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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piroroadkill - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
1GiB 7790s are about the same price here as 1GiB 7850s - no joke, for example:http://www.ebuyer.com/492110-asus-hd-radeon-hd-779...
http://www.ebuyer.com/393396-asus-hd-7850-1gb-gddr...
So what's the point? Save a bit more money, get a 7850 2GB and overclock the balls off it...
HighTech4US - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
7850's 1GB are going EOL so if you want one better grab it quick.http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30865-radeon-hd-...
piroroadkill - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
That makes sense, it replaces that part. In that case, you're getting screwed at that price point, and you should pick up a 7850 instead as soon as possible.Myself, I don't need an upgrade yet, my 6950 2GiB with unlocked shaders is fine..
chizow - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
This is probably the first Kepler part Nvidia has launched so far that actually comes off looking like a good value. It's probably where price:performance should've been a year ago, but it has taken nearly a full year for 28nm prices to trickle down to this point. Still, it's pretty amazing how much Nvidia has milked Kepler. They now have 7-8 SKUs (not counting OC variants) in this sub-$300 market based off of 3 ASICs (GK104, GK106, GK107). Reminds me of that Mickey Mouse cartoon where they keep slicing off razor thin pieces of bean. At least this part makes sense however and fills a pretty cavernous void in that $150-$200 range between the 660 and old 650Ti.Valid point to be made however about the huge disparity in gaming bundles. AMD really is kicking Nvidia's teeth in with their gaming bundles of late. Nvidia's F2P bundle stinks compared to AMD's recent offerings of Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinity, Tomb Raider etc. In a $150-200 market where one can easily account for 1/3 to 1/4th of the sticker price as a hot AAA game, the perceived bundle value does matter. I'm sure it helped the 650Ti with AC3, but that card was a bit underperforming relative to even last-gen cards. The cards in the $150+ range are much better performers, actually providing tangible upgrades from most last-gen parts in this range (GTX 560, 6850 etc).
Bob Todd - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Spot on about the huge disparity in the game bundles. In the last two months I've picked up a 2GB 7850 and two 7870s. Without Never Settle Reloaded I honestly probably wouldn't have bought any of them. Sold two of the bundles and kept one.HighTech4US - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
A number of problems with this review.#1 The latest Nvidia VHQL driver is 3.14.22 and was released yesterday. It shows improvements in Sleeping Dogs. So why is this review using an older 314.21 driver set?
http://techreport.com/news/24560/new-geforce-drive...
#2 Also the HD 7850 1GB is going EOL so why even do comparisons with a card that won't exist very soon.
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30865-radeon-hd-...
tfranzese - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Concerning #1, are all fanboys this stupid? You do realize that a lot of work goes into these reviews and they're not done in a < 24 hour turnaround.DanNeely - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Re #2; even after being EOLed by the manufacturer the old models tend to linger in the channel for a while.whyso - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Good card compared to the 7790 but the 7850 2 gb is still a better buy. The two games you get with it and the fact that if you overclock the 7850 is going to eat the 650 ti boost (the 650 ti boost does not have much overclocking room at over 1050 mhz vs the 860 of the 7850). Competes much better in the low end (1 gb) than with the higher end.Hrel - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
Ok, instead of just assuming Nvidia is evil.WHY didn't they just drop the price of the GTX660 to like 170 MSRP? I mean, if they're just fusing off part of the card, their cost is the same, if not higher due to whatever labor is involved in fusing off that SMX. This, IMO is a card that shouldn't even exist. The GTX660 is priced far too high for the performance offered. Random FPS hickups or no, all my recommendations are AMD until Nvidia stops pricing themselves out of competition. This, coming from someone who was, for a long time, Nvidia only ever since I had 3 horrid experiences with ATI in a row, back in the day.