Testing methodology
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti specification |
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GPU Comparisons |
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| Graphics Card | GPU Clock (MHz) |
Stream Processors |
Shader Clock (MHz) |
Memory Clock (MHz) |
Memory Bus (bits) |
Graphics Driver | Approx price | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti (1,024MB) | 925 | 768 | 925 | 5,400 | 128 | GeForce 306.38 beta | £120 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2,048MB) | 980 (1,033) | 960 | 980 (1,033) | 6,008 | 192 | GeForce 306.38 beta | £170 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (1,024MB) | 900 | 192 | 1,800 | 4,104 | 192 | GeForce 306.38 beta | £90 | |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2,048MB) | 860 | 1024 | 860 | 4,800 | 256 | Catalyst 12.9 beta | £150 | |
| AMD Radeon HD 7770 (1,024MB) | 1,000 | 640 | 1,000 | 4,500 | 128 | Catalyst 12.9 beta | £100 | |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 (1,024MB) | 900 | 1,120 | 900 | 4,200 | 256 | Catalyst 12.9 beta | £120 | |
HEXUS High-End Test Bench |
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| Processor | Intel Core i7-3770K (3.50GHz, 8MB cache, quad-core) | |||||||||||
| CPU Cooler | Intel reference E97378-001 | |||||||||||
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H | |||||||||||
| Memory | 8GB Patriot Viper 3 (2x4GB) DDR3 @ 1,600MHz | |||||||||||
| Power Supply | Corsair AX750W | |||||||||||
| Storage Device | Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD | |||||||||||
| Optical Drive | Generic 24x DVD-RW | |||||||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite Series 600T | |||||||||||
| Monitor | BenQ EW2430 | |||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit, SP1) | |||||||||||
HEXUS Mid-range Benchmark Suite |
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| 3D Benchmarks | Mode and Resolutions | Quality Settings |
| 3DMark 11 | DX11 at 1,280x720 and 1,920x1,080 | Performance and Extreme Presets |
| Aliens vs. Predator | DX11 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 4xAA, 16xAF, Maximum Image Quality |
| Batman: Arkham City | DX11 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 4xMSAA, Very High Preset |
| Battlefield 3 | DX11 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 0x MSAA, 16xAF, High Preset |
| Crysis 2 | DX11 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 4xAA, Very High Preset, DX11 and High-Res Textures |
| DiRT Showdown | DX11 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 4xMSAA, High Preset |
| Just Cause 2 | DX10 at 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,080 | 8xMSAA, High Preset |
| LuxMark 2.0 | OpenCL GPUs-only | Sala (488,000+ triangles) and Room (2,000,000+ triangles) |
| General Benchmarks | Description | |
| Power Consumption | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record mains power draw both when idle and while playing Batman: Arkham City | |
| Temperature | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Batman: Arkham City | |
| Noise | A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Batman: Arkham City | |
Notes
We've gone the whole nine yards and tested, from scratch, six graphics cards for this review, all on the latest drivers. The in-game settings have been downgraded a touch from those used in our high-end suite; there's little point in hammering mid-range cards with unnecessary load. We've run at the lower 1,680x1,050 resolution, as well.
The comparison cards encompass interesting choices. From NVIDIA's side it makes sense to look at the next GPU up, GTX 660, and the GeForce GTX 550 Ti - the card ostensibly replaced by the GTX 650 Ti. From AMD, we have the roughly price-comparable Radeon HD 7770 1GB, a last-generation HD 6870, which many readers purchased for the same kind of cash as the GTX 650 Ti retails for now. Lastly, stepping it up a notch, the Radeon HD 7850 is included.
In the interests of fairness, any GPU vendor-specific technologies are disabled during benchmarking. For example, NVIDIA-exclusive features such as PhysX in Batman: Arkham City and the Bokeh Filter in Just Cause 2 are not enabled. Last but not least, all cards in the ensuing graphs are reference - no factory-overclocked models allowed!
