MSI GTX N650Ti Power Edition Video Card

Manufacturer: Micro-Star International (MSI)
Product Name: GeForce GTX 650Ti Power Edition
Model Number: N650Ti PE 1GD5/OC
UPC: 816909101843 EAN: 4719072277901
Price As Tested: $159.99 (Newegg)

Full Disclosure: MSI provided the product sample used in this article.

NVIDIA's Kepler GPUs have been a big hit ever since they were released. As is common the GPU market, NVIDIA has released their Kepler based GPUs incrementally, and now has a full complement of GPUs at its disposal. The GTX 680 and GTX 670 are at the top of the list, not only in performance, but also in price. The GTX 680 tops the charts at $500 and the GTX 670 clocks in just behind that at $400.

After the GTX 670, there is a big jump in price and performance to the GTX 660, which runs around $240 or so. Jumping down to the GTX 650, there is another large price jump all the way to about $120. The GT 640 and GT 630 round things out as the low-end and entry-level cards in the 600 series. Those price jumps between GTX 650, 660, and 670 are what we are looking at today. To bridge the gap between GTX 660 and GTX 670, NVIDIA released the GTX 660Ti, which will run you around $300. Interestingly enough, the GTX 660Ti was released nearly a month before the actual GTX 660 and GTX 650 releases.

The next gap has, as of yet, gone unfilled. Until now that is. NVIDIA has just released the answer to the gap between the GTX 650 and the GTX 660 in the form of the, you guessed it, GTX 650Ti. The GTX 660 and the GTX 650 were NVIDIAs vision of bringing Kepler to every gamer. The release of the GTX 650Ti completes the entire NVIDIA GTX 600 series lineup and gives an extra boost to the GTX 650 family of GPUs.

NVIDIAs theory behind the release of the GTX 650Ti is based on market research that shows that gamers don't upgrade their GPU all that often. According to NVIDIA, it's about every three years typically. That time period apparently increases when the gamer buys a lower priced video card. In fact, according to the latest Steam hardware survey, more than half of all gamers polled still haven't upgraded to a DX11 graphics card. NVIDIAs goal with the GTX 650Ti is to entice gamers to move up to DX11 graphics that will last them until their next upgrade and at an affordable price.

Enough with the talk. Benchmark Reviews has one of the new GTX 650Ti video cards on hand in the form of the MSI GEFORCE GTX N650Ti Power Edition Video Card. Of course, MSI couldn't just leave the N650Ti PE alone and release it just like the reference design. No, MSI has made plenty of changes and enhancements to the GTX 650Ti with their N650Ti Power Edition card. Let's find out more.

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