NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Review: Bringing Balance To The Force
by Ryan Smith on March 26, 2013 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Bringing this review to a close, given the back-to-back launches of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost and the Radeon HD 7790, our first instinct is to frame the GTX 650 Ti Boost in reference to the 7790. Indeed the GTX 650 Ti Boost will be NVIDIA’s 7790 competitor, but what we’re reviewed – a 2GB GTX 650 Ti Boost – is not the same as the 1GB card that will occupy that $149 price point. So we want to hold off on that comparison for a bit. We need to see a 1GB GTX 650 Ti Boost to properly make that evaluation.
When we opened this article we mentioned how there’s practically a card at every $10 between $100 and $200. For consumers on a fixed budget this is great since it means there’s a video card at every price, but without distinct islands it makes it harder for us as reviewers to make a recommendation. But as always we’ll take a stab at it.
In our 7790 review we mentioned how uneasy we are with 1GB cards right now due to the fact that larger cards have been on the market for some number of years by now, and game consoles are about to take a massive leap in RAM capacities. Of course neither AMD nor NVIDIA is going to offer a balanced 2GB card at $149 right now – what you can have is a 1GB 7790 or a 1GB GTX 650 Ti Boost. So with that said we’re going to hold to our earlier recommendation that if you’re in the market for a card around these price ranges and you can afford to go past $149, we’re at a point where a 2GB card is a reasonable investment. And to that end the 2GB GTX 650 Ti Boost is going to be $10-$15 cheaper than the 2GB 7850, making it the more affordable option for a 2GB card.
Moving along, with the chief competitor for the 1GB GTX 650 Ti Boost being the recently launched Radeon HD 7790, the chief competitor for the 2GB version is going to be AMD’s Radeon HD 7850 2GB. The GeForce card will have a $10-$15 price advantage on average, keeping in mind that the price of the 7850 is typically in flux due to price changes and temporary rebates.
The performance of the two cards is close at times, but ultimately the GTX 650 Ti Boost spends most of its time trailing the 7850 to some degree, its only lead being in Battlefield 3. With those BF3 results pushing the cards to within 5% of each other on average, otherwise the gap is closer to 8%. As such the GTX 650 Ti Boost is unquestionably the weaker card in our benchmarks, just not significantly so. So for it to be priced under the 7850 is the right move here.
In any case, as a 7850 competitor the GTX 650 Ti Boost is nothing amazing – its price and performance are close to the 7850, a card that has been sitting at its current price for months now – meaning it fills its intended role as a slightly cheaper, slightly slower 7850 competitor, but nothing more. If we had to pick between the two of them the 7850 does look a bit better due to its slightly higher performance and lower power consumption, but most buyers should be happy with either one. As we said in our introduction this is a case of balance being returned to the market – where there was once just the 7850 there is now a viable alternative from NVIDIA in the form of the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB.
Ultimately with a card at every $10 amidst a packed market there isn’t any kind of real sweet spot right now, so we don’t have any strong recommendations. For buyers on a fixed budget recent launches like the GTX 650 Ti Boost and 7790 introduce newer and better options at $169 and $149 respectively. Otherwise there’s a clear chain of progression right up to $200, and the best card is going to be the card you can afford.
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Eugene86 - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Overclocking is not a guarantee, apart from the fact that it shortens the lifespan of the card itself, all it does is increase power consumption (which negates your power consumption argument) and it also wastes your time by having to have to tinker with drivers and overclocking speeds to make sure the card doesn't artifact and such. Considering the subpar quality of AMD drivers, this is something that no one wants to waste their time on except for fans of AMD.stickmansam - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Have you tried to OC the 7850 yourself? I hit 1ghz without any voltage or power tweaksIt is way under clocked at 860mhz.
Haven't run any power draw comparisons yet though myself
cyrusfox - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
So true, 7850 hits 1050 MHz easy breezy. It was a great card and it has held its value, I originally got it for $150 second hand when it first came out(forum shopping). I'm surprised to see it still being valued higher than that.From my personal experience, the 7850 is a guaranteed 1 GHz card. But a lot of people don't OC so they miss out on the potential. Nvidia does have its positives and the boost seems like a good card to fill the holes in the market.
anubis44 - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link
I hear what you're saying -- in the past, people would say that you could overclock a model of card to some ridiculous speed that only 5% of the cards of that model could reach with stability, and then say that the entire model of card performed that way. A couple of times, I was tricked by this kind of nonsense, and regretted swallowing it from idiots on a chat forum.But in the case of the 7850, this is the real deal. I kid you not, there is probably not a single one that won't go up to 1050MHz with just the AMD video driver and a couple of fisher-price sliders and not even any additional voltage. I defy you to find somebody who has tried this, and been unable to clock it up to at least the 1050MHz max in the video driver, without any extra volts. It's the best kept secret in the video card market right now, almost like the Celeron 300a back in the day, that would clock from 300MHz to 450MHz with just a multiplier adjustment in the bios. It's like AMD just left 40% more performance on the table with the 7850. I had two of them myself for about a week, and it was ridiculous how much faster they would go if you just bothered to take 2 minutes to bump them up from 860MHz to 1100MHz-1150MHz. I can picture AMD getting slightly irritated at nVidia for trying to reach the 7850's default speed with this piddly GTX650 Ti Boost, and turning around and releasing a GHz edition bios for all 7850 owners to just flash their cards to 1050MHz, kinda of like they did for the 7950.
k2_8191 - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
IMO The new card is good deal if I consider only gaming performance per price.However, as a distributed computing junkie, I would still recommend the participants to choose some RADEON HD 7k cards for double-precision workunits (HCC in WCG in particular).
Bob Todd - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
One simple and obvious answer, Never Settle Reloaded. The 7850 is faster in most games, destroys it compute, and you get Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite for free. Even if you have no interest in either game, you can easily get ~$50 (after fees) for the codes on eBay. Nice 2GB 7850s have been on sale regularly for $170. That means you can get a faster 7850 2GB for ~$120. So does $150 for a 1GB 650 Ti Boost sound better than $120 for a 2GB 7850? 1GB 7850s have hit $150. Bottom line is that it's great time to be a budget gamer. The 650 Ti Boost, 7790, and 7850 are all good cards in the pricing sweet spot for a lot of people. Never Settle Reloaded puts things squarely in AMDs hands from a "value" perspective though. Whether or not you want the games, they are quick sells, and even the 7790 would really be in the ~$120 range if you wanted to sell BioShock Infinite.Parhel - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Thanks! Based on your post, I did a bit of shopping, and found an MSI 7870 @ Newegg. $220 list price minus a $25 rebate, ~$50 on reselling the bundle, and ~$30 on reselling my GTX 460, and I should be at about $115 for a 7870. Not too bad considering they were ~$350 at release.Bob Todd - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
You just reminded me that I need to decide if I'm selling my GTX 460. I looked on eBay a few weeks ago and the same 1GB model sold for ~$60. Part of me thinks it isn't really worth it and I should just keep it as a backup or a hand-me-down upgrade for a family member. But the smarter part of me knows it will probably just sit in its box in my closet for years.just4U - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - link
I think you can get a bit more for the 460.. $60 is a fair price for it.. imo. Also "HIS" seems to offer the best deals on the 7870 (when they come up for sale..) Not sure if you can really get $50 for the bundle tho.. hah can always try!Bob Todd - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - link
YMMV of course. However I've sold two for that much, with the listings lasting less than 12 hours. And most people are happy to just get the code via email so you might not even have to ship anything.