Conclusion
Conclusion
The GTX 650 Ti is a hard product to judge. On one hand, it represents a huge step forward for NVIDIA’s lagging sub-$150 product lineup but it fails to bring any significant pressure to bear on year-old AMD SKUs. Maybe we have overly high expectations for Kepler at every price point or perhaps our lack of excitement stems from the fact that AMD seems to have played their cand almost perfectly this time around. But regardless of our fence sitting, the GTX 650 Ti feels like a “safe” card from NVIDIA rather than a must-have GPU that will push the market forward.
At this point, some of you may be wondering whether the bar was set too high by previous launches. We don’t think so. With its strict adherence to the values set by other GTX 600-series products and a broad feature set, there’s a lot to like about the GTX 650 Ti. NVIDIA did what they had to do in a market segment where there's very little to no competition.
The GTX 650 Ti's performance against the outgoing GTX 550 Ti certainly highlights the strides which NVIDIA has made from an intergenerational performance standpoint. This is either a ringing endorsement of Kepler’s architectural design or a reminder of how lackluster the GTX 550 Ti really was. Either way, the GTX 650 Ti is an excellent upgrade solution for NVIDIA users that want to stay within the $150 price bracket.
Against the competition, things take an interesting turn. In every case the GTX 650 Ti blows the budget friendly HD 7770 1GB out of the water but this 22% advantage doesn’t necessarily compute with a 30% premium. The closest Radeon-branded competitor from a pricing standpoint is actually the HD 7850 1GB. However, while it does tend to walk all over the GTX 650 Ti in nearly every scenario, it is on average 20% more expensive. The situation right now is certainly interesting, isn’t it? In the past we’ve talked about threading a needle between products but this time NVIDIA parachuted their card into a yawning chasm within AMD’s current lineup. The result is a very real lack of direct competition for the new kid on the block. Just don’t discount the HD 7850 1GB from this equation too quickly. Its introduction was a savvy move by AMD which could paying dividends since –with a small price cut- it could put the GTX 650 Ti in an unenviable position.
While the absence of competitors could be construed as a great thing for NVIDIA, the GTX 650 Ti’s release has highlighted a slight hiccup: there’s massive amount of open space between the $229 GTX 660 and $149 GTX 650 Ti. This buffer zone could become pivotal for NVIDIA should they have to match any pre-Christmas price cuts from AMD but for the time being, it just feels like there’s something missing in the Kepler product stack.
From a performance per watt standpoint against AMD’s offerings, NVIDIA’s Kepler series has been exceptional on every front but the GTX 650 Ti is the odd man out. Its improvement in this field over the GTX 550 Ti is astonishing –once again highlighting how much has changed since the Fermi generation- but it can’t quite match the HD 7850 1GB’s numbers, mostly due to a reliance on the 2.54 billion transistor GK106 core.
For some reason, NVIDIA eliminated one of the main features which makes Kepler-based cards stand out: GeForce Boost. Its removal is noteworthy but there’s a larger omission here which could affect the GTX 650 Ti’s long term appeal. SLI is now gone from new GeForce-branded cards which cost less than $199. We think NVIDIA may have underestimated the number of gamers that want a lower priced SLI capable card right now and will add a second in the future, when budget allows. Not only will this limit options for their current customers but it will force gamers to choose between a Crossfire enabled AMD product that can be easily upgraded in the future and an NVIDIA card that represents a dead end for future drop-in performance enhancements. Guess which direction we would choose.
Meanwhile, EVGA’s GTX 650 Ti SSC is something of a revelation. For less than 10% more money than the reference GTX 650 Ti, you get about 15% better performance, an upgraded cooling assembly and possibly increased overclocking headroom. We’ve been waiting for a card like this from EVGA and they’ve finally delivered instead of playing things safe. The customization doesn’t make the GTX 650 Ti all that much more competitive in our eyes but when placed alongside the included Assassin’s Creed 3 voucher, it adds some tangible value into this equation.
With the GTX 650 Ti, NVIDIA had a real chance to move the sub-$199 market forward but that didn’t quite happen. Their newest card has been slotted between two solutions from AMD which have been on the market for ages and it doesn’t really compete against either one. With that being said, it is far from a disappointment. What we have here may be a safe play by NVIDIA but it performs well and still provides an excellent choice for anyone upgrading from a lower end GTX 500, 9000 or 8000-series part. And as EVGA’s SSC version demonstrated, board partners are fully capable of making the GTX 650 Ti a stand-out product on nearly every front.