GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review: Nvidia's Last Graphics Card For 2012

Features
By Don Woligroski, Igor Wallossek
published

Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 650 Ti is designed to fill the gap between its GeForce GTX 650 and 660. Is the GK106-based board fast enough to outmaneuver classics like the GeForce GTX 460 and Radeon HD 6850? Or, should you be looking to a 1 GB Radeon HD 7850?

Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3

The single-player campaign of Battlefield 3 is decidedly more GPU-limited than the multi-player component. So, we'll start with the High detail preset with no MSAA applies, and the Post AA filter set to High.

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti competes with AMD's Radeon HD 6870 and Nvidia's own GeForce GTX 560. but the Radeon HD 7850 1 GB and GeForce GTX 660 lead the pack.

In order to achieve playable performance with MSAA active, we had to lower the quality preset to Medium and disable the FXAA-based filter, motion blur, and ambient occlusion options. This specific combination of settings caused Nvidia's cards to demonstrate intermittent black textures, which we'd be most inclined to blame on the company's beta graphics driver.

Aside from the observed quality issues, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti rides the boundary of playability with a minimum 29 FPS frame rate. The 192-bit GeForce GTX 460 generates a similar average frame rate, but encounters strange performance dips that slow performance at inopportune times.

All of the Radeon cards trail behind, except for the Radeon HD 7850 1 GB, which finishes second only to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660.

Don Woligroski
150 Comments Comment from the forums
  • yialanliu
    Awesome, finally something that mainstream budget users can afford from Nvidia, been waiting for ages!
    Reply
  • jimbaladin
    40% slower than the 7850 while costing 10-20% less, and 10% faster than the 7770 while costing 25% more.

    That looks like a fail to me, and don't even get me started on how late this is.
    Reply
  • unionoob
    Would be awesome if you would include HD 5770 in benchmarks vs this one too, sure its old card but would love to see how powerfull is that one compered to this one.
    Reply
  • Mike-TH
    Why would you not include the GTX 660 Ti in the tests? After all, the 650 Ti and 660 Ti should be the options of the day for upgrades - why not compare them?
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    nVidia, you really need to stop gimping your bandwidth!
    Seriously, such a waste of silicon that could perform quite a bit better if you just gave it a little more breathing room....
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    I assume the place where it cripple the 650TI is the 16ROP as well as the 128bit bus. But the 16ROP is probably the biggest bottleneck of the card, this is the only place where u cant be fix by any OCing at all.

    With 128bit bus, they could have just leave the memory speed @ 6GHz. 5400 is pretty much ruin the thing.

    Edit: btw, this is probably one of the most useful review I see for a while. 6870/6850/560/460/7770 are all there, with benchmark of AA on and off. thumbs up for u author!
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    jimbaladin40% slower than the 7850 while costing 10-20% less, and 10% faster than the 7770 while costing 25% more.That looks like a fail to me, and don't even get me started on how late this is.
    The HD7850 and GTX 650ti are essentially the same price on New Egg.





    Reply
  • proffet
    another PhysX card I suppose..
    slightly too weak for a dedicated in my book.
    I said my book as in my opinion.
    Reply
  • Iastfan112
    Mike-THWhy would you not include the GTX 660 Ti in the tests? After all, the 650 Ti and 660 Ti should be the options of the day for upgrades - why not compare them?
    Because comparing cards in the ~150 dollar range to a card thats +280 dollars is asinine?
    Reply
  • cknobman
    AnandTech has already released an article covering AMD officially dropping the price of the 1GB 7850 to $169 for the fall season
    This means we will easily see $150 or less after rebates and officially makes this Nvidia 650ti product a total fail. I see no reason to purchase this.
    Reply