EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti SSC 1GB Pro Reviews

The EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC offers decent performance for 1680x1050 gaming. Full HD (1080p) gaming is asking a bit too much from the card, although it should be able to handle HD 1080p gaming at lower details settings. The SSC is the highest clocked GTX 650 Ti available at the moment, leading the charts with a 4% performance gain over the NVIDIA reference design. Unfortunately, the memory is not overclocked despite the use of more expensive chips that could at least handle 1500 MHz. Instead, EVGA doubled the memory size of their card to 2 GB, which barely makes a difference. Its extra memory only causes improvements with a few games, like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, at 2560 x 1600: a resolution that's clearly impractical for the GTX 650 Ti because overall performance is just not fast enough.

With every launch of a GeForce 600 series card NVIDIA has had a specific market target in mind. Typically those targets intersect or undercut an AMD market, and while AMD has not been caught off-guard with subsequent launches like they were the launch of the GTX 680, NVIDIA has so far managed to stay on equal or better footing as AMD. Or at least that was the case until today with the launch of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti. To be clear, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti as it’s configured does not have a direct competitor, and this is something NVIDIA specifically planned for. At $149 it’s squeezed in between the Radeon HD 7770 and the Radeon HD 7850, which happens to be a rather wide performance gap. Under normal circumstances this would be a very good plan, as it means NVIDIA can tap a market segment that AMD wasn’t adequately serving before, while at the same time direct avoiding competition with AMD. But such a plan relies on AMD not making an aggressive move in return.

Overall though, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti is an interesting product. It may not be the highest performing solution throughout its entire price range, but the card’s small form factor, friendly power consumption characteristics, and cool and quiet operation are all pluses in our book.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti is powerful, small and budget friendly. Three words that usually don't go together when you are talking about desktop graphics cards!

In general, EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC is a good graphics card that runs well, consumes little, stays quiet and doesn’t get very hot. In turn, simple cooling was sufficient to keep the card cool. Consumption-performance ratio is exceptionally good. The only thing we did not like was the operating noise in question which resembles a faint squeal of sorts, a high pitched tone. The card is sufficient for 1080p gaming, unless you’re absolutely bent on maxing out all the settings. Once you put the GTX 650 Ti’s price and its 1920x1080 performance in perspective, you’ll see that it ranks slightly lower than the competing Radeon HD 7850. EVGA offers the GTX 650 Ti in 2GB and 1GB flavors, where the former costs some €10 more. If you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed 3, then you should know that EVGA bundles this game in certain regions with their GTX 650 Ti 1GB card.

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.