The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review, Feat. Gigabyte, Zotac, & EVGA
by Ryan Smith on October 9, 2012 9:00 AM ESTSynthetics
As always we’ll also take a quick look at synthetic performance to see if NVIDIA’s core configuration has had any impact on basic performance metrics. Paper specifications tell us that texture fillrate should take a decent hit with pixel fillrate takes an even larger hit; and meanwhile tessellation should hold up fairly well. We’ll start with 3DMark Vantage’s Pixel Fill test.
As expected, the GTX 650 Ti drops off a cliff compared to the GTX 660. Despite this, it does rather well compared to the GTX 650 despite the similar ROP throughput and memory bandwidth of the two cards. It can even edge out the GTX 560 in the process.
Meanwhile 3DMark Vantage’s Texture Fill test backs up our earlier texture performance expectations. The drop compared to the GTX 660 is still large, but not by nearly as much as the pixel fillrate. Having twice as many SMXes as the GTX 650 also means that it comes close to doubling the GK107 card’s performance here.
Our third theoretical test is the set of settings we use with Microsoft’s Detail Tessellation sample program out of the DX11 SDK
So much for tessellation performance holding up. This is admittedly a high pixel throughput test (we’re measuring at 1000fps+), but it’s also a very simple test that doesn’t have a great deal of overdraw. Despite the fact that the GTX 650 Ti holds on to most of GK106’s Polymorph Engines, performance drops by 40% relative to the GTX 660, which is far more in-line with the loss of ROP throughput and memory bandwidth.
Our final theoretical test is Unigine Heaven 2.5, a benchmark that straddles the line between a synthetic benchmark and a real-world benchmark as the engine is licensed but no notable DX11 games have been produced using it yet.
Despite everything else we’ve seen, Unigine results are almost exactly in the middle of the expected performance loss between shading/texturing and ROP/memory on the GTX 650 Ti. This makes it just good enough to tie the GTX 560, or surpass the GTX 550 Ti by nearly 50%.
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flipmode - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Please, that mantra is goofy. Of course there is such a thing as a bad product. You're telling me you've never run into a product that you wouldn't buy at any price? I have. Not saying the GTX 650 Ti fits that description - it doesn't - but I just wish you'd dispense with that silly expression.Paulman - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I think it's a good saying, especially when applied to the two horse race between AMD/ATI and NVIDIA. Both companies have been executing fairly well over the past half decade or more, and ultimately the biggest factor that determines the success or value of a card is the performance vs. price. The only thing that would mess with that is a significant spat of failing parts, or ridiculously high power/noise consumption that can't be mitigated, or unfixably buggy drivers. But barring such catastrophe scenarios, if your part isn't that great by the time it hits the market, just lower the price :PCeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
It's amazing the amd fanboy brain farts spewing here.AMD lowered their frikkin 7850 price, not the card that "isn't that great that just hit the market".
I'll also point out that this nVidia card does 4 monitors out of the box, and the Asus version at the egg has a great port setup for that, and is inexpensive.
It's just amazing to me really. AMD drops in price, and the idiot response is late and slow for the card reviewed demanding a lower price.
LOL - it's so so freakin sad.
rarson - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
You don't understand economics, do you?Homeles - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
"AMD lowered their frikkin 7850 price, not the card that 'isn't that great that just hit the market.'"You need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills, kid. You have completely missed the point of the post you are replying to. Quite laughably, really, especially given your condescension.
Siana - Monday, October 15, 2012 - link
OMG a sane person on the Internet!JIHAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Uritziel - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
Nothing keeps a price from being negative, so the saying isn't really wrong. Bet you'd buy that bad product you have in mind for -$5000...CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
Here, where are the amd fanboys usual bloviating load of crap spews ?I'll pretend I'm them.
This card OverClocks to 7850 speeds and passes it for $5o LESS ! you'd have to be an idiot to buy the amd card when every single nVidia 650Ti hit the same awesome overclock flying past the 7850 !
Not to mention eyefinity sucks and is dead now that 4 monitors are rockin on these 650Ti's !
I'd sure like to see amd innovate but all they care about is MONEY $$$ so they charge more!
There we go amd fanboys, FTFY, and the worse part of it all for you is it's all true instead of big fat lies like when you do it !
rarson - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
This has nothing to do with fanboys, just like the last post didn't. We're talking about economics here, not AMD vs. Nvidia. Stop looking at everything through your green-tinted glasses and try reading what is actually on the screen. The comment you replied to has nothing to do with the cards you mentioned.Galidou - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
He says everyone is lying when speaking about AMD while he can hardly stay in the right path himself.... He's taking the side of the most powerful companies in the world(anything that's against AMD is worth taking their side) while spewing shit like: ''all they care about is MONEY $$$.''Let's go, take the side of the giants of this world, kill the small companies spewing shit about them so the world can turn more monopolistic than it is now... LoL funniest vomit the world had to know about... Make the rich even more rich and KILL everyone below... I have to admit AMD is in a bad situation, their CPU division fares ALOT worse than their GPU division but it's not a reason to be so stupid... so freaking imbecile..... Just so stubbornly refusing to have any respect toward anyone that doesn't TOTALLY embrace his stupid closed vision of the computer industry.
I just wish AMD gets out of there, if not then too bad, we can't change things for them. They are fighting against the giants of the computer industry that have a hundred times more budget than they do... Just for that, I'm wishing they succeed in the future.