Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 And 660 Review: Kepler At $110 And $230

[EzioAs]

I agree with blazorthon on a couple of his points (sorry I don't read them all). The 660 has a good starting price, just like the old 460 but AMD was fully prepared this time and both (GTX660 and HD 7870/7850. Wait, that's three isn't it?)are actually good buy depending on the titles you play. However, as blazorthon pointed out, AMD current 7800 (and the 7900) are great for overclocking. So, for a buyer who's into overclocking, the choice is obvious but like I said before in my early post, the 660 isn't a bad card at all.

On the topic of AA (anti-aliasing), I think that AA is subjective and imo, depends on two things : Games played and eye sensitivity. Most 1st person games looks pretty good already with 4xMSAA and higher AA makes little (but noticeable) difference. On the other hand, 3rd person games with open world such as assassin's creed or GTA4, 8xMSAA is worlds better than 4xAA. It's like no jaggies vs. jaggies. AA also depends on the person playing. Take the average (console, non-experienced) gamer for example, and let him play BF3 at 1080p on a 24" screen. He probably won't even see the aliasing on objects. However if you take the experienced PC gamer (you, me and hopefully everyone else in this forum), they can probably tell straight away whether it's no AA, 2xAA, 4xAA or for the people who are more sensitive, 8xAA.

The conclusion is, for every games you play, set the AA as high as you can which gives you framerates which you are most comfortable. Some people don't care about AA and prefer their fps always at 60+. Others might be comfy enough at 40fps with drops to 30fps here and there as long as they get the best possible image quality with their hardware. It's your choice in the end.

 

[jabliese]

Typo, Battlefield 3 summary after the first charts:

"AMD's Radeon cards perform well, and the HD 7850 edges out Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650. "

Pretty sure that should be 7750.

 

[rockstar_7]

nice, not bad

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]jabliese[/nom]Typo, Battlefield 3 summary after the first charts:"AMD's Radeon cards perform well, and the HD 7850 edges out Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650. "Pretty sure that should be 7750.[/citation]

You are correct, sir...

Fixed, thanks!

 

[mohit9206]

even though the tests show nvida losing to amd when 8x MSAA is forced in games, in real world most people wont be using such high levels of AA and therefore notice no performance deficit at all. and i hope soon that gt640 drops to around $70-80 in line with its performance lying between 6670 and 7750.

 

[bigcyco1]

Thanks for the review

 

[Why_Me]

I see a lot of post on here in regards to the 650 and gaming. By far the most common resolution is 1920 x 1080. That says to me that anyone who is building a new gaming rig but doesn't want to put out $200 for a 7850 or $225 for a gtx 660 should consider getting a better paying job because anything less than those two cards on that resolution with today's newer games is sluffing for sure. I'm trying to remember the last time a vid card that was worth a crap that went for under $175 and nothing comes to mind.

 

[Cash091]

I still want to upgrade my GTX460 SLI for the GTX 660 Ti SLI. I have been partial to nVidia and am strong enough to admit it. It's not that I don't like AMD, I have made many builds with cards from them and can recommend their cards to friends, I just like nVidia for my own builds. I will admit that AMD has better options for lower price points, but SLI smashes XFire any day of the week!

 

[ModernKamikaze]

Which one should I get? a 7850 or 660 non-ti?

 

[ToKiiNz]

im guessing by xmas this year we will have a 110$ 7770 good deal for a 500$ gaming rig w a fx4100. and a 175$ 7850 for about 175$ just my thinking cause i only buy at xmas other than if somthing fails

 

[ToKiiNz]

im guessing by xmas this year we will have a 110$ 7770 good deal for a 500$ gaming rig w a fx4100. and a 175$ 7850 for about 175$ just my thinking cause i only buy at xmas other than if somthing fails

 

[janiashvili]

does 650 work in PCIE 1?

 

[proffet]

just read the article, disappointing effort on nVidia with the GTX 650.

The irony in some of these posts is so thick...

^
this...

 

[_Pez_]

The HD 7850's won this benchie...

 

[pizzlemynizzle]

[citation][nom]ModernKamikaze[/nom]Which one should I get? a 7850 or 660 non-ti?[/citation]
You should get this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121624&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
It's a 7870 GHz. Actually, while I was typing this it went out-of-stock at newegg. But I would watch for a 7870 to go on sale and get that. It will give you the best performance for this price range.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]janiashvili[/nom]does 650 work in PCIE 1?[/citation]

It should work in all versions of PCIe.

[citation][nom]pizzlemynizzle[/nom]You should get this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] llFullInfo It's a 7870 GHz. Actually, while I was typing this it went out-of-stock at newegg. But I would watch for a 7870 to go on sale and get that. It will give you the best performance for this price range.[/citation]

It's back in stock right now.

 

[TechnoD]

Hmm.... I own a non-overclocked Radeon 7770 GHZ edition and I can play Battlefield 3 a lot better than those benchmarks say. I've got a 6 core phenom 2 and i can play battlefield 3 at high at 1920x1080 full AA. Makes me wonder..........

 

[blazorthon]

Hmm.... I own a non-overclocked Radeon 7770 GHZ edition and I can play Battlefield 3 a lot better than those benchmarks say. I've got a 6 core phenom 2 and i can play battlefield 3 at high at 1920x1080 full AA. Makes me wonder..........

Are you playing the same exact maps in the same exact way with the same exact settings both of the card and the game and with the same drivers and game version? If not, then performance differences aren't surprising.

 

[Guest]

28 fps is unplayable? i thought something like 10-15 fps is unplayable, but 28fps, to me it would play fine.

 

[refillable]

Still the 7870 is an excellent card even after this release. 10% faster than the 660 but only $10 more (remember, price is dropping for the 7870!)

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]refillable[/nom]Still the 7870 is an excellent card even after this release. 10% faster than the 660 but only $10 more (remember, price is dropping for the 7870!)[/citation]

MSRP isn't what you should judge prices by for AMD's cards. The 7870 has been around $200-210 with some models for several weeks. AMD cards have models considerably under local MSRP pretty much everywhere and with the MSRP dropping to $240, 7870s will probably be found around the $200 mark more often. Some 7850s are probably going to drop to the $170-180 range, maybe lower with discounts. It's not like how Nvidia cards are much more difficult to find under MSRP and even when they are, it's usually not far under at all.

 

[army_ant7]

Please elaborate on how

...SLI smashes XFire any day of the week!

because when I tried calculating the scaling of the tests in this article, they seemed pretty on par. I posted the numbers in a comment I made some ways above. I don't claim that it's error-free though.

 

[blazorthon]

Please elaborate on howbecause when I tried calculating the scaling of the tests in this article, they seemed pretty on par. I posted the numbers in a comment I made some ways above. I don't claim that it's error-free though.

SLI seems to have a little less of a CPU overhead than CFX (given that CFX is more software-based than SLI, this is not surprising), but otherwise, it isn't really any better other than that. Cash091's claim is inaccurate as far as I'm aware unless we compare CFX with AMD's older VLIW5 cards to SLI with Nvidia's older Fermi cards.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]technod[/nom]Hmm.... I own a non-overclocked Radeon 7770 GHZ edition and I can play Battlefield 3 a lot better than those benchmarks say. I've got a 6 core phenom 2 and i can play battlefield 3 at high at 1920x1080 full AA. Makes me wonder..........[/citation]

Nothing to wonder, just load FRAPS and try the test we do: at the start of the operation swordbreaker level, as they leave the APC, for 60 seconds.

If you record higher frame rates I'd love to know. Keep in mind, we didn't use a GHz edition 7770. But the results shouldn't be THAT far off.

But please don't hint that you think something's wrong with our numbers without trying the same test method that we use first.

 

[MisterD70]

So where can we buy these cards at reduced prices?
I checked Newegg and a bunch of other stores and they're listed at full price still.