 7850 that won't run at this speed without any voltage bump. I had two of them myself, and it was uttery astonishing. I've never seen an entire line of graphics cards with about 40% more headroom in them without even upping the voltage! Don't take my word for it--google it. If you can find a credible reference to somebody with a 7850 who could NOT overclock it to 1050MHz without voltage adjustment, I will eat my words on this forum, and concede the point. But it must be a credible source, not you disguised as a 7850 user pretending that it didn't work, and it can't be simply a defective card at any speed.
 
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Fantasyalive said:
Fair enough though I do really want to see an OC comparison between the 650 ti, 650 ti boost, 7790, and 7850.

On the other hand what I do have an issue with and would like a response, is they make the statement in the conclusion that is there a slight performance increase for the 650 boost over that the 7850 and I can't find any data that they have given that supports that statement. I'll elaborate, if the it was in fact that the case that 650 ti boost was faster I should be able to look at the data they've given and find that to be true but in fact I have found that it's either a tie or in slight performance favor to the 7850.

In the fps at highest playable settings.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer higher playable settings, its a tie between the two
The 650 ti boost doesn't doesn't have higher performance in more games, both win at 3 games.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer better fps on average between all six games, its a tie in average fps.
The 650 ti boost doesn't win by a higher percentage on average for the 3 games it wins vs the 7850 wins. They both have an average of 8% higher fps then their competitor in their respective games.
The 650 ti boost doesn't offer a larger performance increase in a single game. They tie at 11%

In the apples to apples comparisons.
The 650 ti boost and 7850 tie at 4 wins a piece.
The 7850 has a slightly higher average fps in the 8 comparisons.
The 7850 in the 4 games it wins, wins by a larger percentage difference in fps on average.
The 7850 has the largest performance difference in its favor in a single game as well.

At no point to do I see the 650 ti boost offering slightly better performance that isn't matched by the 7850 or even slightly surpassed by the 7850. So either I am missing something, my math is incorrect, Kyle and Brent made a mistake, or their conclusion is based on some information that wasn't covered in the charts. Either way It would be nice to know what's going on.
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Ya, welcome to the green tinged [H]. Just be glad it wasn't a Galaxy 650ti boost :rolleyes:
 
Value Summary - The new GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost competes not with the Radeon HD 7790, which was just announced days ago, but in fact it competes with AMD's next model up, the Radeon HD 7850. However, the GTX 650 Ti (Boost) is priced at the Radeon HD 7790's level. Therefore what you get is Radeon HD 7850-like experience, for less money. The clear value is the new GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost.

I believe there is a typo.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
How about "Boosty?" :D. Great review and great card. But something in me feels like THIS should have been the GTX-650ti and what passes as a Ti now should be the vanilla 650. I mean, asides from maybe clock speeds, there isn't a difference between 640 and 650, right?
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Is this one the 655? Or is that too obvious and brings back bad memories of the 465?

GTX 650 Ti-1 for our friends on the Island? GTX 650 Platinum?

GTX 650 Ti-X Extreme FTW Platinum Frozr Boost Edition
 
Just wondering why the GTX650Ti looks so much worse in Anandtech's review than in [H]'s. Not only in the compute scores, but in most games as well. Very strange...
 
anubis44 said:
Just wondering why the GTX650Ti looks so much worse in Anandtech's review than in [H]'s. Not only in the compute scores, but in most games as well. Very strange...
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You must not read. In fact..you can't read. On the very first page of EVERY GOD DAMN FUCKING REVIEW they say they"play games" to get their values. They also pick game settings based upon "playable experience". They don't run canned benchmarks. It has been shown time and time again that canned bench marks DO NOT reflect actual gameplay. If you cannot understand the value in that, then don't read [H] reviews and don't post here.

I can only think of three things about your post...either you are a paid AMD blogger, an AMD fanboy, or willfully ignorant.
 
Trepidati0n said:
You must not read. In fact..you can't read. On the very first page of EVERY GOD DAMN FUCKING REVIEW they say they"play games" to get their values. They also pick game settings based upon "playable experience". They don't run canned benchmarks. It has been shown time and time again that canned bench marks DO NOT reflect actual gameplay. If you cannot understand the value in that, then don't read [H] reviews and don't post here.

I can only think of three things about your post...either you are a paid AMD blogger, an AMD fanboy, or willfully ignorant.
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Nothing you just said answers the question of why [H]'s numbers don't look like Anand's. [H] gave numbers as well as 'subjective impressions', and I'm asking about the numbers. If you can't read and understand a question that simple, you're as illiterate as you accuse me of being.
 
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I like the cheap price of this Nvidia card. There is very little price difference vs. the GTX 650 Ti. I want a GTX 650 series as it's the 1st GTX 6xx series that c/w DDR5 (anything below 650 is DDR3) I really need GTX 650 that supports 3 video display, 1 HDMI, 2 x DVI or Display port at 2560 x 1600. But I'm concern about coil whine as I don't want to use any over clock card:

1) can you set this Ti Boost card to under clock to avoid coil whine?

2) How much life span of a video card do you lose in general if we compares a Over clock card vs. a regular speed card?

Choosing between the risk of coil whine on an over clock card vs. speed, I'm very happy to settle with a GTX 650 and be done with it

and yes, any card can cause coil whine, but the chance that an over clock card causes coil whine is obviously higher than a lower speed card
 
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You can underclock the card, but I don't think that will fix the problem and if it did I wouldn't sacrifice performance to do so. If coil whine annoys you exchange it for one without coil whine.

If you have a stable overclock I don't think you can really hurt a card. The voltage is limited and the card will throttle with temperature.
 
Michaelius said:
Any idea when 1GB versions are comming out ?
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spending the extra 15-20 bucks for the 2gb model is money well spent. trying to save that miniuscule amount will bite you in the ass as there are already games right now that a gtx650 ti boost can make use of more than 1gb of vram.
 
Nvidia still bugs the crap out of me with their naming scheme. This really should be a 655 or 660SE. It should not be a 650ti, the same way the 560ti 448 core should not have been a 560ti. It is a completely different card. Oh well, I'm enjoying my new $79 560ti (original, not 448).
 
Michaelius said:
All benchmarks from 7850 1gb vs 2 gb versions suggest otherwise.
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Care to point us to some links? The only review I've seen that had a 1GB and 2GB HD-7850 was Anandtech. You're right - most of the games played the same, except for Skyrim. Skyrim was using the official texture pack. Trust me - you don't want to chop yourself off at the knees by saving $20 on the 1GB version. For what it's worth, you could get away with 1GB for most situations. Far Cry 3, for example, consumes just 600 MB with ultra settings, at least that's what GPU-Z tells me. But yeah, there are games out there that will go above a gig. I was considering getting a GTX-580 instead of a newer 660 ti. And while I could probably get away with a 580 maxing all my current games, I know that there will be a game that comes along that I want, that will go over the limit. GTX-580 has 1.5GB of memory, and games are definitely skirting this limit even at my 1600x1200.

TL;DR - Canondale is right. Spend the extra $15-$20 and get the 2GB version.
 
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Michaelius said:
All benchmarks from 7850 1gb vs 2 gb versions suggest otherwise.
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sorry but those reviews don't cover all games now do they? and I can tell you that some games can hitch and that will not always show up in the benchmark. again saving 20 bucks now is stupid for a card that already has the power to utilize more than 1gb in some current games. think of the people that bought 8800gts 320 instead of 640 or 4870 512mb instead of 1gb or gtx460 768mb instead of 1gb. everyone of those people had to upgrade sooner than would that would have by getting more vram. and again in the case of the gtx650 ti boost its only about 20 bucks difference. sounds like a pretty silly way to save 20 bucks as you will regret it in the long run.

even from 650 ti boost review which again does not cover all games. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6359/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-review/6

The fact of the matter is that while the benchmarks don’t necessarily show it, along with Skyrim we’ve seen Crysis clobber 1GB cards in the past, Shogun II’s highest settings won’t even run on a 1GB card, and at meanwhile Battlefield 3 scales up render distance with available video memory. Nearly half of our benchmark games do benefit from 2GB cards, a subjective but important quality.

So despite the fact that our data doesn’t immediately show the benefits of 2GB cards, our thoughts go in the other direction. As 2012 comes to a close, cards that can hit the GTX 650 Ti’s performance level are not well equipped for future with only 1GB of VRAM. 1GB is the cheaper option – and at these prices every penny counts – but it is our belief that by this time next year 1GB cards will be in the same place 512MB cards were in 2010: bottlenecked by a lack of VRAM. We have reached that point where if you’re going to be spending $150 or more that you shouldn’t be settling for a 1GB card; this is the time where 2GB cards are going to become the minimum for performance gaming video cards.
 
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Trepidati0n said:
You must not read. In fact..you can't read. On the very first page of EVERY GOD DAMN FUCKING REVIEW they say they"play games" to get their values. They also pick game settings based upon "playable experience". They don't run canned benchmarks. It has been shown time and time again that canned bench marks DO NOT reflect actual gameplay. If you cannot understand the value in that, then don't read [H] reviews and don't post here.

I can only think of three things about your post...either you are a paid AMD blogger, an AMD fanboy, or willfully ignorant.
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Hey, you are a huge jerk.
 
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