The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review, Feat. Gigabyte, Zotac, & EVGA
by Ryan Smith on October 9, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Although none of NVIDIA’s partners will be selling direct copies of the NVIDIA reference design, NVIDIA did send over one of reference cards to serve as a baseline comparison (as it turns out, due to a bug you can’t underclock a GTX 650 Ti right now). Since most partner designs will closely follow NVIDIA’s reference design this actually works out for the best anyhow, as it offers a good insight into the kind of performance and design baseline we should see.
For the GeForce 600 series NVIDIA’s reference designs have been extremely solid (overclocking withstanding) and the reference GTX 650 Ti continues that tradition. The PCB itself is actually lifted from the GTX 650, which despite the difference in GPUs is pin-compatible with the GTX 650 Ti and its 128bit memory bus. This puts the length of the card at 5.75” – about as short as a PCIe x16 card can be – in a full-profile form factor. Meanwhile though taking inventory of every last electrical component isn’t practical, as near as we can tell the PCB and its components are completely identical to the reference GTX 650, which means partners are going to be able to easily drop the GTX 650 Ti into their existing GTX 650 designs so long as their cooling is adequate.
Speaking of cooling, the cooler on the reference GTX 650 Ti is a small but effective open air double-wide cooler. NVIDIA’s using a low-profile aluminum heatsink that covers roughly half the card, topped with an 80mm fan. This is the cooler style that most partners will mimic, as the 110W TDP of the GTX 650 Ti does not require a particularly large cooler; though on that note at 110W passive cooling is unlikely. As is common with open air coolers, the heatsink itself doesn’t make contact with the on-board RAM, so RAM cooling is left to airflow coming off of the fan.
NVIDIA’s RAM of choice for the GTX 650 Ti is their traditional favorite, Hynix 2Gb 6GHz GDDR5. The use of 6GHz RAM, which will be common across this family, means that the GTX 650 Ti will have some memory overclocking headroom right out of the box, memory bus willing. NVIDIA uses 4 pieces of it in a 4x32bit configuration, with 4 more pads on the back of the card for another 4 pieces for 2GB cards.
Moving on, along with losing GPU boost capabilities the GTX 650 family also gives up SLI capabilities, so unlike the GTX 550 Ti you won’t find a SLI bridge connector here. What you will find is 1 6pin PCIe power socket on the rear of the card for providing the extra power the GTX 650 needs. Meanwhile display connectivity is provided by 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 DL-DVI-D port, and a mini-HDMI port. Since all of the Kepler GPUs support 4 displays the GTX 650 Ti can drive up to 3 displays via these connectors, and if a partner equips a card with a DisplayPort connector instead it should be possible to drive the full 4 displays off of a single GTX 650 Ti.
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flipmode - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Please, that mantra is goofy. Of course there is such a thing as a bad product. You're telling me you've never run into a product that you wouldn't buy at any price? I have. Not saying the GTX 650 Ti fits that description - it doesn't - but I just wish you'd dispense with that silly expression.Paulman - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I think it's a good saying, especially when applied to the two horse race between AMD/ATI and NVIDIA. Both companies have been executing fairly well over the past half decade or more, and ultimately the biggest factor that determines the success or value of a card is the performance vs. price. The only thing that would mess with that is a significant spat of failing parts, or ridiculously high power/noise consumption that can't be mitigated, or unfixably buggy drivers. But barring such catastrophe scenarios, if your part isn't that great by the time it hits the market, just lower the price :PCeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
It's amazing the amd fanboy brain farts spewing here.AMD lowered their frikkin 7850 price, not the card that "isn't that great that just hit the market".
I'll also point out that this nVidia card does 4 monitors out of the box, and the Asus version at the egg has a great port setup for that, and is inexpensive.
It's just amazing to me really. AMD drops in price, and the idiot response is late and slow for the card reviewed demanding a lower price.
LOL - it's so so freakin sad.
rarson - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
You don't understand economics, do you?Homeles - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
"AMD lowered their frikkin 7850 price, not the card that 'isn't that great that just hit the market.'"You need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills, kid. You have completely missed the point of the post you are replying to. Quite laughably, really, especially given your condescension.
Siana - Monday, October 15, 2012 - link
OMG a sane person on the Internet!JIHAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Uritziel - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
Nothing keeps a price from being negative, so the saying isn't really wrong. Bet you'd buy that bad product you have in mind for -$5000...CeriseCogburn - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
Here, where are the amd fanboys usual bloviating load of crap spews ?I'll pretend I'm them.
This card OverClocks to 7850 speeds and passes it for $5o LESS ! you'd have to be an idiot to buy the amd card when every single nVidia 650Ti hit the same awesome overclock flying past the 7850 !
Not to mention eyefinity sucks and is dead now that 4 monitors are rockin on these 650Ti's !
I'd sure like to see amd innovate but all they care about is MONEY $$$ so they charge more!
There we go amd fanboys, FTFY, and the worse part of it all for you is it's all true instead of big fat lies like when you do it !
rarson - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
This has nothing to do with fanboys, just like the last post didn't. We're talking about economics here, not AMD vs. Nvidia. Stop looking at everything through your green-tinted glasses and try reading what is actually on the screen. The comment you replied to has nothing to do with the cards you mentioned.Galidou - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
He says everyone is lying when speaking about AMD while he can hardly stay in the right path himself.... He's taking the side of the most powerful companies in the world(anything that's against AMD is worth taking their side) while spewing shit like: ''all they care about is MONEY $$$.''Let's go, take the side of the giants of this world, kill the small companies spewing shit about them so the world can turn more monopolistic than it is now... LoL funniest vomit the world had to know about... Make the rich even more rich and KILL everyone below... I have to admit AMD is in a bad situation, their CPU division fares ALOT worse than their GPU division but it's not a reason to be so stupid... so freaking imbecile..... Just so stubbornly refusing to have any respect toward anyone that doesn't TOTALLY embrace his stupid closed vision of the computer industry.
I just wish AMD gets out of there, if not then too bad, we can't change things for them. They are fighting against the giants of the computer industry that have a hundred times more budget than they do... Just for that, I'm wishing they succeed in the future.