{"id":32123,"date":"2012-10-09T14:02:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T13:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32123"},"modified":"2012-10-10T03:34:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T02:34:01","slug":"gtx-650","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/gtx-650\/","title":{"rendered":"Nvidia&#8217;s GTX 650 Ti arrives to round out the Kepler line-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n                                                                                       google_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\"; \/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"1949837292\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\"><\/div>\n<p>Less than a month ago, Nvidia released its &#8220;sweet-spot&#8221; $229 <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31852\">GeForce GTX 660<\/a> and the entry-level\u00a0$109 GTX 650 based on its &#8220;GK106&#8221; 28nm Kepler DX11.1 architecture.\u00a0 Today, Nvidia is completing their 2012 Kepler line-up with the release of their sixth GPU, the $149 GTX 650 Ti.\u00a0 To make the deal even more attractive, Nvidia is bundling the upcoming Ubisoft AAA title, <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed 3,<\/em> together with the GTX 650 Ti at participating etailers worldwide (except in China and in\u00a0Japan).<a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Boardshot_Technical_GeForce.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32127\" title=\"Boardshot_Technical_GeForce\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Boardshot_Technical_GeForce.jpg?resize=480%2C367\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Boardshot_Technical_GeForce.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Boardshot_Technical_GeForce-300x229.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We received a reference GTX 650 Ti video card from\u00a0Nvidia under NDA, and for the past week, we have been comparing it to the Sapphire\u00a0factory overclocked Vapor-X HD 7770s that it is going head-to-head with, as well as to Nvidia&#8217;s last generation, the GTX 550 Ti and to\u00a0AMD&#8217;s entry-level for gaming,\u00a0HD 7750 .\u00a0 We will also compare\u00a0the new GTX 650 Ti\u00a0out of its class using higher settings,\u00a0to the GTX 660 and to the HD 7850 to get an overall idea of the new GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s\u00a0price to performance.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-32128\" title=\"660-7850\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/660-7850.jpg?resize=300%2C251\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/660-7850-300x251.jpg 300w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/660-7850.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Faster, Smoother, Richer&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Nvidia designed the GeForce GTX 650 Ti primarily for gamers who want to enjoy their games with the graphics settings and anti-aliasing (FXAA) turned up to high, although not to ultra or high MSAA settings, paired with a 1920&#215;1080 display. That means that Nvidia has positioned it directly against the factory overclocked HD 7770s such as our <a href=\"alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29688\">Vapor-X\u00a0Sapphire HD 7770\u00a0GHz\u00a0\u00a0OC edition<\/a> which currently sits\u00a0in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102993\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102993', '$150 price range']);\" >$150 price range<\/a>\u00a0with an additional $15 mail-in-rebate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It is very likely that the GTX 650 Ti will also be compared against the faster and generally $20 to $40 more expensive\u00a0HD 7850, although Nvidia has positioned the GTX 660\u00a0a bit closer\u00a0to the HD 7850&#8217;s\u00a0price range.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Sapphire-VX-1.jpg?resize=324%2C204\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The GTX 650 Ti is Nvidia&#8217;s replacement for <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=25002\">the GTX 550 Ti which launched\u00a0April, 2011 at $149<\/a>. It follows the pricing tradition of the GTX 450 which also debuted at $149.\u00a0 Both\u00a0the entry-level\u00a0GeForce GTX 650 and the GTX 650 Ti are designed for gaming at 1920&#215;1080 resolution. In the past, the most popular resolutions were 1280&#215;1024 and 1680&#215;1050 displays, but recently 1080p has become the most popular gaming resolution\u00a0due to low\u00a0LCD prices.\u00a0 Nvidia built the GeForce GTX 650 Ti to deliver best-in-class performance for\u00a0these gamers.<a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/550-650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32138\" title=\"550-650\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/550-650.jpg?resize=480%2C302\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/550-650.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/550-650-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nvidia used\u00a0the same GK106 GPU\u00a0for the GeForce GTX 660 and the GTX 650 Ti. In the case of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, four SMXs are used,\u00a0offering a total of 768 CUDA Cores and 64 texture units. The memory interface is 128-bit.\u00a0 We do not have a GTX 650 but the GTX 650 Ti offers twice the number of CUDA Cores and texture units, as well as more memory bandwidth than the regular &#8216;non-Ti&#8217; GTX 650.\u00a0 In Nvidia&#8217;s testing, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti is about 40% faster than the GTX 650.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s Competition &#8211; the factory overclocked HD 7770s priced from $135-$150<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This time, Nvidia is aiming for slightly less than GTX 660 performance\u00a0with a Ti &#8220;entry-level&#8221;\u00a0video card\u00a0to directly compete with AMD&#8217;s\u00a0entry level gaming\u00a0card, the HD 7770.\u00a0 This morning, the HD 7770 is selling for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&amp;DEPA=0&amp;Order=BESTMATCH&amp;N=100006662&amp;isNodeId=1&amp;Description=hd+7850&amp;x=0&amp;y=0\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&amp;DEPA=0&amp;Order=BESTMATCH&amp;N=100006662&amp;isNodeId=1&amp;Description=hd+7850&amp;x=0&amp;y=0', 'an average price on Newegg from $110-$149']);\" >an average price on Newegg from $110-$149<\/a>,\u00a0depending on if it is the stock (860MHz core), GHz (1000MHz), or the even more highly-clocked\u00a0editions such as our Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770 GHz OC edition (1100MHz core).<\/p>\n<p>For a price-to-performance comparison, we are also including the GTX 560 Ti and the HD 7750 benchmarks\u00a0which are generally now priced below $100.\u00a0 You will see us pit the reference GTX 650 Ti at reference clocks and also further overclocked, against the $150 Vapor-X Sapphire HD at reference GHz edition speeds of 1000\/1125MHz and at Sapphire&#8217;s overclock 1100\/1300MHz.<\/p>\n<p>Using slightly higher settings, we shall also pit our new GTX 650 Ti against the HIS reference design HD 7850 and the Galaxy GTX 660 at reference clocks. Rounding out our evaluation, we shall also benchmark the GTX 550 Ti and the HD 7750 using 24 modern games and 3 synthetic benchmarks using 1920&#215;1200 and 1680&#215;1050 resolutions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s Game Bundle &#8211; $149 including <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed 3 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last month, Nvidia was able to bundle the successful AAA title, <em>Borderlands 2<\/em> with its GTX 660.\u00a0 This time, many of Nvidia&#8217;s partners are including <em>Assasins Creed 3 <\/em>with the $150\u00a0GTX 650 Ti, a $60 triple-A title.\u00a0\u00a0 Beginning today for a limited time, gamers who purchase select GeForce GTX 650 Ti graphics cards will receive a free copy of <em><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\">Assassin\u2019s Creed 3.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since 2007, the <em><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\">Assassin\u2019s Creed <\/span><\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">series has sold over 35 million copies worldwide.\u00a0 <\/span><em><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Calibri; font-size: small;\">Assassin\u2019s Creed 3 <\/span><\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">is the fifth major installment.\u00a0 <\/span>Compared to\u00a0the console versions, the PC version of the game will feature\u00a0better DX11 graphics when it ships on November 23<span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">What&#8217;s New with Kepler&#8217;s GTX 650 Ti?<\/h3>\n<p>Nvidia&#8217;s marketing buzzwords for the GTX 680, GTX 690, GTX 670 and GTX 660 launches are, <em><strong>&#8220;Faster. Smoother. Richer.&#8221; <\/strong><\/em>The GTX 650 Ti is also designed for extreme efficiency and high performance.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Faster<\/h3>\n<p>The GTX 680&#8217;s Kepler architecture has 8 SMX units and 1536 CUDA cores. In comparison, the more affordable GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti both ship with 1344 CUDA Cores and 7 SMX units. The main difference between the GTX 670 and the GTX 660 Ti is that the less expensive card has a narrower bus &#8211; cut down from 256-bit to 192-bit. Now for the GTX 660, the bus width remains the same 192-bit, but the GTX 660 is further cut down from the Ti&#8217;s 7 SMX units and 1344 cores to 5 SMX units and 960 CUDA cores.\u00a0\u00a0 In the case of the GTX 650 Ti, the SMX units are reduced to\u00a04 with a total of\u00a0768 CUDA cores.\u00a0 There is no GPU boost available for the GTX 650 Ti.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Smoother<\/h3>\n<p>New kinds of anti-aliasing &#8211; FXAA and TXAA &#8211; now compete with MSAA in terms of IQ while not sacrificing as much performance. <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31233\">TXAA which we evaluated in <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31233\">the Secret World<\/a>, <\/em>brings anti-aliasing without texture crawling or shimmering when the camera is in motion. Also, there is a new &#8220;Adaptive VSync&#8221; that is reduces tearing and stuttering associated with regular VSync. Great hardware needs great software to support it and Nvidia is also a software company.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Richer<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;\">For the first time, it is now possible to play games spanning 3 displays in Surround off of a single GeForce GTX 650 Ti (below, left)\u00a0just as with the GTX 680, GTX 670, GTX 660 Ti and the GTX 660.\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;\">Without buying a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31770\">FleX HD 7770<\/a>,\u00a0you will generally need two adapters for DVI for\u00a0most HD 7770s (below, right) to run the competing 3-panel Eyefinity and you may also experience more tearing with the AMD solution.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32140\" title=\"7750-7770-650ti-CONN\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7750-7770-650ti-CONN1.jpg?resize=560%2C81\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7750-7770-650ti-CONN1.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7750-7770-650ti-CONN1-300x43.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;\">Above from left to right is the regular HD 7770 GHz edition, the Nvidia reference GTX 650 Ti and the HD 7750 Low Profile Radeon showing their respective display output connectors.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s display outputs include two dual-link DVIs and one mini-HDMI. While the reference design ships with three display outputs, it\u2019s important to note that the GeForce GTX 650 Ti GPU supports up to four displays, and some of Nvidia&#8217;s board partners\u00a0offer this feature.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-28912\" title=\"SURROUND-4disp\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-4disp.jpg?resize=458%2C235\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-4disp.jpg 763w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-4disp-300x153.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;\">One 6-pin PCIe power connector is required for the 650 Ti&#8217;s operation and if you forget to connect it, you will get an on-screen reminder at boot-up &#8211; a feature not found with older Nvidia cards.<a href=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-pcie.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32139\" title=\"650ti-pcie\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-pcie.jpg?resize=480%2C313\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-pcie.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-pcie-300x195.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">How does the $149 GTX 660 compare with AMD&#8217;s super-overclocked HD 7770?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This evaluation attempts to analyze and compare performance of\u00a0the GTX 660, the GTX 650 Ti, and the GTX 550 Ti. We also include HD 7850 performance as well as HD 7750 although we are focusing on the overclocked HD 7770. We will see what this new Nvidia Kepler entry-level\u00a0gaming GPU brings to the table for about\u00a0one hundred and forty-nine dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Since we do not want any chance of our CPU &#8220;bottlenecking&#8221; our graphics, we are testing all of our graphics cards by using our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=30448\">Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7-3770K at 4.80GHz<\/a>, 8 GB Kingston PC1866 DDR3 and EVGA&#8217;s Z77 FTW motherboard. This new motherboard features 16x + 16x PCIe 3.0 specification for CrossFire\/SLI. <img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Next page...\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif?w=720\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/> The Core i7-3770K at 4.8GHz is more than enough to differentiate even high-end video cards at high resolution and high detail settings. <img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Next page...\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif?w=720\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Before we do performance testing, let&#8217;s take a look at the GTX 650\u00a0Ti and quickly recap its new Kepler DX11.1 architecture and features.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Introduction--><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Architecture recap &#038; specifications--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Architecture and Features<\/h3>\n<p>We have covered Fermi&#8217;s GK architecture in a lot of detail previously. You can can read our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=28910\">GTX 680 introductory article<\/a> and and <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29157\">its follow-up<\/a>. We also covered the <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29519\">launch of the GTX 690<\/a>, the launch <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29607\">of the GTX 670<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31410\">launch of the GTX 660 Ti<\/a>\u00a0and the launch of <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31852\">the GTX 660 and GTX 650<\/a>. The new Kepler architecture builds on Fermi architecture with some important improvements and refinements that we will briefly cover here before we get into performance testing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>SMX architecture<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SMX.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-28916\" title=\"SMX\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SMX.jpg?resize=471%2C302\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SMX.jpg 785w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SMX-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 471px) 100vw, 471px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As Nvidia&#8217;s slide indicates, the new Kepler architecture is called SMX and it emphasizes 2x the performance per Watt over Fermi. Their multi-threaded engine handles all of the information using three graphics processing clusters including the raster engine and two streaming multi-processors.<\/p>\n<p>The Fermi SM is now called the SMX cluster. Each SMX cluster includes a Polymorph 2.0 engine, 192 CUDA cores, 16 texture units and a lot of high-level cache. In the GTX 680, four raster units and 128 Texture units comprise 32 ROPs; eight geometry units each have a tessellation unit, and more lower-level cache. Both the GTX 670 and the GTX 660 Ti each have 4 graphics engines but one less SMX unit and only 24 ROPs.<\/p>\n<p>The GeForce GTX 650 Ti ships with 768 CUDA Cores and four SMX units.\u00a0 The memory subsystem of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti consists of two 64-bit memory controllers (128-bit) with 1GB of GDDR5 memory.<\/p>\n<p>The other main differentiation between the GTX 670\/680 and the GTX 660 Ti, GTX 660 and GTX 650\/Ti,\u00a0is that the 660 and the\u00a0650 bus is much narrower at 192-bit, cut down from 256-bit.\u00a0\u00a0 One main differentation between the GTX 650\/Ti and the higher GTXes is that the memory speed is lower at 5400MHz data rate and that there is no GPU Boost.<\/p>\n<p>From top to bottom,\u00a0the GeForce lineup now consists of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>GeForce GTX 690<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 680<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 670<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 660 Ti<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 660<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 650 Ti<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 650<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GT 640<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GT 630<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GT 620<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GT 610<\/li>\n<li>GeForce 210<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Under load, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti\u00a0typically draws around 80W of power in most gaming apps. This\u00a0is no adjustment nor a\u00a0power target slider available. At maximum power, the GTX 650 Ti\u00a0will draw around 110W in non-TDP apps.\u00a0 There is no GPU Boost available on the GTX 650 or 650 Ti.<\/p>\n<p>This is a very brief overview of Kepler architecture as presented to the press at Kepler Editor&#8217;s Day in San Francisco a few months ago. We also attended Nvidia&#8217;s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) and you can find a lot more details about the architecture in <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29692\">our GTC 2012 report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Adaptive VSync<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Traditional VSync is great for eliminating tearing until the frame rate drops below the target &#8211; then there is a severe drop from usually 60 fps down to 30 fps if it cannot meet exactly 60. When that happens, there is a noticeable stutter.<\/p>\n<p>Nvidia&#8217;s solution is to dynamically adjust VSync &#8211; to turn it on and off instantaneously. In this way VSync continues to prevent tearing but when it drops below 60 fps, it shuts off VSync to reduce stuttering instead of drastically dropping frame rates from 60 to 30 fps or even lower. When the minimum target is again met, VSync kicks back in. In gaming, you never notice Adaptive VSync is happening; you just notice less stutter (especially in demanding games).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/AdaptiveVSynch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-28932\" title=\"AdaptiveVSynch\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/AdaptiveVSynch.jpg?resize=480%2C269\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/AdaptiveVSynch.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/AdaptiveVSynch-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Adaptive VSync is a good solution that works well in practice. We spent more time with Adaptive VSync by playing games and it is very helpful although we never use it when benching.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>FXAA &amp; TXAA<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>TXAA<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There is a need for new kinds of anti-aliasing as many of the modern engines use differed lighting which suffers a heavy performance penalty when traditional MSAA is applied. The alternative, to have jaggies is unacceptable. TXAA &#8211; Temporal Anti-Aliasing is a mix of hardware mult-sampling with a custom high quality AA resolve that use temporal components (samples that are gathered over micro-seconds are compared to give a better AA solution). It&#8217;s main advantage is that it reduces shimmering and texture crawling when the camera is in motion.<\/p>\n<p>There is TXAA 1 which extracts a performance cost similar to 2xMSAA which under ideal circumstances give similar results to 8xMSAA. Of course, from what little time we have spent with it, it appears to be not quite as consistent as MSAA but works well in areas of high contrast. TXAA 2 is supposed to have a similar performance penalty to 4xMSAA but with higher quality than 8xMSAA.<\/p>\n<p>TXAA was the subject of <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=31233\">a short IQ analysis of <em>the Secret World<\/em><\/a> &#8211; the first game to use it. So far, it appears to be a great option for situations where MSAA doesn&#8217;t work efficiently and it almost completely eliminates shimmering and texture crawling when the camera is in motion. It works particularly well for <em>the Secret World<\/em> as the slight blur gives the game a cinematic look.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>FXAA<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Nvidia has already implemented FXAA &#8211; Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing. In practice, it works well in some games <em>(Duke Nukem Forever\/Max Payne 3)<\/em>, while in other games text or other visuals may be a bit blurry<em>. <\/em> FXAA is a great option to have when MSAA kills performance. We plan to devote a entire evaluation to comparing IQ between the HD 7000 series and the GTX 600 series as well as comparisons with the older series video cards.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Specifications<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Here are Nvidia&#8217;s specifications for the reference GTX 650 Ti:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32131\" title=\"650ti-SPECS\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-SPECS.jpg?resize=506%2C580\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-SPECS.jpg 562w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-SPECS-261x300.jpg 261w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 506px) 100vw, 506px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As discussed, the GTX 650 Ti is very similar to the GTX 660 but with less CUDA cores.\u00a0 The GeForce GTX 6650 Ti\u00a0was also designed from the ground up to deliver exceptional tessellation performance. Tessellation is the key component of Microsoft&#8217;s DirectX 11 development platform for PC games.<\/p>\n<p>Tessellation allows game developers to take advantage of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s GPU&#8217;s tessellation ability to increase the geometric complexity of models and characters to deliver far more realistic and visually rich gaming environments. Needless to say, the new GTX 650 Ti brings a lot of features to the table that current Nvidia&#8217;s customers will appreciate, including improved CUDA&#8217;s PhysX, 2D and 3D Surround plus the ability to drive up to 3 LCDs (plus a 4th accessory display from a single GTX 650 Ti with some models); superb tessellation capabilities and a really fast and power efficient GPU in comparison to their previous GTX 450 and GTX 550 Ti.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>3-panel Surround (plus an Accessory display with some GTX 650 Ti models) from a single card<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>One of the criticisms that Kepler has addressed from Fermi was that two video cards in SLI are required to run 3-panel Surround or 3D Vision Surround. From a single card, the GTX 670, 680, the GTX 660\/660 Ti and now the GTX 650 Ti\u00a0can run three displays (plus an accessory display with some models). Interestingly, Nvidia has changed their taskbar from the left side to the center screen. We now prefer the taskbar in the center; it might be more convenient for some users rather than clicking all the way over to the left for the start menu as with Eyefinity.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that we did notice. Suround and 3D Vision Surround are now just as easy to configure as AMD&#8217;s Eyefinity. And AMD has no real answer to 3D Vision nor 3D Vision Surround &#8211; HD3D lacks basic support in comparison.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-taskbarCenter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-28945\" title=\"SURROUND-taskbarCenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-taskbarCenter.jpg?resize=480%2C207\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-taskbarCenter.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SURROUND-taskbarCenter-300x129.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One new option with the GTX 650\/650 Ti\/660\/660 Ti\/670\/680\/690 is in the bezel corrections. In the past, the in-game menus would get occluded by the bezels and it was annoying if you use the correction. Now with Bezel Peek, you can use hotkeys to instantly see the menus hidden by the bezel. However, this editor does not ever use bezel correction in gaming.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that we are still noting &#8211; Surround suffers from less tearing than Eyefinity although AMD appears to be working on a solution with their latest drivers. The only true solution to tearing in Eyefinity is to have all native DisplayPort displays or opt for the much more expensive active adapters. And you will need two adapters for Eyefinity for most HD 7770s to run Eyefinity (below right), whereas you only need one for Surround with the GTX 650 Ti, GTX 660, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670 and the GTX 680.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32136\" title=\"7770-650ti-CONN\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7770-650ti-CONN.jpg?resize=480%2C244\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7770-650ti-CONN.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/7770-650ti-CONN-300x152.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nvidia also claims a faster experience with the custom resolutions because of a faster center display acceleration.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>A look at the GTX 650 Ti<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The GTX 650 Ti\u00a0is also on a short PCB at 5.65&#8243;,\u00a0especially compared to the GTX 680. <a href=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-obv.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32141\" title=\"650ti-obv\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-obv.jpg?resize=480%2C394\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-obv.jpg 800w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650ti-obv-300x246.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Display outputs include two dual-link DVIs, and one HDMI (and one DisplayPort connector for some models). One 6-pin PCIe power connector is required for operation. If a user fails to connect the power connector properly, a brief message is displayed at boot-up instructing them to plug-in the power connector.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>SLI<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The GTX 650 Ti is not set up for SLI\u00a0at all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Super-Widescreen 5760 x1080, Surround, 3D Vision Surround, and PhysX<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The GTX 650 Ti\u00a0is set up exactly the same way as the more expensive GTX 660\/660 Ti, GTX 670 and GTX 680. Since the GTX 660 is considerably slower than the GTX 670 overall, one can reasonably expect the performance delta to be much lower for super-widescreen resolutions as well as for Surround, 3D Vision Surround and for PhysX as in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29607\">last evaluation of the GTX 670 in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For 3D Vision and for Surround, many games need to have their settings reduced. Just remember that you are playing across three screens and are also rendering each scene twice for 3D Vision!! And turning on PhysX on a GTX 650 Ti, although affecting the frame rate, it is enough to play the game with fully maxed out details and FXAA or AAA compared to the GTX 550 Ti that\u00a0it replaces.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overclocking<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our GTX 650 Ti edition is\u00a0 reference clocked 925\/1350MHz. We were able to overclock a further +175MHz with complete stability even though we did not adjust the voltage nor our fan profile. We also managed +250MHz on the memory clocks and could have gone higher although performance did not scale further.<\/p>\n<p>Even with overclocking further, temperatures generally stayed below 60C and the fan rarely exceeded 40%. The\u00a0reference GTX\u00a0650 Ti\u00a0is a very quiet card and it could easily be used for a home theater PC (HTPC).<\/p>\n<p><strong>PhysX and <em>Borderlands 2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We did not get to add <em>Borderlands 2<\/em> to our benchmarking suite yet.\u00a0 It will be game benchmark number 25 in our next evaluaton.\u00a0 However, we did spend some time playing the game at 1920&#215;1080 with all details set to high including PhysX and FXAA\u00a0with our new GTX 650 Ti.\u00a0\u00a0Playing with the GTX 650 Ti in\u00a0the most demanding areas with mass action, explosions,\u00a0debris and liquid PhysX effects\u00a0taking place all at once,\u00a0we averaged 29 fps in the Caustic Caverns and never dropped out of the 20s.<\/p>\n<p>Check out the performance summary charts and particularly the overclocking charts to note how well the GTX 650 Ti scales.\u00a0 The specifications look good with solid improvement over the Fermi-based GTX 550 Ti. Let&#8217;s check out performance after\u00a0checking out\u00a0our test configuration on the next page.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Test Configuration, Power Draw, Noise &#038; Overclocking--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Test Configuration &#8211; Hardware<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Intel Core i7-3770K reference 3.50 GHz\/Turbo to 3.7GHz<\/span>, overclocked to 4.8 GHz<span style=\"font-size: small;\">; HyperThreading is on, supplied by Intel.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (latest Beta BIOS, USB\/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire\/SLI 16x+16x), supplied by EVGA<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">8 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 1866 Kingston RAM (2&#215;2 GB, tri-channel at 1866 MHz; supplied by Kingston)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Nvidia reference\u00a0GTX 650 Ti, 1\u00a0GB (reference clocks of 925\/1350MHz and also overclocked, +175MHz\/+250MHz), supplied by Nvidia<\/li>\n<li>Galaxy\u00a0GTX 660, 2 GB reference clocks, supplied by Galaxy.<\/li>\n<li>Nvidia GTX 550 Ti, 1 GB reference design and clocks, supplied by Nvidia<\/li>\n<li>Sapphire\u00a0HD 7750 Low Profile edition, 1GB reference design and clocks, supplied by Sapphire<\/li>\n<li>Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770 GHz Overclock edition (1GB overclocked design and clocks, supplied by Sapphire)<\/li>\n<li>HIS IceQX Radeon HD 7850, 2 GB with custom cooling at stock clocks (860\/4800MHz)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Onboard Realtek Audio<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">2 x 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200-12 HDDs; one for AMD and one for Nvidia<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake ToughPowerXT 775W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Full Tower case, supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro CPU watercooler, supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Philips DVD SATA writer<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">HP LP3065 2560&#215;1600 thirty inch LCD. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">Test Configuration &#8211; Software<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Nvidia GeForce 306.02 Beta drivers for all GTXes except for the GTX 650 Ti &#8211; 306.38. High Quality<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span>AMD 12.8 WHQL Catalyst drivers; latest CAPs. High Quality &#8211; optimizations off; use application settings<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Latest DirectX<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All games are patched to their latest versions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">VSync is off in the control panel.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">AA enabled as noted in games<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for <em>Crysis.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">The Benchmarks<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Synthetic<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vantage<\/li>\n<li>3DMark 11<em><\/em><\/li>\n<li>Heaven 3.0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><strong>DX9 <\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Left 4 Dead 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious Sam 3 BFE<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Alan Wake: Ameican Nightmare<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><strong>DX10<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Crysis<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Far Cry 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><\/em><em>Just Cause 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><\/em><em>World-in-Conflict Soviet Assault<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><strong>DX11<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>BattleForge<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Alien vs. Predator<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Metro 2033<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>F1 2010<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>H.A.W.X. 2<\/em><em><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><\/em><em>Lost Planet 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Shogun II<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Civilization V<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><em>Crysis 2<\/em><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><\/em><em>Dirt 3<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Deus Ex: Human Revolution<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><em>Batman: Arkham City<\/em><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Battlefield 3<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Max Payne 3<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>the Secret World<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Borderlands 2<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Before we get to the GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s performance charts, let&#8217;s look at overclocking, power draw and temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overclocking, Power Draw, Noise and Temperatures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Overclocking the GTX 650 Ti is just as easy as overclocking the GTX 660\/660 Ti, 670, 680 and 690.\u00a0 It is even less complicated because there is no GPU Boost.\u00a0 We were able to add an additional +175MHz over the base clocks that Nvidia set for the reference GTX 650 Ti. \u00a0On top of that, we were able to get +250MHz on the memory; overall, a very good overclock.<\/p>\n<p>We did not adjust the GTX 650 Ti&#8217;s voltage nor fan profile. Temperatures were never an issue and the fan profile remained at stock which meant that the GTX 650 Ti is also extraordinarily quiet at maximum load &#8211; the fan profile rarely went over 40% and the temperatures remained under 60C under the most stressful conditions and highest load in gaming. Similarly, the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770 is also quiet and cool under load as it also uses custom cooling.<\/p>\n<p>We max the PowerTune slider for AMD cards and usually for Nvidia cards although there is no power\u00a0adjustment for the GTX 650 Ti.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s head to the performance charts to see how the GTX 650\u00a0Ti compares with the GTX 660 as well as the last generation GTX 550 Ti as well as against the stock and overclocked AMD HD 7770 with the HD 7750 and HD 7850 added in to compare performance.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Performance Summary Charts--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Performance summary charts &amp; graphs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Here are the summary charts of 24 modern PC games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest playable settings are generally chosen\u00a0and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are generally maxed unless specified on the chart. Specific settings including AA are listed on the Main Performance chart. The benches are run at 1920&#215;1200 and 1680&#215;1050.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Main Overall Summary chart<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><\/strong>In the first three columns of the main performance summary chart, the GTX 650\u00a0Ti is tested at Nvidia reference clocks (Column 1) and also overclocked (2) and next to a single stock HD 7750 (3) for comparison; next (column 4) is a single GTX 550 Ti, next to a HD 7770 GHz edition (in column 5) and overclocked to Sapphire&#8217;s Vapor-X speeds (6). In the last\u00a04 columns where some of the games use more demanding settings (highlighted on the chart\u00a0in <strong>bold<\/strong>), the GTX 660 is featured (column 7) next to a stock HD 7850 (column 8),\u00a0compared again at higher settings to the stock\u00a0GTX\u00a0650 Ti\u00a0(column 9) and then at\u00a0our highest overclock available in the last column (10).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">(<em>Far Cry 2<\/em> does not run properly on Catalyst 12-8 so the HD 77&#215;0\/7850 were tested using Catalyst 12-4*; in <em>Max Payne 3<\/em>, the HD 7770 and the GTX 550 Ti\/GTX 650 Ti cannot run MSAA with only 1GB of vRAM; FXAA on high was used for the lesser setting of columns 1-6).<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32152\" title=\"MC-1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-1.jpg?resize=600%2C337\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-1.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-1-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32153\" title=\"MC-2\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-2.jpg?resize=600%2C337\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-2.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MC-2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Above is the master chart and it has not been made into a graph as there is too much information to put onto it.\u00a0 Make sure to open it in a full window or tab\u00a0if the chart is too hard to read.<\/p>\n<p>All results, except for Vantage and 3DMark11, show average framerates and higher is always better. In-game settings are fully maxed out and they are identically high or ultra across all platforms.<\/p>\n<p>In every single case, the GTX 650 Ti\u00a0at reference speeds beats the competing highly clocked Vapor-X HD 7770 even when it is overclocked to the highest factory overclock available!\u00a0 This is a blow-out win for the GTX 650 Ti.<\/p>\n<p>We also see the Kepler GTX 650 handily beating the last generation Fermi\u00a0GTX\u00a0550 Ti\u00a0although it is completely outclassed by the HD 7850 and the GTX 660 which are both more expensive cards. Also, in all cases, the GTX 660 is faster than the GTX 650 Ti\u00a0although overclocked in a few games,\u00a0the GTX\u00a0650 Ti\u00a0comes relatively close.\u00a0 From its performance results, the GTX 650 Ti is a good value for $149 which is about\u00a0$70 less than the more expensive GTX 660.\u00a0 The HD 7850 also is a twenty to over forty dollars\u00a0more expensive card that is generally faster than even the overclocked GTX 650 Ti except for a couple of games.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s head for our conclusion.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: The Conclusion--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This has been quite an enjoyable, if far too short, exploration for us in evaluating our new GTX 650 Ti. It did extraordinarily well performance-wise comparing it to last generation&#8217;s GTX 550\u00a0Ti where it brings good performance value with better efficiency and performance than the older Fermi\u00a0Ti card that it replaces. We are totally impressed with this cool-running mainstream &#8220;entry level&#8221; GTX Ti gaming card which totally runs away from it&#8217;s competitor, the HD 7770, and even solidly beats the similarly-priced\u00a0fastest factory-clocked Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We see good overclockability with reasonable quietness at stock voltage and fan profile even when the GTX 650\u00a0Ti is overclocked and it scales well in performance. It is as quiet as the\u00a0Sapphire Vapor-X\u00a0HD 7770 and the\u00a0Galaxy GTX 660, quiet cards indeed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">For its $149 price, it gives more than 70% of the performance of the GTX 660 which is priced at $229 and it runs away from even factory overclocked HD 7770s which are priced nearly the same.\u00a0 Although the GTX 650 Ti generally is outclassed by the HD 7850, it is also priced about thirty dollars less.\u00a0 Add in the bundled <em>Assassins Creed 3<\/em>, and the GTX 650 Ti becomes a great value.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">Pros<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The GTX 650\u00a0Ti provides excellent performance for a $149 card and soundly beats even the overclocked Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770 across the board.<\/li>\n<li>Overclockability is good and scaling is excellent.<\/li>\n<li>The cooling design is quiet and efficient<\/li>\n<li>3D Vision 2 and PhysX enhance gaming immersion and both are improved using the GTX 650 Ti compared to the GTX 550 Ti\u00a0which is not in the same performance class &#8211; upgrading from the GTX 550\u00a0Ti to the GTX 650 Ti\u00a0brought a solid improvement, in some cases up to +50% improvement.<\/li>\n<li>Surround and 3D Vision Surround (plus an accessory display on some boards)\u00a0can now be driven off of a single GTX 650 Ti\u00a0by requiring a single passive adapter; HD 7770 generally requires two, and tearing is noticeably less with Surround compared to Eyefinity<\/li>\n<li>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<\/li>\n<li>Adaptive VSync reduces stuttering while retaining the advantages of minimizing tearing.<\/li>\n<li>The GTX 650 Ti becomes a great value when it is bundled with <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed 3<\/em> (!!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Cons<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>No SLI support.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The Verdict:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>If you are buying a $150\u00a0entry level gaming video card right now that is perfect for 1920&#215;1080 as well as being great bang for buck, the GTX 650\u00a0Ti is a great choice especially considering that it is bundled with <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed 3<\/em>. We feel it deserves ABT&#8217;s Editor&#8217;s Choice award since it absolutely destroys competing overclocked HD 7770\u00a0cards in its class and price range.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/EDITORsCHOICE.jpg?resize=150%2C251\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We do not know what the future will bring, but the\u00a0Nvidia&#8217;s GTX 650 Ti brings good value and a great performer to the latest member of the\u00a028nm 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&#215;1080 resolution.<\/p>\n<p>If you currently game on an older generation video card such as a GTX\u00a0550 Ti\u00a0or older, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a GTX 650 Ti will give you much higher performance than Fermi&#8217;s GTX 550 Ti as it is\u00a0starting to struggle in many modern games at 1920&#215;1080.<\/p>\n<p>The competition is hot and AMD offers their own set of features including Eyefinity 2.0 and the faster and recently lower-priced HD 7770 GHz editions. The HD 7850 offers a lot of performance for its\u00a0approximately $30\u00a0higher\u00a0price than the GTX 650 Ti, and it also\u00a0offers good overclockability.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT. Later\u00a0this week,\u00a0you can expect an evaluation of Cooler Master&#8217;s latest 1000W PSU! And you can expect more great reviews from Mario for our new mobile section; also expect a Kingston SSD evaluation faceoff between manstream and enthusiast SSDs as well as versus HDD.<\/p>\n<p>And don&#8217;t forget to check our forums. ABT forum tech discussions are among the best to be found anywhere!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 60px;\">Mark Poppin<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 60px;\">ABT Senior Editor<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;\">Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;\">Become a Fan on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142', 'Facebook']);\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;\">Follow us on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech', 'Twitter']);\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;\">For the latest updates from ABT, please <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?feed=rss2\" target=\"_blank\">join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;\">Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 120px;\">\n<li>Folding@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 164304<\/li>\n<li>SETI@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 138705<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1', 'World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech']);\" target=\"_blank\">World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32123\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=top title=\"Author: Mark Poppin\" src=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/650tiImageLink1.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":32154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7814,5],"tags":[72,5834,5808,5111,5805,5121,121],"class_list":["post-32123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-articles","category-gaming","tag-amd","tag-gtx-650-ti","tag-gtx-660","tag-hd-7770","tag-hd-7850","tag-kepler","tag-nvidia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}