The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review, Feat. Gigabyte, Zotac, & EVGA
by Ryan Smith on October 9, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe 2GB Question & The Test
If it seems to like 1GB+ video cards have been common for ages now, you wouldn’t be too far off. 1GB cards effectively became mainstream in 2008 with the release of the 1GB Radeon HD 4870, which was followed by 2GB cards pushing out 1GB cards as the common capacity for high-end cards in 2010 with the release of the Radeon HD 6970. Since then 2GB cards have been trickling down AMD and NVIDIA’s product stacks while at the same time iGPUs have been making the bottoms of those stacks redundant.
For this generation AMD decided to make their cutoff the 7800 series earlier this year; the 7700 series would be 1GB by default, while the 7800 series and above would be 2GB or more. AMD has since introduced the 7850 1GB as a niche product (in large part to combat the GTX 650 Ti), but the 7850 is still predominantly a 2GB card. For NVIDIA on the other hand the line is being drawn between the GTX 660 and GTX 650; the GTX 660 is entirely 2GB, while the GTX 650 and GTX 650 Ti are predominantly 1GB cards with some 2GB cards mixed in as a luxury option.
The reason we bring this up is because while this is very clear from a video card family perspective, it doesn’t really address performance expectations. Simply put, at what point does a 2GB card become appropriate? When AMD or NVIDIA move a whole product line the decision is made for you, but when you’re looking at a split product like the GTX 650 Ti or the 7850 then the decision is up to the buyer and it’s not always an easy decision.
To try to help with that decision, we’ve broken down the performance of several games on both cards with both 1GB and 2GB models, listing the performance of 2GB cards relative to 1GB cards. By looking for performance advantages, we can hopefully better quantify the benefits of a 2GB card.
Regardless of whether we’re looking at AMD or NVIDIA cards, there’s only one benchmark where 2GB cards have a clear lead: Skyrim at 1920 with the high resolution texture pack. For our other 9 games the performance difference is miniscule at best.
But despite the open-and-shut nature of our data we’re not ready to put our weight behind these results. Among other issues, our benchmark suite is approaching a year old now, which means it doesn’t reflect on some of the major games released in the past few months such as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Borderlands 2, DiRT: Showdown, or for that matter any one of the number of games left to be released this year. While we have full confidence in our benchmark suite from a competitive performance perspective, the fact that it’s not forward looking (and mostly forward rendering) does a disservice to measuring the need for additional memory.
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.
The Test
NVIDIA’s GTX 650 Ti launch driver is 306.38, which are a further continuation of the 304.xx branch. Compared to the previous two 304.xx drivers there are no notable performance changes or bug fixes that we’re aware of.
Meanwhile on the AMD side we’re using AMD’s newly released 12.9 betas. While these drivers are from a new branch, compared to the older 12.7 drivers the performance gains are minimal. We have updated our results for our 7000 series cards, but the only difference as it pertains to our test suite is that performance in Shogun II and DiRT 3 is slightly higher than with the 12.7 drivers.
On a final note, AMD sent over XFX’s Radeon HD 7850 1GB card so that we had a 1GB 7850 to test with (thanks guys). As this is not a new part from a performance perspective (see above) we’re not doing anything special with this card beyond including it in our charts as validation of the fact that the 1GB and 2GB 7850s are nearly identical outside of Skyrim.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.2.3.1022 |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (256GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Case: | Thermaltake Spedo Advance |
| Monitor: | Samsung 305T |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 6850 AMD Radeon HD 7770 AMD Radeon HD 7850 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 305.37 NVIDIA ForceWare 306.23 Beta NVIDIA ForceWare 306.38 Beta AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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SodaAnt - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Why is it that all the manufacturers seem to have the need to put two huge fans and heatsinks on a GPU that only has a TDP of 110W? I mean, I can see having that on a GTX 680 or something, it needs it, but why bother on a low end card? You're just adding price for what is pretty much looks.Shark321 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Chip cooling results usually in high noise, so I'm glad they put large heatsinks on the 650 Ti.Blazorthon - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
The 650 Ti has some of the lowest noise and temp results of any graphics card in its class. Those large coolers are definitely beneficial, not that I wouldn't mind seeing some single slot 650 Ti models.MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
"But as it stands today the GTX 650 Ti only makes real sense for buyers who absolutely cannot go over $149"If said buyer can't add another 20$ he probably shouldn't be spending his money on a video card at all.
TheJian - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
You can say that at any price...LOL. Everyone's budget is different. The 660TI really only makes sense for someone who can't spend another $100 on a 670...And then you chime in with your comment again...Both comments are pointless. Ryan puts crap like that in to disparage NV in every article. At $149 it comes with AC3 a AAA title not even released yet, arguably the card is only $120. Unless you think you'll be able to get AC3 for the price of $30 the day it hits. I doubt it. Probably $45-60. So quite a good deal for someone wanting AC3 and only having $150 correct? Pull your head out Ryan. :) Quit making bias comments like this. It's amazing they even give you a AAA title at $150 range.If some kid's been saving his allowance for ages and finally has $150, to replace his old X card it makes total sense. Same for any adult. These cards are for people who don't have $200 etc. No point in making any comment like ryan did.
And at 1680x1050, where most of these users will run this card it doesn't lose much. He keeps quoting cards above where they should run. $100-150 cards are not for 1920x1200. You'll be turning stuff down all day, thus not giving you what the devs wanted you to play. Just like the 660TI/7950 isn't for 2560x1600 either. He keeps using this crap to bash NV cards. This is why he leaves out minimums on almost everything. If he showed those #'s you'd see you can't even play there with these. $300 is for 1920x1200, $450+ is comfortable at above this, $150 is solidly 1680x1050 when MINIMUMS are looked at with max details. If you're not running with all the goodies on, you're not running what the dev wanted you to play. You're missing the FULL experience. 2560x1600 was unplayable on 3/4 games at hardocp on 7950B/660TI. So why talk about those two in the same sentence with 2560x1600? It's DUMB. Two of the games hit 15/17fps on both cards...LOL. That's a freaking slide show FFS. He bashes NV all day over bandwidth for UNPLAYABLE SETTINGS on both cards in those cases. I'd say he doesn't get it, but he does, he knows exactly what he's doing. He loves AMD or they give him something for the love ;) I really don't care who wins at 15fps settings, and neither should ANY of us. They had games where the drop was 100 to 22-26fps on 7950 from max to min...But as long as ryan evades minimums in games he can quote AMD in a better light...LOL.
jtenorj - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I don't know if experiencing all the developer intended matters as much as simply enjoying the game. The cheapest you can get a "modern" console(not counting the wii) is like 100 bucks for a 360 with a contract for xbox live. If you already have a decent computer from the last few years with crap graphics, you can drop in a 100 dollar(or less) HD7750, overclock it some, and blow away any console's graphics at 1080p by using medium pc settings. If you up the budget a bit to the HD7770 and overclock, you could even manage high settings at 1080p with playable frame rates. If you want to see minimum frame rates, you can go to other sites like hardocp(as mentioned, though it doesn't seem like they have a review up for gtx650ti...yet). Even better is techreport for testing of individual frame times that can catch latency spikes a minimum frame rate measure might miss.justaviking - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
Eventually you have to draw the line somewhere.Start with a budget of $100...
$100? Why not spend $120?
$120? Why not spend $140?
$140? Why not spend $160?
$160? Why not spend $180?
$180? Why not spend $200?
Why not spend $200? Because you started with a $100 budget.
It's not always that you "can't" spend another $20, but most people have to draw the line somewhere. For some people it's $300, others it's $150. Besides, the person spending $150 might have started with a target of $125, and has already "shopped up" to the $150 mark.
This works in the opposite direction too. Why not SAVE $20 and get a cheaper product if it has "almost" the same performance? Then why not save another $20, and so on? Soon you'll be hopelessly underpowered.
That's the sweet agony of shopping for parts like this. There is such a spectrum of price/performance options that you are always near a 2nd or 3rd option. If there was simply one AMD card and one Nvidia card at $100-200-300-400-500 price points, it sure would be a lot easier to go shopping. But what would be the sport in that?
johnsonjohnson - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Looks like it's gonna have to be the 7850 then. Time to finally retire that 4830...EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Sorry if I missed it, but this is often not discussed. This is something I cannot stand in lower end cards. Fixed speed fans. They are annoying usually. Then again, I usually swap out the cooler. I'm otherwise all for shorter cards.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
Yes, it has variable fan speeds. In fact none of the GeForce 600 cards we've reviewed (including the 640) have a fixed fan speed.