NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 - The Affordable Kepler

Kepler for the Masses!

Just last week, NVIDIA released the first of their true mainstream Kepler graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 660. Priced at US$229, the GeForce GTX 660 is much more affordable than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti and was likened by NVIDIA to the widely popular GeForce 8800 and 9800 GT. In our own testing, we found the new GeForce GTX 660 to be an exceptionally capable and value for money card.



On that same day, NVIDIA also released an even more affordable Kepler for the masses - the GeForce GTX 650. The GeForce GTX 650 was designed by NVIDIA to provide the most affordable graphics card for DX11 gaming at full HD 1080p resolution and this new card is priced at US$109.

On paper, the GeForce GTX 650 uses the GK107 core which has a single GPC (Graphics Processing Cluster) and two SMXs (Streaming Multiprocessor). The end result is that the GeForce GTX 650 has 384 CUDA cores, 32 texture units and 16 raster operating units - significantly lesser than what the GeForce GTX 660. The GeForce GTX 650 will also be offered with either 1GB or 2GB of framebuffer.



For those who are familiar with NVIDIA’s lineup of cards, you’ll find that these numbers are identical to the earlier released GeForce GT 640 (the retail version). It also uses the same GK107 core, has the same memory bus interface (128-bit) and same memory clock speeds (5000MHz DDR), which also means overall memory bandwidth remains the same at 80GB/s. And like the GeForce GT 640, the GeForce GTX 650 is missing GPU Boost, NVIDIA’s dynamic overclocking technology, and also lacks SLI.

The one area the GeForce GTX 650 has been beefed up however is its core clock speeds, which has been bumped up considerably to 1058MHz at the core as compared to the GeForce GT 640’s 950MHz. For all intents and purpose, the GeForce GTX 650 is really a beefed up version of the GeForce GT 640.



Nevertheless, NVIDIA claims that the GeForce GTX 650 will be able to provide a decent gaming experience at 1080p resolution with moderate graphics settings. And with its suggest retail price of US$109, it’s targeted squarely at AMD’s Radeon HD 7750.



Here's a quick look at how NVIDIA's latest SKU stacks up against the competition.

The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition

Our GeForce GTX 650 test card comes in the form of the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition. The card is mildly factory-overclocked and comes with an interesting cooling feature. For starters, the core clock speed has been slightly boosted to 1124MHz - a modest increase of around 6% compared to the reference specs. Memory clock speeds are unchanged at 5000MHz DDR.



Apart from the higher core clock speeds, the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition also comes with Triple Overvoltage function, which lets users tweak the GPU, memory and PLL voltage for maximum overclocking potential. The power circuitry of the card has also been upgraded (with more power phases) for higher efficiency and stability at load. Both technologies work hand in hand to let users achieve higher overclocks on the card.



However, the highlight of this card, however, has got to be MSI’s unique TwinThermal cooling system. The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition comes with an additional fan that can be attached onto the card in two ways. Either on top of the existing fan or slide the cooler cover aside and you can place the additional fan side by side with the existing one. It’s an interesting custom cooling system and we are eager to see if it really works in practice. We first spotted this unique design back in Computex 2012 as MSI showed it off with their Radeon HD 7770 Power Edition graphics card.

Test Setup

As usual, the following are the specs of our trusty graphics card test bed system:

• Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)
• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
• 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill memory in triple channel mode
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Since we don’t have a reference GeForce GTX 650 on hand, we will be downclocking the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition to simulate its results. The GeForce GTX 650 will be pitted squarely against the AMD Radeon HD 7750. In June, AMD announced that the Radeon HD 7750 will have its clock speeds bumped up to 900MHz, however, availability of such cards are low. The majority of Radeon HD 7750 cards in the market are still running with a core clock speed of 800MHz so that will be the version of the Radeon HD 7750 which will serve as our point of comparison.

We have also added results from the recently tested GeForce GTX 660 and the Radeon HD 7770 and Radeon HD 7870. And to see how the GeForce GTX 650 fares in comparison with older NVIDIA cards, we’ve also included results of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GeForce GTX 460 Ti. That said, we are also interested to see how the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition will fare - how much more performance it’ll give over a reference card and how effective its unique custom cooler is.

Since the target group of users for these cards aren't likely to game at very high resolutions, we've also tested the GTX 650 and the Radeon HD 7700 series cards at the resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels to give an idea how they would fare. We didn't have time to test the speedier cards at this mainstream resolution, but it's sufficient to say that they are much more powerful and won't face issues addressing game play at this resolution.

The list of cards tested and driver versions used:

• MSI GTX 650 Power Edition (ForceWare 306.23)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 (ForceWare 306.23)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 306.23)
• AMD Radeon HD 7750 (Catalyst 12.8)
• AMD Radeon HD 7770 (Catalyst 12.8)
• AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB GDDR5 (AMD Catalyst 12.8)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 305.37)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Ti 1GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 305.37)

The list of benchmarks used:

• Futuremark 3DMark 11
• Unigine v2.1 "Heaven"
• Far Cry 2
• Crysis Warhead
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Crysis 2
• Batman: Arkham City
• Dirt 3
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

3DMark 11 Results

We begin our analysis of the new GeForce GTX 650 and the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition with the very popular 3DMark 11 benchmark. The latest iteration of FutureMark’s benchmarking utility makes extensive use of all DirectX 11 features such as tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading, making it a good gauge of a card’s performance.

On 3DMark 11, the GeForce GTX 650 performed better than the Radeon HD 7750. Its scores were on average about 14% better. On the other hand, the slightly boosted MSI GTX 650 Power Edition scored about 5% better than a reference GeForce GTX 650. That said, the GeForce GTX 650 is very much far down the performance ladder when compared to the next card in the Kepler line-up, the GeForce GTX 660. In comparison, the GeForce GTX 650 could only score half the 3DMark result of the more powerful GeForce GTX 660. This goes to show just how significant the cuts made to the GK107 core are. This also means you can expect a GTX 650 Ti to plug this gap shortly.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Results

Next, we move on to Battlefield Bad Company 2, one of the earliest DirectX 11 first-person shooters. Here we saw that the GeForce GTX 650 was noticeably quicker than the competing Radeon HD 7750 by more than 20%. In fact, a reference-clocked GeForce GTX 650 was marginally quicker still than the more costly Radeon HD 7770. The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition, with its higher clock speeds, was about 5% faster than a stock GeForce GTX 650.

Crysis Warhead Results

Even today, Crysis Warhead is still considered a pretty taxing benchmark, but it is running on DirectX 10 and not the de facto standard expected today that is DirectX 11.

Compared to its direct rival, the Radeon HD 7750, the GeForce GTX 650 was was about 5% to 10% faster. The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition was yet again about 5% faster than a reference GeForce GTX 650. Looking at the frame rates, it also goes to show that despite its age, Cryis Warhead remains to be a very demanding game.

Note also the substantial gulf in performance between these cards and a Radeon HD 7870 and GeForce GTX 660. While the latter cards could post playable frames ( > 30fps) even at 1920 x 1200, the GeForce GTX 650 and Radeon HD 7750 failed to do so even at 1680 x 1050. Hence, be prepared to sacrifice on graphics settings if you are intending to play with these cards at high resolutions.

 

Far Cry 2 Results

NVIDIA cards usually perform well on Far Cry 2 and it was no different with the new GeForce GTX 650 and the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition. The reference GeForce GTX 650 was a good 10% to 20% faster than the Radeon HD 7750 and could even match the costlier Radeon HD 7770. As for the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition, it was only marginally quicker than a reference GeForce GTX 650. Interestingly, the GTX 650 is able to provide close to the minimum required frame rate at the maximum resolution and with higher quality anti-aliasing applied. That doesn't meant it's stutter free, but you can still get by if you're not demanding.

Again, we can see the gulf in performance between the GeForce GTX 650 and the next card up in NVIDIA’s current hierarchy, the GeForce GTX 660. The GeForce GTX 660 is about twice as fast and in a completely different league. 

Crysis 2 Results

Much like its predecessor, Crysis 2 requires a beast of machine to run smoothly at the highest quality settings - even with a mainstream resolution. Here, our GeForce GTX 650 and Radeon HD 7750 all posted scores well below what would be deemed as minimum frame rates (at least 30fps). Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that on Crysis 2, the Radeon HD 7750 and the GeForce GTX 650 was on a par, with the custom edition MSI GTX 650 Power Edition being only marginally quicker than a reference GeForce GTX 650. Once more, we can see the extreme gulf in performance between the GeForce GTX 650 and the recently launched GeForce GTX 660.

Dirt 3 Results

Dirt3 was one of the poster boys for DirectX 11 gaming as it was one of the earliest titles to support it. Looking at the results here, the GeForce GTX 650 was a good 15% or so faster than the Radeon HD 7750. And it could still generate playable frame rates even at 1920 x 1200 pixels resolution - and this was at the Ultra graphics quality settings! Clearly, it will have no problems handling this game at 1080p resolution. The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition was again only slightly quicker than a reference GeForce GTX 650. 

Batman: Arkham City Results

On Batman: Arkham City, there was hardly any difference between the GeForce GTX 650 and Radeon HD 7750. Despite being slightly overclocked, the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition also failed to post any gain in performance. Elsewhere, we noted that the Radeon HD 7770 was about 5% to 10% quicker than the GeForce GTX 650 and the GeForce GTX 660 and Radeon HD 7870 were both miles ahead. Judging from our results, it is entirely possible to achieve playable frame rates with the GeForce GTX 650 on Batman: Arkham City if you turn the graphics settings down a notch or two. 

Unigine "Heaven" Results

Unigine’s “Heaven” benchmark is an extremely tessellation-intensive benchmark and the GeForce GTX 650 managed to eke out a narrow win over the Radeon HD 7750. Overall, it was about 5% or so quicker, but in real world, the advantage is around a single frame or two, so really, there’s not much difference. The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition was quicker than a reference-clocked GeForce GTX 650, but again, the difference was not much. Also, note that the performance of the next tier cards - the Radeon HD 7870, GeForce GTX 660 - are in a completely different league. Clearly, the cut-down GK107 core is no way near as potent as the GK106 core found in the GeForce GTX 660.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Results

On S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, the GeForce GTX 650 posted a marginal lead over the Radeon HD 7750 in both runs with anti-aliasing disabled. However, once we enabled 4x anti-aliasing, the Radeon HD 7750 managed to match the GeForce GTX 650. Yet again, the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition was about 5% quicker than a reference edition card.

Temperature

Since the scores of our reference GeForce GTX 650 was 'simulated' by downclocking the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition, we will only be reporting the temperature, power consumption and overclocking scores for the MSI card.

The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition ran really cool, recording a maximum operating temperature of only 49 degrees Celsius, significantly lower than our reference Radeon HD 7750 and HD 7770. To test MSI’s TwinThermal cooling system, we also measured the temperature of the card with the cooler in its two positions. With the additional cooler stacked on top of the existing one, temperatures dipped slightly to 47 degrees Celsius. With the additional fan placed along side, temperatures dipped even more to 44 degrees Celsius. 

Power Consumption

According to NVIDIA, the official TDP of the GeForce GTX 650 is just 64W. However, our MSI GTX 650 Power Edition recorded power draw figures that suggests it is not as power-thrifty as a reference card would be. Our system's maximum recorded power draw was around 173W, a good 13% more than the Radeon HD 7750. It’ll be interesting to see how much less power a reference-design GeForce GTX 650 would draw because it doesn't have a PCIe Molex power connector like the MSI card that's geared for overclocking.

Overclocking

The MSI GTX 650 Power Edition is an able overclocker. By maxing out the voltages of the GPU core, memory and PLL, we were able to run the card at 1284MHz at the core and 5400MHz DDR at the memory, significantly higher than the card’s stock speeds. This gave us 3540 3DMarks at the Performance preset and 1146 3DMarks at the Extreme preset - an increase of 10% and 12% respectively. 

Not a KO Victory

NVIDIA had said that Kepler would change the game, and it did. The new Kepler chip introduced storming performance and incredible efficiency, and really shook things up for enthusiasts. Six months on, and NVIDIA has finally made Kepler affordable and available to mainstream gamers, but has it lost some of its luster?

In the case of the GeForce GTX 650, the answer depends on how you look at it. Essentially a boosted GeForce GT 640, the GeForce GTX 650 has much less hardware than the GeForce GTX 660. With less than half the number of CUDA cores and texture mapping units, significantly less raster operating units and memory bandwidth, the GeForce GTX 650 is much weaker on paper than the GeForce GTX 660 and the results shows. In our testing, we found that the GeForce GTX 650 was only around half its performance.

However, the GeForce GTX 660 is also twice as expensive. And bearing in mind the fact that we test our cards at maximum or near maximum graphics quality settings, the GeForce GTX 650 actually held itself pretty well. If one were to tune the graphics settings down a notch or two, the GeForce GTX 650 could easily hold itself well right up to full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. Furthermore, compared to its direct rival, the Radeon HD 7750, it was quicker in almost all instances and often by a healthy margin of around 10%. In some cases, it could even rival the costlier Radeon HD 7770. Therefore, if you take US pricing into account, the GeForce GTX 650 is the better buy if you are looking for a graphics card in the US$100 bracket.

Locally, however, retail prices tell a different story mostly because Radeon HD 7750 cards are significantly cheaper. At the time of writing, Radeon HD 7750 cards are going for mostly around S$180, while the GeForce GTX 650 cards are pegged at around S$220. And when you consider that for S$220 you could also get a Radeon HD 7770, which is at least as quick as if not quicker, then suddenly, the GeForce GTX 650 looks less tempting.

In this very price sensitive segment of the market, it is therefore important to pay attention to your local market pricing. But on a whole, the GeForce GTX 650 is an accomplished card that rewards you with full HD gaming so long as you are willing to sacrifice a bit of graphics quality and features such as GPU Boost and SLI.

In conclusion, unlike the earlier higher-end Kepler cards, the GeForce GTX 650 does not score a convincing KO victory over its competitor, at least in the Singapore market. While the GeForce GTX 650 might be faster, it also costs more and we are not entirely convinced that the added performance is justified, especially if you are on a tight budget.

As for the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition, it has a local pricing of S$219, which is reasonable considering its boosted clock speeds and additional features. In stock form, it offers a marginal performance boost over a reference GeForce GTX 650, but its appeal lies in its overclockability. In overclocked form, it managed to give as much as a 10% boost in performance, which can be appreciable especially in more demanding usage scenarios.

The TwinThermal cooling system is an interesting feature but a bit of a novelty. Although we recorded noticeable cooling performance especially with the additional fan along side the existing one in a dual-fan array, stacking the additional fan on top of the existing one doesn’t make much sense since it doesn’t improve cooling performance as much. It also turns the MSI GTX 650 Power Edition into a triple-slot card, which can be tricky to manage if you have a more compact casing or if you are using a micro-ATX board and have other PCI/PCIe add-on cards.

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