EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost SC edition review - Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

The EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost SC edition is a product series that was introduced as a card that needs to compete with the new AMD Radeon HD 7790 (released last week), and yeah it successfully wins from that product in almost any scenario. The EVGA SC edition as such offers plenty of muscle to play today's games with good quality settings and Full HD monitor resolutions. While the rest of the 650 Cards are marginal and lack just a that little extra bite in performance, the Boost editions simply deliver what is needed. 

Performance

Realistically the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost edition graphics card is a good chunk faster compared to the R7790. While the AMD card with your standard image quality settings is in the 30~35 FPS range at Full HD resolutions, this GTX 660 Ti Boost is continuously in the 40 FPS range at 1920x1080/1200. And really it's precisely where you need to be. The frame-rates are based on modern game titles with good image quality settings. So yeah, Nvidia did really well. To be fair, this card is not a GeForce GTX 650... it's a GTX 660 with a few shader processors disabled. As such you see this product continuously being only a few frames per second lower than that GeForce GTX 660. But who cares right? For less money you get nearly the same performance -- that's a win.

That makes the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost the all new affordable 169 EUR entry-level to mainstream gaming card. Based upon Kepler architecture this product will get you all the benefits and features this architecture has to offer. Even getting 3 or 4 monitors connected is an option. For the GTX 650 series new is a SLi connector. 

Aesthetics

The EVGA SC edition is a product at entry level mid-range, that sounds a bit weird I know but it's the lowest SKU in mid-range. As such the product is affordable and therefor do keep in mind that the design and money you pay for this product need to be in line. Overall the design looks good with a nice black PCB. The cooler is not the best in the business but it certainly is okay.

Noise levels

Directly related to the aesthetics is the cooling and thus the noise levels. EVGA offers a reference based cooler with different shell. It really offers good performance, under game load it stays under 75 Degrees C. Much like the reference cooler though it makes a slight (what I can only describe as) humming / moaning noise. Not annoying, but it is there.

Power consumption

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost editions are rated at a 140 Watt TDP. That is on the high side for a 650 series card really but this again is due to the nature of the GTX 660 DNA this card uses. Our measurements show roughly 135 Watt at peak with a modern game is more in line with what you'll see, our model was a factory reference version so expect slightly higher numbers with Factory Faster clocked products. Take that 135 Watt and add to that the processor, memory, motherboard and other peripheral devices, our recommendation stands at a 500 Watt power supply, with a decent overclock that should be sufficient.

Overclocking

Overclocking then, there's not a lot of room left as with the high baseclock the card already is boosting towards 1200+ MHz, and that (without added voltage is roughly what the card can and will do. I say roughly as the boost versus overclock in the end depends a little on GPU transistor leakage and stuff like that. The board power design is 140 Watt, you may increase the power limit with another 10% which means 150~155 Watt of power consumption is at your disposal when overclocking. 

Price

As always prices remain debatable. We expect the EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost SC edition should sell for roughly 169 EUR which will differ a bit per country of course, based on the fact that it is the 2GB model, it comes overclocked at pretty interesting levels. 

Realistically the price comes down to 165 EUR then the card really is a little gem to purchase. For that money you will receive a nice 2GB graphics card that can play all the latest games at good image quality settings with very acceptable framerates at a resolution of 1920x1080/1200. So is it good value? Yes, it is a versatile and progressive card when it comes to features and options. 

Final words

Admittedly I am a bit of a fan of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost itself, the SC edition however ups it a notch in performance, and I like that. The product is one of the value for money type products that seems to be balancing out really well. The reason why I am excited about it is that the product allows you to play your games at 1920x1080 and everyone of you guys by now will have upgraded towards a monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080/1200. That's where this card will be a perfect fit as it balances out game quality and performance really well. 

The extra factory overclock is fun and seems to make a small difference, and hey now... every little bit helps right? If this is what your budget allows you to spend then yeah, very much recommended is it is a good value product. Obviously you'll get all the benefits from EVGA after sales as well.  

• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page