The GTX 650 Ti BOOST Preview
(pre) Conclusion
This has been quite an enjoyable, if far too short, exploration for us in evaluating our new GTX 650 Ti BOOST that was marred by this reviewer getting a serious flu. It did extraordinarily well performance-wise comparing it to this generation’s GTX 660 where it brings good performance value. We are totally impressed with this cool-running mainstream just above “entry level” GTX Ti BOOST gaming card. It totally runs away from the regular GTX 660 Ti non-BOOST editions.
We see good overclockability with reasonable quietness at stock voltage and fan profile even when the GTX 650 Ti BOOST is overclocked and it scales well in performance. It is as quiet as the EVGA GTX 660, a quiet card indeed.
For its $169 price, it gives more than 80% of the performance of the GTX 660 which is priced at $200. Although the GTX 650 Ti BOOST is generally outclassed by the GTX 660, it is also priced about thirty dollars less. Add in the bundled $75 of ingame items for the 3 popular F2P games, and the GTX 650 Ti BOOST becomes a great value. A gamer who is really into these games, might consider spending the extra thirty dollars, however, and get the GTX 660 with the $150 ingame item bundle instead.
Pros
- The GTX 650 Ti BOOST provides excellent performance for a $169 card.
- Overclockability is good and scaling is excellent.
- The cooling design is quiet and efficient
- 3D Vision 2 and PhysX enhance gaming immersion and both are improved using the GTX 650 Ti BOOST compared to the GTX 650 Ti which is not in the same performance class – upgrading from the GTX 650 Ti to the GTX 650 Ti BOOST brings a solid improvement.
- Surround and 3D Vision Surround (plus an accessory display on some boards) can now be driven off of a single GTX 650 Ti by requiring a single passive adapter; HD 7770 generally requires two, and tearing is noticeably less with Surround compared to Eyefinity
- New AA allows for high performance without jaggies in deferred shading lighting engines; TXAA solves the shimmering and crawling when the camera is in motion
- Adaptive VSync reduces stuttering while retaining the advantages of minimizing tearing.
- Two-way SLI is possible as an excellent upgrade path, unlike with the GTX 560 Ti regular edition. Currently the competing multi-GPU AMD CrossFire generally suffers from driver issues.
- The GTX 650 Ti BOOST becomes a great value when it is bundled with the $75 F2P bundle (!!)
Cons
- The Name. GTX 650 Ti “Boost” – of course, this is a silly, almost minor nitpick for a card that might have been better called a GTX 660 GS.
The Verdict:
- If you are buying a $169 entry level gaming video card right now that is perfect for 1920×1080 as well as being great bang for buck, the GTX 650 Ti BOOST is a great choice especially considering that it is bundled with $75 of ingame items.
We do not know what the future will bring, but the Nvidia’s GTX 650 Ti BOOST brings good value and a great performer to the latest member of the 28nm GeForce Kepler family. With great features like PhysX and the second generation of 3D Vision, you can be assured of immersive gaming by picking this card for 1920×1080 resolution.
The competition is hot and AMD offers their own set of features including Eyefinity 2.0 and the faster and recently lower-priced HD 7790 1GB editions. We hope to be able to bring you a head to head comparison of the HD 7790 with the 1GB GTX 650 Ti BOOST.
Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT. This upcoming week, you can expect Part two of this same GTX 650 Ti BOOST evaluation which will compare far more cards going all the way back to the 8800-GTX and the GTX 280!
And don’t forget to check our forums. ABT forum tech discussions are among the best to be found anywhere!
Mark Poppin
ABT Senior Editor
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For the latest updates from ABT, please join our RSS News Feed
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- Folding@Home – Team AlienBabelTech – 164304
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