Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti OC

Posted October 9, 2012 by Jake in Video Cards

Rating

Price

Performance

Installation

Warranty

PureOC

Total Score

Overview

Hardware: Video Cards

Manufacturer: Gigabyte

Release Date: October 9, 2012

Specifications: 1033MHz Core, 1350 Memory, 128-Bit bus, 1GB GDDR5

Price at time of Review: $159.99 w/Assassin Creed 3

WHAT WE LIKED:

Great value, Small PCB design, Excellent temperatures, Low noise, Factory overclock, A+ game for only $5 more

WHAT WE DISLIKED:

Cooler doesn't vent warm air externally

BOTTOM LINE:

Great all-round card for gamers on a modest budget.
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by Jake

Full Article

Temperatures

Before we proceed with temperature results, it is critical to note we have typically used FurMark in the past to test temperatures as a “worst case” scenario, but that causes significant throttling in many instances, and we no longer consider it a fair or accurate representation of usage or results, particularly with the new dynamic load adjustments on Kepler products.

Consequently, we switched awhile ago to using a “real world” scenario: we run Crysis 2 for 15 minutes and log the temperatures, reporting the highest heat output achieved. Crysis 2 loads up a card pretty heavily, but more importantly it’s also a very accurate representation of what a typical gamer might encounter in normal card usage as well. Quite simply, this approach avoids any claims of “unrealistic” or “biased” thermal testing; in our opinion, nothing is more realistic than actual gaming temperatures.

Lastly, note that we’re comparing cards with non-reference coolers below, which will make things even more challenging for the Nvidia reference card.

With that said, the results are below:

As we expected, the Gigabyte cooler is doing an excellent job at keeping the GTX 650 Ti very cool under load, peaking at only 53°C, a 9% improvement down to 5°C lower than the reference Nvidia design. The other positive to note here is the fan is noticeably quieter than the reference design as well. The fan here looks identical to those found on Gigabyte’s popular Windforce cooler, so it’s no surprise that this new cooler has such low noise levels as well.