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

Summary

As we’ve seen with the previous Kepler-based cards, they’ve proven to be impressive, in terms of performance, innovation, features, and value offered to consumers. The GTX 650 Ti continues that trend, albeit in a more tempered fashion, as it’s not the juggernaut of its more powerful siblings. While this new card shares a very similar nomenclature to the 660 Ti, the reality is the GTX 650 Ti isn’t nearly as powerful nor as expensive though either, and focuses on the competition’s Radeon 7850 and 7770 offerings.

In that context, the Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti OC manages to beat the 7770 in nearly every regard, though the 7850 is just out of reach. That’s not surprising since the 7850 is considerably more expensive and really shouldn’t be considered a reasonable alternative in a similar price structure. We’ve heard rumors that AMD is prepping price drops in response to the GTX 650 Ti, and though we can’t definitively analyze wishful thinking, we can say that’s good news for consumers. That said, we can’t envision the 7850 dropping to compete with the 650 Ti, so that should leave this new Kepler card all alone in the $160-$170 threshold.

In terms of performance, the Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti OC manages to post a respectable improvement over the reference design due to the factory overclock, and can perform at 1920 resolution, provided the image quality settings are lowered, as the 1GB of memory and lesser CUDA cores are strained. Beyond simple framerates, the low temperatures and noise levels are excellent here, and are a significant improvement over the reference design for about $20 more. And if you really want an excellent value, then we highly recommend spending only $5 more at $160 to get Assassin’s Creed 3 included. That’s an excellent value for gamers on the cheap, as the Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti OC has enough juice for medium-duty gaming.

We continue to be impressed by Nvidia’s Kepler products, and the Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti OC continues that trend, providing respectable horsepower and boasting low temperatures and noise levels at a price point that we think will entice gamers on a modest budget.