GeForce GTX 650 Ti Review: Nvidia's Last Graphics Card For 2012

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]BestJinjo[/nom]jblank,Friendly piece of advice (regardless of brand bias) - your upgrade strategy for graphics is all wrong. You bought a GTX550Ti last year and likely paid $100-150 for it. Now you are looking to upgrade to a $150 GTX650Ti. If you don't sell your old GPUs, that's a total amount of $250-300 wasted on low-end GPUs. Instead you could have bought an HD6950 2GB or even GTX570 last year and ended up with far faster performance all of last year and for the next 12 months since 650Ti is still slower than 6950/570 and by a lot.Secondly, your PSU in the dell, if it doesn't have 30A on 12V rail, just ditch it and get yourself a new PSU or you'll continue wasting $ on crappy GPUs like GTX550Ti and 650Ti. A PSU is something that lasts a long time and it is well worth the investment:http://www.amazon.com/PC-Power-Coo [...] s=pc+powerAs far as this card goes, it continues the trend this generation of NV overpricing cards (other than initial 670/680 launch).HD7770 can be found for $105-115 on Newegg and is only about 13-15% slower than the $150 GTX650TiHD7850 1GB can be found for $165-175 and is 30-40% faster than GTX650Ti for just $15-25 more! (talk about a bargain price/performance curve on the 7850 side).Myself I wouldn't buy a 1GB card by now. I'd rather spend $20 more for a 2GB. That brings us to GTX650Ti 2GB that goes for $170 on Newegg vs. $180-190 for 7850 2GB. There have already been sales of $195-200 for HD7870 on Newegg and that card is 60% faster than GTX650Ti 2GB. This just goes to show how horribly overpriced 650Ti is.NV just disguised the poor price/performance by offering a game coupon for Assassin's Creed 3 and comparing GTX650Ti to 7770 in their marketing slides. Unfortunately, the average consumer looking to buy sub-$150 card is often very uninformed, which is the only way it can be explained how GTX550Ti sold well last year when HD6850 and 6870 were going for $130-150 for at least 12 months since last summer.[/citation]

I can name at least three 7770s that are faster than the 650 Tis while still being cheaper, albeit they're all still 1GB cards.

[citation][nom]masmotors[/nom]this card should cost 75.00 no more its pretty week but if cheap get it but 6850 mops floor with it[/citation]

Uhh, no. Simple bringing it down to $120-140 would be where it needs to be to give AMD something to worry about. The 6850 most certainly does not mop the floor with the 650 Ti, especially considering that the 650 Ti averaged out a little ahead of the 6850.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom]I can name at least three 7770s that are faster than the 650 Tis while still being cheaper, albeit they're all still 1GB cards.[/citation]

Have other sites tested that? I'd be curious to see those results.

 

[army_ant7]

In the Test Setup page, I think the note saying "All overclocked cards reduced to reference specification for testing" should have "except the GTX 650Ti's" added to it, though it was pretty obvious because of the overclocked tests page.

In the Batman test page, there's an, what I believe to be, erroneous mentioning of a GTX 660Ti. I think there was another error similar to this somewhere in previous pages though I'm too lazy to find it.

As far as AMD and the HD7850 is concerned, it's EOL. They are likely in final production for its replacement.

How could you say this? Are you saying that they've probably stopped manufacturing HD 7850 chips and are already almost done manufacturing HD 8850 chips or something?

Ok, but again, the 650TI is replacing the 550TI, a card I happen to own, so it would have been nice for us owners of the previous iteration of their "mainstream" card, to see how it stacks up and whether the 650TI is worthy of an upgrade. I guess I am comparing it to processors. When the Ivy Bridge Core's came out, all the reviews were comparing them to the Sandy's, so ya kinda got to judge the performance and base impressions off of the scores relative to the previous gen. Not a huge deal but certainly curious that the replaced card isn't compared to its replacement.

Anyone, correct me if I'm wrong, but those (650Ti and 550Ti) are really just model names and what really matters, when considering what replaces what, is if they're priced the same, right? I'm thinking that cards of specific model names might not have the same relative performance with newer generation cards with similar names (e.g. the GTX 560 and 560Ti, may not have the same performance difference that the GTX 660 and 660Ti have). Launch prices though may not be so good to compare since the value of a certain currency can change (inflation) with the times, and other factors.

I'm thinking that knowing what card replaces what really isn't as important as just knowing your buying options and how they compare to each other performance- and performance-price-wise. Personally, I'd stick with a card as long as I can (until it fails, isn't powerful enough for my "needs," lacks certain features). This way, I'd have the latest possible generation of cards available for purchase and also have previous-generation cards probably selling for cheaper. This may make you miss out on some good deals along the way (like good cards that reach their EOL pretty quickly).

luciferano's idea of buying frequently and selling your old card fairly early (thus still getting a good price on it while getting the latest generation card) sounds alright, though it comes with its risks as mentioned (bad transactions) and takes some work (looking for a good buyer).

okay, now looking forward for 700 series. no more keplers.

Remember how the Fermi was on both the 400 and 500 series? Guess how long Kepler will stick around. I think Maxwell will still come in 2014 on the 800 series. Look at page 14 of this.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]cleeve[/nom]Have other sites tested that? I'd be curious to see those results.[/citation]

Not compared to the 650 Ti (the tests are too old), but to the 6870, 560, and 560 Ti. The Sapphire 7770 OC (1.15GHz GPU, 1.25GHz memory), The Sapphire 7770 Vapor-X (1.10GHz GPU, 1.3GHz memory), and the XFX 7770 Jet Black Edition Super Overclock (1.12GHz GPU, 1.25GHz memory).

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1406/pg3/xfx-radeon-7770-jet-black-edition-super-overclock-graphics-card-review-vs-gtx-560-test-system-and-methodology.html
It doesn't beat the 560, but it most certainly could nudge in between the 560 and the 650 Ti with a wider game selection. The Sapphire OC is slightly faster and the Vapor-X is a little slower. Keep in mind that this was done on ancient drivers and even though I think that you're right about the 77xx cards not being affected by the new drivers as much as the 79xx cards, they still would have improved a little, especially in games that had bug-related performance problems that were fixed.

I'm still looking for my Sapphire 7770s versus 6870 versus 560 Ti link.

EDIT: I stand by saying that I think that a 576 core 192 bit model would have been better than this 768 core 128bit model. That could have topped these 7770s.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]cleeve[/nom]Based on what yardstick?40 FPS minimum is super playable, and if you want 60 FPS minimum turn down the settings.It played every game we tested at 1080p and almost caught up with the 560/6870 without MSAA. Who is going to play this at 720p on a 1080p monitor and destroy their image quality so they can use MSAA?I totally disagree with you on this one, Ojas. 60 FPS minimum is a very high expectation.[/citation]
meh. i expected to be downvoted on this one

I know, 40 fps min is playable, and in that respect your tests are fine...but point is that on 1080...except perhaps the top two cards (660 and 7850)...the rest are a life of compromise...

and i meant 60 fps min on one of the lower resolutions. If i'm using this review to tell someone, hey, get this card, it'll do 60 fps min on 720p for sure, won't i be forced to guess?

Yes, no one with a 1080p monitor's going to be playing on 720p, and that's not what i'm trying to say. I meant, what about people with lower resolution monitors? what'll they expect?

Going back to other game benchmarks, i've always found that you people use ultra/high settings on 1080p, medium/high settings on 1680x1050 and low/medium settings on lower resolutions. I'm just saying that, use high/ultra everywhere, because even people playing on lower resolutions would want to crank up details at whatever resolutions they're playing at.

I for example, can tell b/w 40 and 60 fps, if not so much 50 and 60. But i hate the sudden drops and stuttering that happens when the fps falls from 60+ to 40+. SO that's why i'm saying look at the resolutions at which lower end cards can give you 60 fps with high/ultra settings.

So, for example, if a card gives you 40 fps at 1600x900, you automatically know that it's not going to survive 1080p without a drop in the detail level.

Personally i wouldn't buy a monitor with a native res higher than my card could handle, nor would i buy a card which can't handle my res. By handle i mean 60 fps+ at max details. Personal pref, really, but is there no merit to it?

Also, did you think my GPGPU argument was valid? :O

p.s. Also, a lot of TVs, when connected to a PC, run in 720p or 1366x768. given the tiny size of the card, these resolutions would matter from an HTPC pov, me thinks.

 

[Bloob]

I think the latest Nvidia releases have been a bit...ironic considering:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphics/display/20120125232634_Nvidia_We_Expected_More_from_AMD_Radeon_HD_7970.html

 

[jblank]

jblank,

Friendly piece of advice (regardless of brand bias) - your upgrade strategy for graphics is all wrong. You bought a GTX550Ti last year and likely paid $100-150 for it. Now you are looking to upgrade to a $150 GTX650Ti. If you don't sell your old GPUs, that's a total amount of $250-300 wasted on low-end GPUs. Instead you could have bought an HD6950 2GB or even GTX570 last year and ended up with far faster performance all of last year and for the next 12 months since 650Ti is still slower than 6950/570 and by a lot.

Secondly, your PSU in the dell, if it doesn't have 30A on 12V rail, just ditch it and get yourself a new PSU or you'll continue wasting $ on crappy GPUs like GTX550Ti and 650Ti. A PSU is something that lasts a long time and it is well worth the investment:
http://www.amazon.com/PC-Power-Cooling-Performance-compatible/dp/B003U29C3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349837262&sr=8-1&keywords=pc+power

As far as this card goes, it continues the trend this generation of NV overpricing cards (other than initial 670/680 launch).

HD7770 can be found for $105-115 on Newegg and is only about 13-15% slower than the $150 GTX650Ti

HD7850 1GB can be found for $165-175 and is 30-40% faster than GTX650Ti for just $15-25 more! (talk about a bargain price/performance curve on the 7850 side).

Myself I wouldn't buy a 1GB card by now. I'd rather spend $20 more for a 2GB. That brings us to GTX650Ti 2GB that goes for $170 on Newegg vs. $180-190 for 7850 2GB. There have already been sales of $195-200 for HD7870 on Newegg and that card is 60% faster than GTX650Ti 2GB. This just goes to show how horribly overpriced 650Ti is.

NV just disguised the poor price/performance by offering a game coupon for Assassin's Creed 3 and comparing GTX650Ti to 7770 in their marketing slides. Unfortunately, the average consumer looking to buy sub-$150 card is often very uninformed, which is the only way it can be explained how GTX550Ti sold well last year when HD6850 and 6870 were going for $130-150 for at least 12 months since last summer.

Thanks but I am not sure if the case and mobo will support another power supply. I'd have to somehow make sure it's compatible. Also, every game I play can be maxed out at 1080p for me, so for me at least anything more than even the 550 Ti I currently have, might not even be needed yet.

 

[sarinaide]

[citation][nom]De5_roy[/nom]so... i was wondering... does this mean -gtx 650ti is the most powerful gfx card with 128 bit memory bus,gtx 660ti is the most powerful gfx card with 192 bit bus,gtx 660 is the most powerful gfx card with single 6 pin pcie power connector? i was hoping that the last one still belonged to radeon hd 7850....in a different way, radeon hd 7850 seems to be currently the weakest 28nm gpu with 256 bit memory bus...edit: i should detail further - i mean the reference models, not factory overclocked/customized. oc is not taken into consideration.[/citation]

Kepler is a pixel pusher but start to stress its comforts and the fallacy that is kepler architecture starts to manifest itself, the 660ti is the fastest 6pin card in hypothetical FPS but compared to the cheaper 7850 I think its a poor effort, its more expensive and lacks any ability to SLI, the 7850 can CFX and when it comes to overclocking it is nothing short of a bloodbath, then we get to cranking up resolutions, multi monitor support, higher AA and AF and the Kepler falls to pieces due to the wishy washy architecture its based upon. The 192bit bus is not the issue its deeper than that.

The 7850 and 7870 are now the easy recommendations, AMD offer better balance, Zero Core technology is amazing and when it comes to compute performance Nvidia is a no show, I will only recommend a nvidia if the game uses Physx or the application uses cuda, otherwise kepler should be shown to be a fail from team green.

 

[Guest]

Just out of curiosity, I am still using an Nvidia 9800 GTX+ with an Intel E8400 CPU. What sort of performance boost would this card give me if I upgraded to it? I have tried looking at the VGA charts, but unfortunately the benchmarks run on the 9800 GTX+ were not run on this newer card...

 

[de5_Roy]

Kepler is a pixel pusher but start to stress its comforts and the fallacy that is kepler architecture starts to manifest itself, the 660ti is the fastest 6pin card in hypothetical FPS but compared to the cheaper 7850 I think its a poor effort, its more expensive and lacks any ability to SLI, the 7850 can CFX and when it comes to overclocking it is nothing short of a bloodbath, then we get to cranking up resolutions, multi monitor support, higher AA and AF and the Kepler falls to pieces due to the wishy washy architecture its based upon. The 192bit bus is not the issue its deeper than that.

The 7850 and 7870 are now the easy recommendations, AMD offer better balance, Zero Core technology is amazing and when it comes to compute performance Nvidia is a no show, I will only recommend a nvidia if the game uses Physx or the application uses cuda, otherwise kepler should be shown to be a fail from team green.

i disregarded price. only comparing ref. boards based on gaming performance.
wai.. 660ti can't sli? i thought that not only can 660ti can sli, it has better dual sli scaling than 78xx cards - as observed from toms review. those gpus show weakness when you stress their memory subsystem instead of their gpus.
i disregarded gpu overclocking because of my personal opinion. the reason for this is that overclocking gpus usually get you higher clockrates, not necessarily higher enough performance to justify those clockrates and they have a limit after the return diminishes. worse, the performance improvement from overclocking is very game-dependent. combine that with added heat, power consumption - it becomes nearly useless. ofc, higher clockrate numbers is good for one's 'ego', just look at bulldozer.
gpu compute has to make more inroads into gaming before i consider it a factor for gaming gfx card recommendation.
i've read that even though amd has highly competitive gfx cards, nvidia is the one who ends up making more money each quarter in the discreet gaming card sector. though, revenue isn't remotely related to what i was asking lol.
my question was - were they or were they not the most powerful cards in those categories based on the criteria.

 

[jblank]

Just out of curiosity, I am still using an Nvidia 9800 GTX+ with an Intel E8400 CPU. What sort of performance boost would this card give me if I upgraded to it? I have tried looking at the VGA charts, but unfortunately the benchmarks run on the 9800 GTX+ were not run on this newer card...

I think you would see some performance benefit, but that processor is an older Core 2 Duo and might start to hold you back some.

 

[sarinaide]

[citation][nom]De5_roy[/nom]i disregarded price. only comparing ref. boards based on gaming performance.wai.. 660ti can't sli? i thought that not only can 660ti can sli, it has better dual sli scaling than 78xx cards - as observed from toms review. those gpus show weakness when you stress their memory subsystem instead of their gpus.i disregarded gpu overclocking because of my personal opinion. the reason for this is that overclocking gpus usually get you higher clockrates, not necessarily higher enough performance to justify those clockrates and they have a limit after the return diminishes. worse, the performance improvement from overclocking is very game-dependent. combine that with added heat, power consumption - it becomes nearly useless. ofc, higher clockrate numbers is good for one's 'ego', just look at bulldozer. gpu compute has to make more inroads into gaming before i consider it a factor for gaming gfx card recommendation.i've read that even though amd has highly competitive gfx cards, nvidia is the one who ends up making more money each quarter in the discreet gaming card sector. though, revenue isn't remotely related to what i was asking lol.my question was - were they or were they not the most powerful cards in those categories based on the criteria.[/citation]

AMD's financials are across all departments, right now AMD has debts that are being consolidated so yes they make less mark up but they sell a lot more.

Nvidia has higher base clocks so that is a factor for the marginally better frames.

Architectually the GCN parts are better, Kepler is flawed, nothing to do with bus size.

 

[tomfreak]

[citation][nom]jblank[/nom]I think you would see some performance benefit, but that processor is an older Core 2 Duo and might start to hold you back some.[/citation]if u dig back the old benchmark showed that stock clock E8400/E8600 are still capable of pulling quite a bit of extra fps using a GTX280/285. So I guess Knowing 9800GTX+ = 550ti. I assume max GPU for E8400/E8600 is somewhere around GTX280/285/460/560nonti/650/650ti or the Radeon with similar performance.

I got a E5800, I am actually looking something to replace my 9800GT. As of now it is not showing its age yet. after 4yrs+ it still capable to play most games @ high setting @ 1680x1050. Can u believe that? oh god..... Console ports, huge "thanks" for them that my gaming rig last 4yrs+

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]De5_roy[/nom]i disregarded price. only comparing ref. boards based on gaming performance.wai.. 660ti can't sli? i thought that not only can 660ti can sli, it has better dual sli scaling than 78xx cards - as observed from toms review. those gpus show weakness when you stress their memory subsystem instead of their gpus.i disregarded gpu overclocking because of my personal opinion. the reason for this is that overclocking gpus usually get you higher clockrates, not necessarily higher enough performance to justify those clockrates and they have a limit after the return diminishes. worse, the performance improvement from overclocking is very game-dependent. combine that with added heat, power consumption - it becomes nearly useless. ofc, higher clockrate numbers is good for one's 'ego', just look at bulldozer. gpu compute has to make more inroads into gaming before i consider it a factor for gaming gfx card recommendation.i've read that even though amd has highly competitive gfx cards, nvidia is the one who ends up making more money each quarter in the discreet gaming card sector. though, revenue isn't remotely related to what i was asking lol.my question was - were they or were they not the most powerful cards in those categories based on the criteria.[/citation]

The 660s were shown to scale inconsistently. They traded blows with some significant losses and few significant wins. Throw in some heavy MSAA as you should if you game with such graphics at 1080p and the AMD cards pull ahead pretty much universally.

Radeon 7xxx scales with GPU frequency more or less perfectly in pretty much all games. Overclocking the 78xx cards doesn't increase heat generation and power consumption too much.

The 7850 is superior if you overclock it and/or play a game with heavier MSAA. So, to call the 660 the fastest card with one six pin PCIe connector is not accurate because it's highly situation-dependent.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom]Not compared to the 650 Ti (the tests are too old), but to the 6870, 560, and 560 Ti. The Sapphire 7770 OC (1.15GHz GPU, 1.25GHz memory), The Sapphire 7770 Vapor-X (1.10GHz GPU, 1.3GHz memory), and the XFX 7770 Jet Black Edition Super Overclock (1.12GHz GPU, 1.25GHz memory). It doesn't beat the 560, but it most certainly could nudge in between the 560 and the 650 Ti with a wider game selection. [/citation]

I'm not sure there's enough data to say that with certainty the OC'd 7770's would beat a stock 650 Ti, my impression is that it would be close though so I'm not sure it matters.


[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom] I stand by saying that I think that a 576 core 192 bit model would have been better than this 768 core 128bit model. [/citation]

I think you're right there, although I think their best bet would have been a 768 core/192-bit model. It would have been a good replacement for the 560... maybe Nvidia was worried about offering too much performance for the price. It certainly seems they didn't expect AMD to drop the 7850 prices so low and so fast.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom] p.s. Also, a lot of TVs, when connected to a PC, run in 720p or 1366x768. given the tiny size of the card, these resolutions would matter from an HTPC pov, me thinks.[/citation]

I expect most HTPCs are running 1080p nowadays.

Regardless, I understand your desire to see 720p, I just don't think it's as important as 1080p when the card can handle HD smoothly. And as I've said before, if I had infinite time I would have added a lot of resolutions and settings, but that's not the reality of graphics reviews. I squeezed all the tests I could possibly squeeze into the time I was given for the review. It's a tradeoff necessitated by the realities of short timelines, unfortunately.


[citation][nom]ojas[/nom] Also, did you think my GPGPU argument was valid?[/citation]

I don't think it was invalid, you're entitled to your opinion. Having said that, given the choice I'll take more information over less any day.

Just to clarify, the extensive GPGPU section wasn't done at the expense of another game resolution. GPGPU is done by Igor in Germany, and that's his sole responsibility so he has a lot of time to flesh it out (relatively). His work gives me more time to add a second detail level to the 1080p game tests.

 

[de5_Roy]

The 7850 is superior if you overclock it and/or play a game with heavier MSAA. So, to call the 660 the fastest card with one six pin PCIe connector is not accurate because it's highly situation-dependent.

i re-checked toms' 660x reviews. i disregarded oc but anti-aliasing performance is an important factor.
'undecided' is what i'm going with. too bad i wasn't looking for 'trades blows' or 'ties'. i was looking for a distinct result yet those are what i got... sigh..

 

[Ironslice]

[citation][nom]sarinaide[/nom]AMD's financials are across all departments, right now AMD has debts that are being consolidated so yes they make less mark up but they sell a lot more.Nvidia has higher base clocks so that is a factor for the marginally better frames.Architectually the GCN parts are better, Kepler is flawed, nothing to do with bus size.[/citation]

Wrong. Kepler is much better than GCN. Every single Kepler GPU is memory bottnecked, but if they weren't, they would perform much better than any GCN card. Also, don't forget that GK104 is a midrange part, which competes with AMD's highest quality part. nVidia shouldn't have remained in the competition IMO. They should have just released GK110 and sent AMD to their grave like Intel did.

 

[technoholic]

Fanboy alert

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]Ironslice[/nom]Wrong. Kepler is much better than GCN. Every single Kepler GPU is memory bottnecked, but if they weren't, they would perform much better than any GCN card. Also, don't forget that GK104 is a midrange part, which competes with AMD's highest quality part. nVidia shouldn't have remained in the competition IMO. They should have just released GK110 and sent AMD to their grave like Intel did.[/citation]

You're overlooking some factors here. First, Kepler, even when it has higher memory bandwidth to GCN, still has inferior scaling in many things such as MSAA. Architecturally, that implies that either the GPU cores or at least the ROPs on the 78xx cards are superior.

For sheer pixel pushing, these Kepler GPUs are easily superior, but at a cost. They have inferior scaling in higher loads and they have a huge raw compute performance disadvantage (although a few compute applications do favor them somewhat, most do not and even those that do, the GCN cards tend to have much smaller of a loss than Kepler cards). Tahiti's compute orientation is probably the main reason for its inferior performance per mm2 of die area in many ways. The same situation can be seen with VLIW4 versus Fermi. Radeon 7xxx's unnecessarily high voltage probably also plays a large part in its sometimes higher power consumption.

Also, that GK110, a GPU that is one of the largest that Nvidia has ever made, can beat the little Tahiti, something smaller than a Cayman, shouldn't be a surprise. I'd be surprised if it didn't. Besides, GK110 isn't a gaming GPU anyway, so Nvidia would have to modify it. They should have had a GK100 if they wanted a higher end single-GPU card.

So, architecturally, GCN seems to be superior IMO, at least overall. It's simply a good compromise between compute and gaming performance, so there are some minor trade-offs, but Kepler is brute-forcing this whereas AMD did GCN with more finesse and scaling efficiencies in mind.

Now Kepler's successor seems to be much more balanced from what I've read about it and I eagerly await seeing what it has to offer.

 

[mapesdhs]

[citation][nom]jooppy[/nom]Just out of curiosity, I am still using an Nvidia 9800 GTX+ with an Intel E8400 CPU. What sort of performance boost would this card give me if I upgraded to it? I have tried looking at the VGA charts, but unfortunately the benchmarks run on the 9800 GTX+ were not run on this newer card...[/citation]

Would you like me to run some direct comparisons for you? Assuming the 650Ti is about the same as a lesser GTX 460, I can
run some tests if you like. What model/spec 9800 GTX+ do you have? I have 9800GT 512MB, 9800GT 1GB, an E8400, and
a range of newer cards (550Ti, 460/715MHz, 460/800MHz, 460/850MHz, 460 V2 @ 867MHz, 5850 Extreme, etc.)

I don't yet have a decent S775/SLI board (still trying to obtain a Striker II Extreme), but I have an Asrock that I can use
to test single cards (atm it's fitted with a Q6600):

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P45XE

Do you run your E8400 at stock or oc'd? My results so far suggest you will very likely be CPU-limited unless you either
upgrade your CPU or better still switch to a faster platform, eg. I observed a big speed increase when moving my 8800GT
from a 3GHz 6000+ to an i7 870 (see my previous posts for performance links).

Also, if you're gaming at lesser resolutions then the real benefits of newer cards will not show through so much. Lastly,
if you're playing older DX9 games then again the newer cards' strengths will be less apparent.

Ian.

PS. And of course, some games are very dependent on the CPU power (eg. X3TC) while others are not.

 

[sarinaide]

[citation][nom]Ironslice[/nom]Wrong. Kepler is much better than GCN. Every single Kepler GPU is memory bottnecked, but if they weren't, they would perform much better than any GCN card. Also, don't forget that GK104 is a midrange part, which competes with AMD's highest quality part. nVidia shouldn't have remained in the competition IMO. They should have just released GK110 and sent AMD to their grave like Intel did.[/citation]

What is this nonsense.....GK110 is out soon sadly like all before it limited by its architecture but anyways you will see.

 

[UVB076]

So...it's a weaker, NVIDIA version of the 6870?

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]UVB076[/nom]So...it's a weaker, NVIDIA version of the 6870?[/citation]

I don't get the reference. What are you implying?

 

[xyster]

I've very impressed that you included the GTX 460 in this review. Thank you.