NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Video Card Review

Manufacturer: NVIDIA Corporation
Product Name: GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Suggested Retail Price: $149.99 MSRP

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by NVIDIA.

When I returned home last week, there was a large unexpected package from NVIDIA. This came as a shock and mystery, since I wasn't advised there was another product launching from them in October. After tearing into the large box that it shipped in, I starred down at what was probably the smallest desktop video card I've seen in at least five years or longer. While the delivery caught me by surprise, it seemed like the GeForce GTX 650 Ti might offer more than meets the eye.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX series traditionally offers enthusiast-level performance with features like multi-card SLI pairing and GPU Boost application-driven variable overclocking technology. The GeForce GTX 650 Ti graphics card keeps with tradition in terms of performance by offering the capable GK106 GPU with 768 CUDA cores, but skips past some of the top-end extras. Nevertheless, NVIDIA Kepler GPU architecture delivers additional proprietary features such as: 3D Vision, Adaptive Vertical Sync, multi-display Surround, PhysX, and TXAA antialiasing. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti graphics card with DirectX 11 video games.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti's reference design features a 28nm Kepler GK106 GPU, which houses four SMX units and offers 768 CUDA Cores operating at a fixed base clock speed of 925 MHz with 64 texture units. There's 1024MB of GDDR5 video memory good for 86.4 GB/s over a 128-bit interface, all clocked to 1350 MHz (5400 MHz data rate). In comparison to the GeForce GTX 650, the GTX 650 Ti offers twice the number of CUDA Cores and texture units, with more memory bandwidth.

Of the many platforms available for gamers to enjoy video games, there's no question that the highest quality graphics come from PC. While game developers might not consider PC gaming as lucrative as entertainment consoles, companies like NVIDIA use desktop graphics to set the benchmark for smaller more compact designs that make it into notebooks, tablets, and smartphone devices. NVIDIA's Kepler GPU architecture is an example of this, delivering unprecedented performance while operating cooler and consuming far less power than previous generation graphics cards. For example, gamers who upgrade from the GeForce 9600 GT could see up to 5x performance from the GTX 650 Ti.

GeForce GTX 650 Ti offers all the same high-end features found on the top-end GTX video cards but with a much more affordable price tag. In addition to a new and improved Kepler GPU architecture with NVIDIA GPU Boost technology, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti video card delivers further refinement to the user experience. Smoother FXAA and adaptive vSync technology results in less chop, stutter, and tearing in on-screen motion. Adaptive vSync adjusts the monitor's refresh rate whenever the FPS rate becomes too low to properly sustain vertical sync, thereby reducing stutter and tearing artifacts. NVIDIA TXAA helps deliver a film-style anti-aliasing technique with a mix of hardware post-processing, custom CG file style AA resolve, and an optional temporal component for better image quality.

NVIDIA's product stack presently includes support for the following graphics cards:

• GeForce GTX 690
• GeForce GTX 680
• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce GTX 660 Ti
• GeForce GTX 660
• GeForce GTX 650 Ti
• GeForce GTX 650
• GeForce GT 640
• GeForce GT 630
• GeForce GT 620
• GeForce GT 610
• GeForce 210

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