ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review

RHKCommander959 - October 9, 2012
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Testing:

Testing of the ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP will consist of running it and comparison cards through the OverclockersClub.com suite of games and synthetic benchmarks. This will test the performance against many popular competitors. Comparisons will be made to cards of a range of capabilities to show where each card falls on the performance ladder. The games used are some of today's newest and most popular titles, which should be able to provide an idea of how the cards perform relative to each other.

The system specifications will remain the same throughout the testing. No adjustment will be made to the respective control panels during the testing, with the exception of the 3DMark 11 testing, where PhysX will be disabled in the NVIDIA Control Panel, if applicable. I will first test the cards at stock speeds, and then overclocked to see the effects of an increase in clock speed. The cards will be placed in order from highest to lowest performance in each graph to show where they fall by comparison. All NVIDIA comparison cards will be using the 306.23 drivers; AMD will be using Catalyst 12.8 drivers.

Processor: Core i7 2600K @ 4.4 GHz (100 MHz x 44)
CPU Cooling: Corsair H100
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z68AP-D3
Memory: Mushkin 993997 9-11-10-28 1866Mhz
Video Card: ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP
PSU: Corsair AX1200
Hard Drives: Corsair Force GT 240GB
Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
Optical Drive: LG DVD-RW
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit SP1

Comparison Video Cards:

Sapphire HD 7870 Flex
Sapphire HD 7950 OC
ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP
ASUS GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II TOP
ASUS GTX 660 DirectCU II TOP
MSI GTX 650 Power Edition
NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti

Overclocking:

ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP 1255MHz, Memory 1463 MHz

The ASUS card overclocked really well. Being that the card is fresh out means that some programs would not read the overclocked settings properly. Loading a 3D application in the background with the ASUS GPU Tweak software running shows the true speed. Much further than 1255MHz core and 1463MHz (~5850 effectively) memory would cause artifacts or freezing until the card recovered to stock clocks. Core voltage is able to be increased about an eighth of a volt to 1175mV. With the fans at 100% they were definitely audible but not deafening by any means. When left on auto they blend in well with the case fans.

Maximum Clock Speeds:

Testing for the maximum clock speed consists of looping Unigine 3.0 for 30 minutes each to see where the clock speeds fail when pushed. If the clock speed adjustment fails, then the clock speeds are adjusted and the test is rerun until each card passes the testing.