Reviews - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti

[heXuser]

"betwixt" should be "between" on page 14: final thoughts and rating.

OT

I want to see a shoot out between hd7850, 650ti & hd7770 overclocked b4 i decide which one i want, but as is i would take the 7850 all day.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yes, how dare they increase performance by between 30% and 60% over the previous generation whilst keeping the same price?

Whichever way you look at this card it's a pretty good entry into the market - either it's much faster than any previous card that launched at this price (which is it), or it's as fast as previous generation cards that cost significantly more - I reckon it'd comfortably match a 6850 which was £150+ at launch, and get close to a 5850 which was over £200 at launch. Newer tech always costs more at launch - expect prices to drop over the next few months.

The problem is that the HD5850 1GB could be had for nearly £100,18 months ago:

http://forums.hexus.net/shopping-ret...very-ocuk.html

IIRC,if even dipped slightly below £100 for a while after that.

The GTX560 and HD6870 have been around £120 to £130 for a very long time too. The GT650TI is much shorter and consumes much less power,but in terms of performance the progression is painfully slow. Even the pre-overclocked HD7770 cards, which are around HD6850 to HD5850 level performance cost around the same as the HD6850 1GB now.

This is why the HD7850 1GB at around £125 to £135 makes sense than a GTX650 at £115 to £125,as it is around 25% to 30% faster overall.

Hopefully,the GTX650TI 1GB will hit £100 eventually as the HD7750 and GT640 would be under £60. ATM,the HD6670 GDDR5 is the fastest card you can get for around £55 to £60 and that is around 9800GT level performance.

[Willzzz]

You can buy a 7850 for £125 now? Cheapest on Scan is still £135 and that compares to an equivalent 650 Ti at £117.
Cheap MSI vs Cheap MSI.

So that's 15% more expensive for 20% extra performance @ 1080p (according to hardware canucks).

So yeah the 7850 is preferable, but then the free game and lower power, etc might be worth the difference to some people.
I mean the free game would only need to be worth £5 to you in order to make the difference up.

I mean me personally, I don't care about the game and I would worry about absolute performance of the 650 Ti, so would pick the 7850. But it's pretty close.
If I was slightly harder up or needed the small size, etc. I'd pick the 650 Ti.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can buy a 7850 for £125 now? Cheapest on Scan is still £135 and that compares to an equivalent 650 Ti at £117.
Cheap MSI vs Cheap MSI.

So that's 15% more expensive for 20% extra performance @ 1080p (according to hardware canucks).

So yeah the 7850 is preferable, but then the free game and lower power, etc might be worth the difference to some people.
I mean the free game would only need to be worth £5 to you in order to make the difference up.

I mean me personally, I don't care about the game and I would worry about absolute performance of the 650 Ti, so would pick the 7850. But it's pretty close.
If I was slightly harder up or needed the small size, etc. I'd pick the 650 Ti.

Aria have a 1GHZ pre-overclocked VTX(Powercolor) HD7850 1GB for £127(which places it closer to GTX660 level I suspect). OcUK just before the GTX650TI launch knocked down the MSI HD7850 1GB to £120 on offer(raised it afterwards probably since it would have not looked good for their GTX650TI cards) and you also get Sleeping Dogs with them too,although its not my cup of tea. Even at £135 an HD7850 1GB is around 22% faster using the HC figures for around 15% more in price. HC also measured 19W more for an HD7850 1GB under load at the wall. Moreover looking at the HC figures,the GTX650TI is 22% faster than an HD7770 for around 29% more in price. I don't consider the HD7770 or GTX650TI great value cards. The HD6850 1GB was under £100 for a long time and in retrospect was better value than either of them.

Like I said for a SFF PC(the kind of PCs I build),the GTX650TI looks good,but the performance progression is low compared to what you can get now. I can see AMD just keeping the steady on HD7850 1GB pricing now.

Edit!!

Sadly,TPU has not put any recent HD7850 1GB performance figures in,but the HD7850 2GB is compared here and is consider around 31% faster:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...dition/28.html

According to an earlier review the HD7850 1GB was around the same speed as the 2GB version,although this might not be the case now.

A bog standard HD7850 2GB consumes 27W more power at the connectors and TPU places it around the same level as an HD6850:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...dition/26.html

[Willzzz]

Even the Aria card is £135 with postage, but it seems more sensible to compare like with like.

The 22% faster is only when you include extreme 1080p options such as 8sMSAA. I personally think that's just ridiculous when considering a cheap card like the 650 Ti.
Anyone who enables 8xAA @ 1080p in a modern game with a sub £150 card is daft imo.

I know other's scoffed about the free game, but for those who are interested or even for those that flog it on ebay that brings the 650 Ti down to say £107 which starts to compare quite favourably.

Yes there are better deals out there, but it's not that far off the mark.
And yes anyone that sees a 7850 for £120 should snap it up immediately!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Even the Aria card is £135 with postage, but it seems more sensible to compare like with like.

OTH,it does come with a 14% core overclock,and the cooler is not reference either(luckily).

The 22% faster is only when you include extreme 1080p options such as 8sMSAA. I personally think that's just ridiculous when considering a cheap card like the 650 Ti.
Anyone who enables 8xAA @ 1080p in a modern game with a sub £150 card is daft imo.

I know other's scoffed about the free game, but for those who are interested or even for those that flog it on ebay that brings the 650 Ti down to say £107 which starts to compare quite favourably.

It is 20% faster than an HD7770 with no AA and 23% faster with 4X AA.

At 1680X1050 and 1920X1080 with no more than 4X AA,TPU places the GT650TI reference card as being around 20% faster than an HD7770:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...dition/28.html

People who bought one of those MSI HD6850 1GB cards for around £90,got a good deal!

Yes there are better deals out there, but it's not that far off the mark.
And yes anyone that sees a 7850 for £120 should snap it up immediately!

OcUK offer Sleeping Dogs and Nexuiz too with the MSI card,although Sleeping Dogs is not my cup of tea.

[Jimbo75]

Pixmania have been selling the Sapphire 7850 1GB for £125 for ages - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1278...ual-x-1-g.html

[Willzzz]

There is no question that people buying previous generation cards are going to get better bang for buck, that's a given, if they cost the same you'd never shift your old stock.

But there are a lot of advantages to buying the newer cards and many people prefer that.

There are plenty of good uses for all 3 cards, the 7770, 7850 and 650 Ti.

Regarding the 1gb vs 2gb question, Anandtech did a good bit on that:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6359/t...50-ti-review/6

Bascially if you play skyrim with high res textures you need 2gb, otherwise you don't. Of course more games will need 2gb in the future and when it does matter, it matters A LOT.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Interesting results in Skyrim for Anandtech,with the HD7850 2GB being 64% faster than the 1GB version and around 33% to 40% faster than an GTX650 2GB. However,Skyrim is a DX9 game and is known to be RAM hungry(probably worse than BF3 overall). It is one of the games which can effectively use the 3GB found in the HD7950 and HD7970, once you start adding mods AFAIK.

This the cheapest GTX650TI 2GB which was tested:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-g...s-768-d-sub-dl

However,this MSI HD7850 2GB can for £17 more:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-m...00mhz-hdmi-mdp

OTH,The Tech Report used Ultra settings with the high resolution texture pack,with 4X MSAA at 1920X1080 too and did not observe the same problems:

http://techreport.com/review/23690/r...raphics-card/8

The GTX560 non-TI has better latency figures than the GTX650TI and the AMD cards though. Looks like the oldtimer still has some fight in it!!

Edit!!

The latest drivers used for both reviews too.

[Willzzz]

I do find those tech report graphs fascinating.

Particularly in the 660 review where the OC version despite being faster on average than the reference, did not do as well on the 95th percentile and up.
I'm guessing it was using too much juice on the regular sections and ran out of puff in the trickiest parts.
I mean the difference was minuscule really, but given the huge premium Asus charge for their TOP models it's pretty embarrassing imo.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This review tests the two GT650TI versions at high in Skyrim at 1920x1080 with 4X AA:

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3233...rolls-v-skyrim

This one uses a mixture of high and Ultra settings at 1920x1080 with 4X AA:

http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/mo...id=869&page=16

The 1GB and 2GB versions of the GTX650TI produce the same framerates(the GTX650TI 2GB tested is pre-overclocked). They are within 10% of each other. OTH,the Anandtech review shows an 89% difference. I suspect their GTX650TI 1GB must have been misbehaving in Skyrim!!

[Willzzz]

I get the impression that in that particular section of the test they were looking at a worst case scenario for the 1gb models.

[Ulti]

Oh I love the design of this card, it's tiny! I'll probably get this card 2 or 3 years down the line second hand for my sibling's mini ITX PC as it fits the PC-Q07 very comfortably.

[tompettibone]

Loading quote. Mainly Diablo 3, BF3, Skyrim.

[loyal986]

No it's not overpriced if you are into GPGPU, Also the cheap go go go hardware doesent sound me right, I remember 8000 and 9000 series from nVidia failing alot, especialy the 8000 series, desoldered chip from board. When NVIDIA goes cheap than you will end up with a fryed card just right after the guarantee and AMD/ATI cards are hard to kill. I need something that lasts and not something that is a bit faster and dies faster too.

[BlackAle]

Can't believe you didn't include a 1GB 7850 in your comparisons. I've seen the 7850 1GB at around £120, that would be better buy imho.