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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 :P
  • CeriseCogburn - 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.
  • Galidou - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link

    I won't be back on that thread anymore but just wait for some more stupidly stubborn reply of Cerise, that guy is just a show by himself. His level of global consiousness is below anything I have yet to see in the whole world.

    Sure he has some knowledge, can't deny it, it's just used in a way that seems like all that potential is totally WASTED, thrown to the garbage, buried in vomit and so on.....

    Funniest shit ever.... LOL funniest comments ever..... Can't beleive it.....
  • Speelteveel - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link

    Please provide these benchmarks where the oc'd 650ti "flies" past the 7850.
    Its not a 50 buck price diff, its 20.
    Also, in these benches above, the 7850 is not overclocked.
    So basically, you advocate to pay $20 less for a card that you have to overclock to get similiar performance, when the $20 more expensive card when oc'd goes into another spectrum of perfomrnace that the 650ti can't even fathom. Oc'd 7850s break even with 7870 benchmarks at 1080p.
    I'm not going to link you the benchmarks you can peruse google y yourself.
    the 650ti can't compare to the 7850 at all. I'm no fanboy, I just found your post dissing fanboys while blatantly being blindly biased very amusing.
  • vbmluis - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    Yeah, I remember one, ATi HD 2900, heavy, big, noisy, power hungry, pricey and low performance.
  • Jamahl - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    It's not bad. It's just slow, expensive and late.
  • Samus - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    lol, that defines bad, man!

    But I'd argue...the only thing really wrong with this card is there isn't any good reason or it to be dual slot. with that power envelope, nVidia really could have rocked the house if this thing were a single slot, maybe even half height card (especially the 650 non-TI) because it's make a very powerful USFF/ITX PC GPU.

    Aside form my dream of this card being single slot, it isn't a terrible card. The 650 Ti is mostly on par with the old 560 (which still costs more) while using less power and being half the length. Pretty much a no-brainer which one to buy there. But neither card is really worth $150-$180 when you consider you get substantially more (25-40%) performance from the 660 for just 20% more monies.
  • Blazorthon - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Don't forget, the 7850 comes with games and so does the 7770. Coming with a game is necessary just to compete right now. The 7770 also has some highly factory overclocked models that can inch out the 650 Ti while still being cheaper. The 650 Ti would do better at $10 or $20 lower and a MIR is a great way to accomplish that since a lot of people forget to do them anyway, but buy the card because of the after MIR price.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Love defending AMD everywhere you go don't you :)

    Until you OC the 650 (or buy one already done, you act like they don't sell them on both sides OC'd) making your point moot. No phsyx either.
    http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/physx
    Even batman AA supports it. I don't think the 7770 comes with a current AAA title such as Assassins Creed 3 (doesn't get any more current than a game NOT even out yet). That will make a nice xmas gift to themselves for anyone buying one. Metacritic has a date of Nov20th, which is plenty of time for them to even be late a few weeks an still play over the holidays.

    I'd be more than happy to have another round like we did at Toms if you'd like :) You start claiming MSAA crap again and we'll have a go...LOL

    Please refrain from saying AMD is financially competitive with Intel here like over at Tom's, I don't want to waste my time burying that one again...ROFL.
  • abianand - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    I have a slight preference from AMD cards (I don't why and I don't like having a slight preference between two equally and fairly-competing brands).

    Having said that....

    7850 is definitely faster, but look at the power consumption of the 650Ti. Even an overclocked 650Ti draws power that just equals a normal non-overclocked 7850. So, I wouldn't call the 650Ti a bad product at all, especially when it manages to touch 30fps in almost all settings in almost all games.
  • Samus - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    I have a preference for nVidia drivers, but these days both companies make solid chips. The real problem for AMD is all the games I play (mostly EA games) are optimized for nVidia architecture...like how Source was optimized for ATI architecture.

    Just how it goes.
  • Death666Angel - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    "Until you OC the 650 (or buy one already done, you act like they don't sell them on both sides OC'd) making your point moot."
    Wait, so you can't OC AMD cards? Oh that's right, you can. So that is meaningless, as any OC gains from Nvidia cards will be (likely) negated by OCing the respective AMD cards.
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    Oh there's the amd fanboy bloviating spew I predicted above you responded to ! LOL I cannot frikkin believe it, I got it exactly correct without looking ! Here I will FTFamd fanboy

    " Don't forget, the 650Ti comes with a game and so does the 560Ti. Coming with a game is necessary just to compete right now. The 460 also has some highly factory overclocked models that can smash out the 7770 while still being cheaper. The 7850 would do better at $10 or $20 lower and a MIR is a great way to accomplish that since a lot of people forget to do them anyway, but buy the card because of the after MIR price. ( I love ripoff MIR because I am an idiot shining on for corpo pig profits I hate so much).
  • ionis - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    2 of the 17 2GB 7850s on newegg comes with a game. I didn't bother checking the 1GB, b/c who cares about the 1GB? To say they comes with a game is a bit disingenuous.
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    It's okay all the amd fanboys can get the lowest low down 1GB now at the cited lowdown more expensive price, that doesn't matter when they are making their arguments for amd fanboyism.

    Two seconds later they will be screaming the 7850 is future proof with 2g ram so F orget the 650Ti, it is also the best deal againbecause amd roxxors.

    So 1gb price, and magically in the deranged gourd of the amd fanboy 2G card is futureproof.
    That is the amd fanboy brain after it exited the blender 20 years ago.
  • Galidou - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link

    The 7850 is a better choice for one freaking big reason you Cerise wouldn't be able to see because you're blinded with green glasses. When you buy a 7850 you always have the choice to go crossfire in the future which is something that happens often in the enthusiast world.

    Usually GTX is branded for the enthusiast market and reffered as the better cards from Nvidia but hey, where is my SLI connector? Oh... there's none... they had to cut it for cost purposes, that's what Nvidia claims..... First time in history a GTX card comes without one... you're so stubborn you can't even see any downside when they're OBVIOUS..... HELL even half of the radeon 7770 comes with Crossfire support and some of them costs 120$...
  • nathanddrews - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I see what you did there...
  • Denithor - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I caught that too. Thought it was cute but kinda silly.

    Wonder how much of the target audience got it?
  • Exodite - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I'd wager most of the AT readers passed middle school chemistry. :P
  • Paulman - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    Exodite is right. Also, nerds love memorizing trivia (and the periodic table definitely counts).
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    I'll wager if that's minimally true we've got a dumber group than the general populace.
    Since the idiots group think yours was a great line, the above may in fact be the case.
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    As indicated in the review, the 650Ti fills the huge gap in performance between the 7850/GTX 660 and 7770/GTX 650, its price just needs to be adjusted in light of AMD's pre-emptive cuts on the 7850. Once we start seeing ~$20 rebates similar to those we see for the 7850, the 650Ti should be a more appealing option in the sub-$150 range.

    I also think Nvidia missed an opportunity here by turning off Boost for sub-660 parts. It's just inconsistent with the rest of the Kepler line and while it allows partners to benefit on OC parts, they are clearly charging an additional premium instead of offering it at MSRP like past parts such as EVGA FPB.

    Most interesting to me seeing how these bandwidth neutered parts perform is how shading/backend performance has caught up and is generally no longer the biggest bottleneck; bandwidth tends to hold these cards back more often than not compared to their bigger siblings even at modest resolutions like 1080p.
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    On second glance, the AC3 bundle makes the $150 MSRP palatable. While I agree a straight MSRP or $20 MIR at the $130 price point would have been more preferable for many, a bonafide AAA title like Assassin's Creed 3 prior to release is suitable currency. Market value for the game code is at least $20-30 (going by historic FS/Ebay prices of similar AAA title Steam codes) and up to $50-60 for anyone who was going to buy the game at release anyways.

    Personally I'm shocked Nvidia would bundle a such a relevant game code like this with a value part in the $150 price market. Hopefully the generosity filters upward to the GTX 660 and above as the 660 never got a bundle and the BL2 promo on 660Ti and faster parts seems to have dried up at most retailers.
  • RussianSensation - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Ok and what happens after you beat AC3? You get a card that tanks in GPU demanding games.

    7850's minimum frames rates are nearly as high as average framerates in games like Crysis 1/2, Skyrim, Witcher 2.

    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2012/10/...

    You buy a GPU to play 100s of games not 1 game. NV bundled a game on purpose so people would use this argument that well the card is $150 but you get a $50 with it. That's marketing right there. It's still a $150-170 card (if we include after-market versions) that has far slower performance than $160-190 competitor.

    I think $129 would have been a far more reasonable price. Instead, NV delivered a card that has worse price/performance than either the 7770 or the 7850. And if we take 7850's overclocking into consideration, well then it's a total blowout as 7850 OC ~ HD7870/GTX580 in performance.
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    "Ok and what happens after you beat AC3? You get a card that tanks in GPU demanding games."

    You still have a card that is $30-$50 cheaper than its MSRP because of the bundled AC3, so while it may not have been worthwhile at $150-$170, it would certainly justify its $120-$140 pricetag.

    Whether you care to admit it or not, AC3 is a valid form of currency as by definition, currency is simply a medium for exchange. We're not talking about games nobody cares about here (See: Gaming Evolved titles), we're talking about some of the most anticipated games of the year on any platform with BL2 and AC3, bundled PRIOR to release while they are still relevant.

    If you were in the market for AC3, you saved $50. If you don't care for AC3, you will be able to easily unload it for ~$30. That effectively reduces the price of the card from $150-$170 to $120-$140.
  • Blazorthon - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    *wrong post with this above, oops*

    Don't forget, the 7850 comes with games and so does the 7770. Coming with a game is necessary just to compete right now. The 7770 also has some highly factory overclocked models that can inch out the 650 Ti while still being cheaper. The 650 Ti would do better at $10 or $20 lower and a MIR is a great way to accomplish that since a lot of people forget to do them anyway, but buy the card because of the after MIR price.
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    The 7770 is bundled with Nexuiz....seriously why even bother mentioning it? What would you value Nexuiz at? $5? $10?

    Sleeping Dogs with the higher-end AMD cards is decent, still not as strong as Nvidia's BL2 promo, but yeah we are talking about AC3 here which will undoubtedly be a top 5 title for this holiday season.

    The 650Ti has some OC'd models as well that bring it close in performance to the 7850 1GB, but of course, the 7850 distances itself again once OC'd. As I said, a $15-20 price drop would certainly make more sense for the 650Ti and I'm sure we'll start seeing some rebates in a few weeks as all of the higher-end GeForce models have started seeing them in recent weeks.
  • hqt4991 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I don't know about you, but I am quite unsure that nobody cares about Far Cry 3, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, DiRT 3, Dragon Age 2, Saints Row The Third, the Tomb Raider remake or (especially) Bioshock Infinite. I know I do.

    On topic, I agree with Ryan. The 650 Ti isn't strictly a bad card, just that it doesn't make any sense to choose it over the 7850, unless you are absolutely cash-strapped.
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Here's the difference between those games you listed and the two latest promos from Nvidia:

    I would actually pay full retail price for BL2 and AC3 and did actually have BL2 pre-ordered prior to Nvidia's promo.

    All the games you listed for Gaming Evolved I would pass on at launch or wait until they were $10 or less in a Steam sale. That's not to say they are bad titles and some may certainly feel differently, but to me and I'm sure many others, they do not carry the same value or currency as the last few games offered by Nvidia.

    Also, afaik, only Sleeping Dogs was offered by AMD as a promo bundle, so until they start bundling some of the better GE titles there's really not much of a comparison to make.
  • Death666Angel - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    "I would actually pay full retail price for BL2 and AC3 and did actually have BL2 pre-ordered prior to Nvidia's promo."
    So why are you two arguing about your video game taste? Someone values AC3 higher, someone values SD higher. It's a personal thing. I don't want either of those and am not a big fan of bundled software. So no added game would be a plus in my book.
  • chizow - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    Because video game tastes are a direct function of demand. I'm not just referring to my own video game taste, I'm making the point that AC3 is going to appeal to far more gamer's video game tastes which equates to higher demand for it at launch, and by extension, it's buy and sell price and demand will be much higher than any Gaming Evolved titles bundled with AMD cards.

    That brings us full circle to the comment he took issue with about games nobody cares about, its all about relevance and those games he listed are much less relevant to the vast majority of gamers, plain and simple.
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    Dirt3 is an amd promo bundle game, and my amd total fanboy buddy just said tonight he hates it because after you install it in order to get the real game you have to go buying all their packs and upgrades spending a buttload of money so it's nothing but crap.

    So there we have the amd marketing kickback extra expense for the disappointed amd penny pinching moaning poor boy amd fan...
    LOL

    It's funny because it's 100% true but also so freakin sad.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    The 7850 is more money, it should perform faster. I'd expect nothing less. So what this person would end up with is 10-20% less perf (in the situation you describe) for 10-20% less money. ERGO, exactly what they should have got. So basically a free copy of AC3 :) Which is kind of the point. The 2GB beating the 650TI in that review is $20 more. It goes without saying you should get more perf for more $. What's your point?

    Your wrong. IN the page you point to (just looking at that, won't bother going though them all), the 650TI 1GB scores 32fps MIN, vs. 7770 25fps min. So unplayable on 7770, but playable on 650TI. Nuff said. Spin that all you want all day. The card is worth more than 7770. That's OVER 20% faster 1920x1080 4xAA in witcher 2. You could argue for $139 maybe, but not with the AC3 AAA title, and physx support in a lot of games and more to come.
    http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/physx
    All games with physx so far. Usually had for free, no hit, see hardocp etc. Borderlands 2, Batman AC & AAsylum, Alice Madness returns, Metro2033, sacred2FA, etc etc...The list of games is long and growing. This isn't talked about much, nor what these effects at to the visual experience. You just can't do that on AMD. Considering these big titles (and more head to the site) use it, any future revs of these games (sequels etc) will likely use it also and the devs now have great experience with physx. This will continue to become a bigger issue as we move forward. What happens when all new games support this, and there's no hit for having it on (hardocp showed they were winning WITH it on for free)? There's quite a good argument even now that a LOT of good games are different in a good way on NV based cards. Soon it won't be a good argument, it will be THE argument. Unfortunately for AMD/Intel havok never took off and AMD has no money to throw at devs to inspire them to support it. NV continues to make games more fun on their hardware (either on android tegrazone stuff, or PC stuff). Much tighter connections with devs on the NV side. Money talks, unfortunately for AMD debt can't talk for you (accept to say don't buy my stock we're in massive debt) :)
  • jtenorj - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    No, you are wrong. Lower end nvidia cards(whether this card falls into that category or not is debatable) generally cannot run physx on high, but require it to be set to medium, low or off. AMD cards can run physx in a number of games on medium by using the cpu without a massive performance hit. There hasn't been a lot of time since nvidia got physx tech from ageia for game developers to include it in titles because developement cycles are getting longer and longer. Still, I think most devs shy away from physx because it hurts the bottom line(more time to impliment= more money spend on salaries and later release, alienate 40% of potential market by making it so the full experience is not an option for them, losing more money). Take a look at the havok page on wikipedia vs the physx page(which is more extensive than what even nvidia lists on their own site). Havok and other software physics engines are used in the vast majority of released and soon to be released titles because they will work with anyone's card. I'm not saying HD7770 is better than gtx650ti(it is in fact worse than the new card), but the HD7850 is a far better value(especially the 2GB version). Finally, it is possible to add a low end geforce like gt610 to a higher end AMD primary as a dedicated physx card in some systems.
  • ocre - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    but it doest alienate 40% of the market.

    You said this yourself:

    "AMD cards can run physx in a number of games on medium by using the cpu without a massive performance hit."

    Then try to turn it all around???? Clever? Doubtful!!

    And this is what all the AMD fanboys cried about. Nvidia purposefully crippling physX on the CPU. Nvidia evil for making physX nvidia only. But now they have improved their physX code on the CPU and every single game as of late offers acceptable physX performance on AMD hardware via the CPU. Of course you will only get fully fledged GPU accelerated physX with Nvidia hardware but you cannot really expect more, can you?

    Even if your not capable of seeing the improvements Nvidia made it is there. They have reached over and extended the branch to AMD users. They got physX to run better on multicore CPUs. They listened to complaints (even from AMD users) and made massive improvements.

    This is the thing with nvidia. They are listening and steadily improving. Removing those negatives one at a time. Its gonna be hard for AMD fanboys to come up with negatives because nvidia is responding with every generation. PhysX is one example, the massive power efficiency improvement of kepler is another. Nvidia is proactive and looking for ways to improve their direction. All these things complaints on Nvidia are getting addressed. There is nothing you can really say except they are making good progress. But that will not stop AMD fans from desperately searching for any negative that they can grasp on to. But more and more people are taking note of this progress, if you havent noticed yourself.
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    Oh, so that's why the crybaby amd fans have shut their annoying traps on that, not to mention their holy god above all amd/radeon videocards apu holy trinity company after decades of foaming the fuming rage amd fanboys into mooing about "proprietary Physx! " like a sick monkey in heat and half dead, and extolling the pure glorious god like and friendly neighbor gamer love of "open source" and spewwwwwwwing OpenCL as if they had it sewed all over their private parts and couldn't stop staring and reading the teleprompter, their glorious god amd BLEW IT- and puked out their proprietary winzip !
    R O F L

    Suddenly the intense and insane constant moaning and complaining and attacking and dissing and spewing against nVidia "proprietary" was gone...

    Now "winzip" is the big a compute win for the freak fanboy of we know which company. LOL
    P R O P R I E T A R Y ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 ! 1 100100000

    JC said it well : Looooooooooooooooooooooseeerrrr !
    (that's Jim Carey not the Savior)
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    " You buy a GPU to play 100s of games not 1 game. "

    Good for you, so the $50 games times 100 equals your $5,000.00 gaming budget for the card.

    I guess you can stop moaning and wailing about 20 bucks in a card price now, you freaking human joke with the melted amd fanboy brain.
  • Denithor - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Hopefully your shiny new GTX 650 Ti will be able to run AC3 smoothly...

    :D
  • chizow - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    According to Nvidia, the 650Ti ran AC3 acceptably at 1080p with 4xMSAA on Medium settings: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-g...

    "In the case of Assassin’s Creed III, which is bundled with the GTX 650 Ti at participating e-tailers and retailers, we recorded 36.9 frames per second using medium settings."

    That's not all that surprising to me though as the GTX 280 ran AC2/ACB Anvil engine games at around the same framerate. While AC3 will certainly be more demanding, the 650Ti is a good bit faster than the 280.

    I'm not in the market though for a GTX 650Ti, I'm more interested in the AC3 bundle making its way to other GeForce parts as I'm interested in grabbing another 670. :D
  • HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Perhaps you might test without AA when dealing with cards in a sub-$200 price range as that would seem the more likely use for the card. Not saying you can't test with AA, too, but to have all tests include AA seems to be testing a new Volkswagon bug with a raw speed test through a live fire training exercise you'd test a humvee with.
  • RussianSensation - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    AA testing is often used to stress the ROP and memory bandwidth of GPUs. Also, it's what separates consoles from PCs. If a $150 GPU cannot handle AA but a $160-180 competitor can, it should be discussed. When GTX650Ti and its after-market versions are so closely priced to 7850 1GB/7850 2GB, and it's clear that 650Ti is so much slower, the only one to blame here is NV for setting the price at $149, not the reviewer for using AA.

    GTX560/560Ti/6870/6950 were all tested with AA and this card not only competes against HD7850 but gives owners of older cards a perspective of how much progress there has been with new generation of GPUs. Not using AA would not allow for such a comparison to be made unless you dropped AA from all the cards in this review.

    It sounds like you are trying to find a way to make this card look good but sub-$200 GPUs are capable of running AA as long as you get a faster card.

    HD7850 is 34% faster than GTX650Ti with 4xAA at 1080P and 49% faster with 8xAA at 1080P

    http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/20...

    All that for $20-40 more. Far better value.
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I thought GTX was reserved for high end cards, with lower tier cards being GT. I guess they gave up on that?
  • chizow - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I guess in years past this may and probably should've been branded GTS 650Ti along with the GTS 650 (they've used GTS 250, GTS 450 etc in the past), but I know for a fact Nvidia is trying to establish GTX as its own brand for gamers.

    They really emphasize it with all this "Green Light" business with regard to overclocking, overvolting etc.
  • Blazorthon - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Nvidia has been cracking down on overvolting support, so IDK if I'd give them that much credit.
  • Pneumothorax - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    That will make the price/performance gap even worse as the 7850 is an oc beast.
  • goinginstyle - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    So why no reviews of the Asus or MSI offerings in these roundups?
  • silverblue - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    You need to be sent a card in order to review it. ;)
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    The 7850 1GB is $150. It IS is the direct competitor to the 650 ti. You can speculate all you want about the 1GB being some sort of ephemeral limiting factor, but I dont see it. All I see is that in one game, at BEYOND 1080p resolution, memory becomes a factor. But if you look at it, you can see that it is still so very close on the bell curve. I bet that if you actually tested Skyrim at 1920x1080 (not 1920x1200), there would be much less difference between 2GB and 1GB.

    Even 2 years from now the 7850 1GB is going to be a better performer than the 650ti. Even with the "latest and greatest" games.
  • Shark321 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Where is the 7850 1GB $150?
  • KineticHummus - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    yeah wish i could fine one of those haha. pretty sure there isnt a single card for 150
  • Marlin1975 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    How about $159 AR shipped?

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
  • LordanSS - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    I'm a bit curious about this card's performance with PhysX enabled games.

    Personally, I am a 6970 owner and thus have no access to PhysX effects on games, but there are many workarounds out there where you can add a nVidia card to your machine to compute the physics.

    Borderlands 2 is an example, I know of people buying (cheap) nVidia cards so they can run physics on them. Problem is that, most of the time, these guys are buying really old or cheap hardware (like GT210 or 430 cards), causing a big drop in game performance. Others using more powerful (and expensive) cards, on the other hand, experience good results.

    So I'm thinking what's the cutting point for performance here. I know it's an extremely niche endeavor, but if anyone has experience or thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them.
  • SodaAnt - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Why is it that all the manufacturers seem to have the need to put two huge fans and heatsinks on a GPU that only has a TDP of 110W? I mean, I can see having that on a GTX 680 or something, it needs it, but why bother on a low end card? You're just adding price for what is pretty much looks.
  • Shark321 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Chip cooling results usually in high noise, so I'm glad they put large heatsinks on the 650 Ti.
  • Blazorthon - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    The 650 Ti has some of the lowest noise and temp results of any graphics card in its class. Those large coolers are definitely beneficial, not that I wouldn't mind seeing some single slot 650 Ti models.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    "But as it stands today the GTX 650 Ti only makes real sense for buyers who absolutely cannot go over $149"

    If said buyer can't add another 20$ he probably shouldn't be spending his money on a video card at all.
  • TheJian - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    You can say that at any price...LOL. Everyone's budget is different. The 660TI really only makes sense for someone who can't spend another $100 on a 670...And then you chime in with your comment again...Both comments are pointless. Ryan puts crap like that in to disparage NV in every article. At $149 it comes with AC3 a AAA title not even released yet, arguably the card is only $120. Unless you think you'll be able to get AC3 for the price of $30 the day it hits. I doubt it. Probably $45-60. So quite a good deal for someone wanting AC3 and only having $150 correct? Pull your head out Ryan. :) Quit making bias comments like this. It's amazing they even give you a AAA title at $150 range.

    If some kid's been saving his allowance for ages and finally has $150, to replace his old X card it makes total sense. Same for any adult. These cards are for people who don't have $200 etc. No point in making any comment like ryan did.

    And at 1680x1050, where most of these users will run this card it doesn't lose much. He keeps quoting cards above where they should run. $100-150 cards are not for 1920x1200. You'll be turning stuff down all day, thus not giving you what the devs wanted you to play. Just like the 660TI/7950 isn't for 2560x1600 either. He keeps using this crap to bash NV cards. This is why he leaves out minimums on almost everything. If he showed those #'s you'd see you can't even play there with these. $300 is for 1920x1200, $450+ is comfortable at above this, $150 is solidly 1680x1050 when MINIMUMS are looked at with max details. If you're not running with all the goodies on, you're not running what the dev wanted you to play. You're missing the FULL experience. 2560x1600 was unplayable on 3/4 games at hardocp on 7950B/660TI. So why talk about those two in the same sentence with 2560x1600? It's DUMB. Two of the games hit 15/17fps on both cards...LOL. That's a freaking slide show FFS. He bashes NV all day over bandwidth for UNPLAYABLE SETTINGS on both cards in those cases. I'd say he doesn't get it, but he does, he knows exactly what he's doing. He loves AMD or they give him something for the love ;) I really don't care who wins at 15fps settings, and neither should ANY of us. They had games where the drop was 100 to 22-26fps on 7950 from max to min...But as long as ryan evades minimums in games he can quote AMD in a better light...LOL.
  • jtenorj - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    I don't know if experiencing all the developer intended matters as much as simply enjoying the game. The cheapest you can get a "modern" console(not counting the wii) is like 100 bucks for a 360 with a contract for xbox live. If you already have a decent computer from the last few years with crap graphics, you can drop in a 100 dollar(or less) HD7750, overclock it some, and blow away any console's graphics at 1080p by using medium pc settings. If you up the budget a bit to the HD7770 and overclock, you could even manage high settings at 1080p with playable frame rates. If you want to see minimum frame rates, you can go to other sites like hardocp(as mentioned, though it doesn't seem like they have a review up for gtx650ti...yet). Even better is techreport for testing of individual frame times that can catch latency spikes a minimum frame rate measure might miss.
  • justaviking - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    Eventually you have to draw the line somewhere.

    Start with a budget of $100...
    $100? Why not spend $120?
    $120? Why not spend $140?
    $140? Why not spend $160?
    $160? Why not spend $180?
    $180? Why not spend $200?

    Why not spend $200? Because you started with a $100 budget.

    It's not always that you "can't" spend another $20, but most people have to draw the line somewhere. For some people it's $300, others it's $150. Besides, the person spending $150 might have started with a target of $125, and has already "shopped up" to the $150 mark.

    This works in the opposite direction too. Why not SAVE $20 and get a cheaper product if it has "almost" the same performance? Then why not save another $20, and so on? Soon you'll be hopelessly underpowered.

    That's the sweet agony of shopping for parts like this. There is such a spectrum of price/performance options that you are always near a 2nd or 3rd option. If there was simply one AMD card and one Nvidia card at $100-200-300-400-500 price points, it sure would be a lot easier to go shopping. But what would be the sport in that?
  • johnsonjohnson - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Looks like it's gonna have to be the 7850 then. Time to finally retire that 4830...
  • EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    Sorry if I missed it, but this is often not discussed. This is something I cannot stand in lower end cards. Fixed speed fans. They are annoying usually. Then again, I usually swap out the cooler. I'm otherwise all for shorter cards.
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    Yes, it has variable fan speeds. In fact none of the GeForce 600 cards we've reviewed (including the 640) have a fixed fan speed.
  • Hades16x - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    A little bit saucy while reading this review on the page "Meet the Gigabyte Gefore GTX 650 TI OC 2GB Windforce" the second to last paragraph reads:

    "Rounding out the package is the usual collection of power adapters and a quick start guide. While it’s not included in the box or listed on the box, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC...."

    Shouldn't that read "the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC" ?

    Thanks for the review Ryan!
  • Hrel - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    First, card makers: If the card doesn't have FULL size HDMI, I won't even consider it. I get mini on smartphones, makes no damn sense on a GPU that goes into a 20lb desktop. Fuck everyone who does that. Second, Every display I own uses HDMI, most of them ONLY use HDMI. I want to see cards with 3 or 4 HDMI ports on them so I can run 3/4 displays without having to chain together a bunch of fucking adapters. HDMI or GTFO. I really don't understand why any other video cable even exists anymore, DVI is dumb and old, VGA, psh. Display Port? Never even seen it on a monitor/TV. I don't spend stupid amounts of money on stupid resolution displays where NO media is even produced at that resolution; but last I checked HDMI supports 8K video.

    Next: I bought my GTX460 for 130, or 135 bucks. This was a few months after it was released and with a rebate and weekend sale on newegg. Still, that card can MAX out every game I play at 1080p with no issues. I get that they're putting more RAM in the cards now, but that can't really justify more than a 10$ difference; of actual cost. I don't see the GTX660 EVER dropping down to 150 bucks or lower, WTF? Why is the GPU industry getting DRAMATICALLY more expensive and no one seems to be saying a thing? Remember the system RAM price fixing thing? Yeah, that sucked didn't it. I'd really hate to see that happen to GPU's.

    It's good to finally see a tangible improvement in performance in GPU's. From GT8800 to GTX560 improvements were very incremental; seems like an actual gain has been achieved beyond just generational improvements. Hoping consoles have at least 2GB of GDDR5 and at least 4GB of DDR3 system RAM for next gen. Seems like RAM is becoming much more important, based on Skyrim. With that said, I can buy 8GB of system ram for like 30 or 40 bucks. Puts actual cost at a few dollars. No reason at all these cards/consoles can't have shit tons of RAM all over the damn place. RAM is cheap, doesn't cost anything anymore. You can charge 10 bucks/4GB and still turn a stupid profit. Do the right thing Microsoft/Nvidia and everyone else; put shit tons of RAM in AT COST. Make money on the GPU/Console/Games.
  • maximumGPU - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    we should all be pushing and asking for royalty-free display ports!
    and just so you'd know quite a few high end monitors don't have hdmi, the dell ultrasharp U2312hm comes to mind.
    DP should be the standard.
  • Hrel - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    DP doesn't support audio, as far as I know. Also offers no advantage at all for video. So why?
  • maximumGPU - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    It does support audio!
    with all else being equal the fact that it's royalty free means it's preferable to hdmi.
  • TheJian - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    I'm not sure of physx in AC3, but yeah odd they put this in there. I would have figured a much cheaper game. When you factor in phsyx in games like Borderlands2 it changes the game quite a lot. You can interact with object in a way you can't on AMD:
    "One of the cool things about PhysX is that you can interact with these objects. In this screenshot we are firing a shot at the flag. The bullets go through the flag, causing it to blow a hole in the middle of it. After the actual flag tears apart, the entire string of flags fell down. This happens with flags and other cloth objects that are hanging around, the "Porta-John's" that are scattered across the world, blood and explosive objects. You can not destroy any of these objects without PhysX enabled on at least Medium. "
    http://hardocp.com/article/2012/10/01/borderlands_...

    I don't know why more sites don't talk about the physx stuff. I also like hardocp ALWAYS showing minimums as that is more important than anything else IMHO. I need to know a game is playable or not, not that it can hit 100fps here and there. Their graphs always show how LONG they stay low also. Much more useful info than a max fps shot in time (or even avg to me, I want min numbers). Anandtech only puts mins in where it makes an AMD look good it seems. Not sure other than that why they wouldn't include them in EVERY game with a graph like hardocp showing how long their there. If you read hardocp it's because they dip a lot, but maybe I'm just a cynic. At least they brought back SC2 :) Cuda is even starting to be used in games like just cause 2 (for water).
    http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games...
    Interesting :)
  • jtenorj - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    You can run medium physx on a radeon without much loss of performance.
  • Magnus101 - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    Why suddenly the race for 60 FPS?
    It used to be 30 FPS average and minimums not going under 18 in Crysis that was considered good.
    Movies are at 24 FPS and stuttering isn't recognisable until you hit 16-17 FPS.
    Pal TV in Europe was at 25 FPS.

    It looks like everybody is buying into Carmacks 60 FPS mantra, which is insane.
    For me minimums above 20 FPS is enough for a game to be perfectly playable.
    This is the snobby debate with audiphiles all over again where they swear they can tell the difference between 96 and 44.1 khz, just substitue the samplerate with FPS.

    But I guess the Nvidia and ATI are happy that you for no reason just raise the bar of acceptance!
  • ionis - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    60 FPS has been the target for the past 3-4 years. I'm happy with 25-30 but this min 30 ave 60 FPS target has been going on for quite a while now.
  • CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    You'll be happy until you play the same games on a cranked SB system with a high end capable videocard and an SSD (on a good low ping connection if multi).

    Until then you have no idea what you are missing. You're telling yourself there isn't more, but there is a lot, lot more.
    Quality
    Fluidity
    Immersion
    Perception in game
    Precision
    Timing
    CONTROL of your game.

    Yes it is snobby to anyone lower than whatever the snob build is - well, sort of, because the price to get there is not much at all really.

    You may not need it, you may "be fine" with what you have, but there is exactly zero chance there is isn't a huge, huge difference.
  • saturn85 - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link

    great folding@home benchmark.
  • Tchamber - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link

    At 1920x1200 2gb doesn't make a difference... so when does the extra memory come into play? Is it a resolution thing or a matter of having the cores to drive it?
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    The extra memory is primarily for textures & buffers. Skyrim of course has its high res texture pack, and meanwhile you have deferred renderers like Battlefield 3 that create relatively large G-buffers, and larger buffers still if you want MSAA.
  • ForeverAlone - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    I don't really see why anyone would buy the 650.

    In the UK, the 6850/6870's are just a little bit more and massively outperform a 650.
  • CaedenV - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    I was surprised that 1GB is really enough for most games. I figured that 2GB was overkill, but that something in the 1.2-1.5GB would show some added benefit to more games. Is there a utility that can show just how much Ram is being used by these titles so that we know how close we are to that 1GB ceiling on most games?

    I think with the new consoles coming out next year, having that extra Ram on the GPU will be important for people who do not upgrade often. The new consoles should push developers to add much higher resolution textures, as well as having more variety of textures for their environments, which will no doubt push cards past that 1GB mark.
  • maximumGPU - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link

    MSI Afterburner can show you gpu ram usage.
  • Leyawiin - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link

    Yes, I know the HD 7850 is a better value, so I'll get that out of the way. Still, the GTX 650 Ti with its tiny size, low power consumption and quiet operation would be great for a SFF project. Performs about on par with a GTX 560 and that's fine for 1080p gaming at good quality levels.
  • bernlin2000 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    It's a bit silly, some of the analysis of these benchmarks. Frankly, any performance above 50 fps average is fantastic, and comparing cards above those numbers is pointless: they're all going to play those games well and nobody notices the difference between 60 and 120 fps. Saying that the GTX 650 Ti (which I just ordered) "doesn't fair particularly well" on Skyrim, when at 1650x1050 it's running at 88.8 fps is just madness. That's with the high resolution textures too? Talk about unnecessary criticism!
  • ajay799 - Saturday, November 10, 2012 - link

    i bought a MSI R7770-PMD1GD5 and its like almost silent in idle ... my 3.5 HDD is louder... and even under load its really quiet so i dont get these noise levels from the test besides one of my friends has a HD6850 and under load that sounds like a freaking jet absolutely terrible like my old GTX260 ... compared to the HD7770 thats like night and day

    id say these measurements are way off...
  • Mooseparade - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link

    I bought a Galaxy GTX 650 Ti 1gb for a budget build ($129 - $20 rebate) and it won't even hit 1050mhz core clock. This thing is very dissapointing
  • AbbieHoffman - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link

    Can't we all just get along?
    I have to admit I am a AMD fan. If it was not for AMD we would not have any competition with Intel, And we would still be paying $2,000-$3,000 grand for computers. I have a Diamond ATI 5850 which I loved. For the last 3 years it has played every game I purchased. Well one day it went out on me. (I did abuse it however) Anyway I got me a used PNY 9800 GTX+ to use untill I could buy a new card. I was impressed by the old 9800 GTX+ It was performing very well almost as good as the 5850. After that I had respect for Nvidia cards. When the time came to buy my new card I looked up 7700s from AMD and the 650-660 from Nvidia. Well the best performance for price I found was the MSI 650 TI, It was at a lower price than the AMD cards. I got the card for $114 and a $25 rebate, So $98 bucks was the final price. That was a deal I could not pass up. I am also very pleased with the 650ti's performance.

    The system the card is in (below)
    MSI-P55-GD65
    i5 750
    8GB Gskill Ripjaw 1600

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