The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review, Feat. Gigabyte, Zotac, & EVGA
by Ryan Smith on October 9, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, sub-$200 cards still struggle to hit 60fps at 1680x1050, never mind 1080p.
Crysis is a game that has consistently fouled up NVIDIA’s GeForce 600 cards, and this is especially evident with the launch of the GTX 650 Ti. The performance difference makes this a no-contest bout; the 7850 is nearly 50% faster. GTX 650 Ti doesn’t stand a chance here. At best you’re looking at a 42fps average for the GTX 650 Ti at 1680, which is a far cry from the 60fps smoothness the 7850 can deliver.
Meanwhile looking at our retail factory overclocked cards, all of them improve on Crysis’s performance, but not by nearly enough. Because this game is memory bandwidth limited at times, the Zotac GTX 650 Ti AMP with its memory overclock is the winner here, squeezing out the Gigabyte and EVGA cards with their reference memory clocks.
As bad as the averages were for the GTX 650 Ti, the minimums are even worse. At 1680 the GTX 650 Ti is only hitting 57% of the performance of the 7850 1GB; it doesn’t even crack 30fps.
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saturn85 - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
great folding@home benchmark.Tchamber - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
At 1920x1200 2gb doesn't make a difference... so when does the extra memory come into play? Is it a resolution thing or a matter of having the cores to drive it?Ryan Smith - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
The extra memory is primarily for textures & buffers. Skyrim of course has its high res texture pack, and meanwhile you have deferred renderers like Battlefield 3 that create relatively large G-buffers, and larger buffers still if you want MSAA.ForeverAlone - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
I don't really see why anyone would buy the 650.In the UK, the 6850/6870's are just a little bit more and massively outperform a 650.
CaedenV - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
I was surprised that 1GB is really enough for most games. I figured that 2GB was overkill, but that something in the 1.2-1.5GB would show some added benefit to more games. Is there a utility that can show just how much Ram is being used by these titles so that we know how close we are to that 1GB ceiling on most games?I think with the new consoles coming out next year, having that extra Ram on the GPU will be important for people who do not upgrade often. The new consoles should push developers to add much higher resolution textures, as well as having more variety of textures for their environments, which will no doubt push cards past that 1GB mark.
maximumGPU - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
MSI Afterburner can show you gpu ram usage.Leyawiin - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
Yes, I know the HD 7850 is a better value, so I'll get that out of the way. Still, the GTX 650 Ti with its tiny size, low power consumption and quiet operation would be great for a SFF project. Performs about on par with a GTX 560 and that's fine for 1080p gaming at good quality levels.bernlin2000 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
It's a bit silly, some of the analysis of these benchmarks. Frankly, any performance above 50 fps average is fantastic, and comparing cards above those numbers is pointless: they're all going to play those games well and nobody notices the difference between 60 and 120 fps. Saying that the GTX 650 Ti (which I just ordered) "doesn't fair particularly well" on Skyrim, when at 1650x1050 it's running at 88.8 fps is just madness. That's with the high resolution textures too? Talk about unnecessary criticism!ajay799 - Saturday, November 10, 2012 - link
i bought a MSI R7770-PMD1GD5 and its like almost silent in idle ... my 3.5 HDD is louder... and even under load its really quiet so i dont get these noise levels from the test besides one of my friends has a HD6850 and under load that sounds like a freaking jet absolutely terrible like my old GTX260 ... compared to the HD7770 thats like night and dayid say these measurements are way off...
Mooseparade - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
I bought a Galaxy GTX 650 Ti 1gb for a budget build ($129 - $20 rebate) and it won't even hit 1050mhz core clock. This thing is very dissapointing