7850 vs 650 ti ssc

[cylon84]

In terms of longevity and price/performance, I'd like input on which would be a better selection. Also, how much does VRAM matter in terms of 1g (ie 1GB 7850 vs 2GB 650 ssc)

The main games I'm playing are WoW and Diablo III which both cards obviously run easy enough. I'm more concerned about picking up other games in the future (I'll also take input on game selection as well)

Another thing I'm concerned about is bottlenecking my GPU with my processor. I'm currently using an i5 2320. Will this be a problem?

 

[Yuriman]

I believe nV cards generally have an edge in blizzard games (haven't checked benches with recent drivers), but overall a 7850 will trade blows with a 650 Ti Boost and is a very comparable card at the same price. Overclocked I'd say a 7850 will generally have an edge, but maybe not in the games you play.

Prices in the tech market lately make me sad though. I picked up a 7850 2GB for my brother at $120 a few months ago, and good luck finding one at that price now.

 

[cylon84]

That was my concern. I read that 1G VRAM was enough for most games and I can get a 1G 7850 at the same price as a 2G 650 SSC (both at 160). From everything I've read, they are the "sweet spots" for price/performance

 

[Yuriman]

I'd probably opt for the 2GB SSC, in that case.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Are you talking about 650 Ti or 650 Ti Boost? There's a huge difference between those 2 cards.

7850 can barely use 2GB adequately but on a 650 Ti non-boost it's a complete waste.

 

[cylon84]

I'm talking about the 650 ti Super Super Clocked

Performance
NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti
768 Pixel Pipelines
1071 MHz GPU
34.27GT/s Texture Fill Rate


Memory
2048 MB, 128 bit GDDR5
5400 MHz (effective)
86.4 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

Interface
PCI-E 3.0 16x
DVI-I, DVI-D, Mini-HDMI

Resolution & Refresh
240Hz Max Refresh Rate
Max Analog : 2048x1536
Max Digital : 2560x1600 (Dual Link DVI Only)

Total Power Draw : 110 Watts

I'm willing to spring for the 7850 2GB (or the 660) for ~50-70$ more if it makes a substantial difference. I've read that the GPU core is "better" for the 7850 and the 660 but I haven't actually read how it's better and whether or not it justifies the increase in price.

 

[coffeejunkee]

"Better" might not be the correct word. Simply put, gpu's are like multicore cpu's except they have much more and smaller cores, fex. 768 for the 650 Ti you mentioned above. GTX 660 has the same cores, just more, 960 to be precise. This obviously makes the card faster. Same story for AMD cards.

Here you can see the difference in speed between the cards (roughly):

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_650_Ti_Boost/25.html

7850 and 650 Ti Boost are pretty much equally fast, 650 Ti is about 25% slower, 660 about 20% faster. 650 Ti SSC has overclock so it will be a bit faster than regular 650 Ti but not as fast as 7850.

They also have a review of a 1GB 7850:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Club_3D/HD_7850_RoyalQueen/

You'll see there's almost no difference with the 2GB version (except at very high resolutions but in those cases the 2GB version is too slow anyway).

Can't really say if you need 660 or not, but at the same price 7850 1GB is a much better deal than 650 Ti 2GB.

 

[el etro]

By ram matters, go gtx 650ti ssc. Equals GTX 650TiBoost.

 

[cylon84]

Thanks Coffee, that was helpful.

I'm a bit confused on two things though. If the SSC is, for all intents and purposes, equal to the 7850 in speed wouldn't the fact it holds more memory make it the stronger choice?

Secondly, why would the 2GB 7850 be outperformed by the 1GB?

 

[KompuKare]

I'm talking about the 650 ti Super Super Clocked
Performance

NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti
768 Pixel Pipelines
1071 MHz GPU
34.27GT/s Texture Fill Rate

Memory
2048 MB, 128 bit GDDR5
5400 MHz (effective)
86.4 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

650/650 Ti/650 Ti Boost is/was a very confusing SKU (although GT640 is worse). But that 650 Ti SSC is basically an overclocked 650 Ti so still a fair bit slower than 650 Ti Boost or the 7850.

The 650 Ti in that TPU review one coffeejunkee linked to would have been the one on left of this spec table:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_650_Ti_Boost/1.html
So the same memory speed & width, but the core clocked at 1071Mhz, which is +15% compared to the 650 Ti but the performance difference is nowhere near that. Actually it looks like W1zzard reviewed that 650 Ti SSC card too:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_650_Ti_SSC/27.html
About 4% faster than the normal 650 Ti and 20% slower than a 7850.

EDIT: as for 2GB vs 1GB 7850, the difference is very little and while both the core and ram are the same speed, that difference might be explained by variations in RAM timings/latencies or something. 1%-3% is anyhow within the error margin in benchmarking.

 

[el etro]

Thanks Coffee, that was helpful.

I'm a bit confused on two things though. If the SSC is, for all intents and purposes, equal to the 7850 in speed wouldn't the fact it holds more memory make it the stronger choice?

Secondly, why would the 2GB 7850 be outperformed by the 1GB?

650TI super super overclock is a non-reference(factory overclocked) version of reference GTX 650Ti.

HD 78501Gb in overall equals 78502Gb performance. Situations that need high framebuffer will favor 2Gb version.



I tell you to go with 2GB card because i played newer games on my 1GB reference 7770 and remember memory usage maxing out easily, even at 1440x900!

A Few today video cards can make your i5 2320 struggles. 650Ti ssc/HD 7850 will be no problem paired with your i5.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Thanks Coffee, that was helpful.

I'm a bit confused on two things though. If the SSC is, for all intents and purposes, equal to the 7850 in speed wouldn't the fact it holds more memory make it the stronger choice?

Secondly, why would the 2GB 7850 be outperformed by the 1GB?

What Kompukare said, SSC version is normal 650 Ti, not 650 Ti Boost. the factory overclock helps but it's not as fast as 7850. Check table at http://www.anandtech.com/show/6838/nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-review- for differences between both 650's.

650TI super super overclock is a non-reference(factory overclocked) version of reference GTX 650Ti.

HD 78501Gb in overall equals 78502Gb performance. Situations that need high framebuffer will favor 2Gb version.



I tell you to go with 2GB card because i played newer games on my 1GB reference 7770 and remember memory usage maxing out easily, even at 1440x900!

A Few today video cards can make your i5 2320 struggles. 650Ti ssc/HD 7850 will be no problem paired with your i5.

Sounds highly unlikely to me. I have 1GB 7790 myself and play at 1920x1080, I'm seeing around 500-600MB ram used typically. I will say though, if a game really needs more than 1GB a gpu like 7790 is too weak for it anyway and you'll still play at low fps.

 

[el etro]

What Kompukare said, SSC version is normal 650 Ti, not 650 Ti Boost. the factory overclock helps but it's not as fast as 7850. Check table at http://www.anandtech.com/show/6838/nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-review- for differences between both 650's.



Sounds highly unlikely to me. I have 1GB 7790 myself and play at 1920x1080, I'm seeing around 500-600MB ram used typically. I will say though, if a game really needs more than 1GB a gpu like 7790 is too weak for it anyway and you'll still play at low fps.

Crysis 3? BF4?

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Prices of cards are terrible right now. Are 7870's (2 gig) a decent price now?
Amazon has a Radeon 7870 for 220.00.
http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-DL-DV...words=amd+7870

Just a thought.

 

[el etro]

Prices of cards are terrible right now. Are 7870's (2 gig) a decent price now?
Amazon has a Radeon 7870 for 220.00.
http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-DL-DV...words=amd+7870

Just a thought.

We are talking about cards half pricier than this...

 

[coffeejunkee]

Crysis 3? BF4?

So what kind of fps you get when you are near 1GB ram usage? Can't be much. So I would say it's better to turn down some settings and play at decent framerate instead of watching 8x AA slideshow.

Or another way to look at it: 7770 is about as fast as older generation 6850. Nobody complained about 6850 having 'just' 1GB of ram. Or 5850/5870 before that, both faster than 6850, both had 1GB.

 

[el etro]

So what kind of fps you get when you are near 1GB ram usage? Can't be much. So I would say it's better to turn down some settings and play at decent framerate instead of watching 8x AA slideshow.

Or another way to look at it: 7770 is about as fast as older generation 6850. Nobody complained about 6850 having 'just' 1GB of ram. Or 5850/5870 before that, both faster than 6850, both had 1GB.

When the vram wall is hit, max FPS the graphical motor can obtain will be not reached. 7770 is faster than 6850 in newer games(and was not in 2012) because GCN arch contains more optimizations for current games. In Crysis 3, Battlefield 4 and many newer games vram usage goes past 1Gb when in good settings(settings that 7770 GPU surely can handle).

 

[rancherlee]

7850 needs 2gb. Mine used 1.7 in Bioshock, 1.4 in Tomb Raider, 1.9 in BF4 playing 1080p in a mixture of high and ultra setting. When overclocked by an EASY to get 30% or more it has plenty of power to push 40-50fps at those setting. It only going to get worse with new games and if mantle pans out they could possibly run games at setting that could surpass 2gb

 

[ocre]

WOW as his main game, you much better off with nvidia. that's been the case for awhile now.

i would like to ask the op where he is planning on buying his gpu

 

[Yuriman]

WOW as his main game, you much better off with nvidia. that's been the case for awhile now.

i would like to ask the op where he is planning on buying his gpu

I wasn't familiar with the 650 Ti SSC and assumed it was a Boost card, but if WoW and D3 are all we're talking about, it's probably a tossup stock vs stock. A 7850 will have a lot of overclocking headroom and if we're talking about only those two games, the VRAM difference probably won't matter, so if OP plans to overclock, it might be a slightly better choice.

A 7850 2GB is a better card in every way (equal in a worst case, e.g. WoW) but the question then becomes, "is it worth the extra cost considering my usage patterns?"

For the record, I like my 7850 but if it's not a clear choice, you might just flip a coin over it.

 

[ocre]

yeah, but it matters where he buys his GPU. The 650ti boost is getting very hard to find these days, at least new that is. but there are a few new ones on ebay for $149.99 + free shipping.

This would be hands down the better deal all the way around. It has more ram, its cheaper, and way faster for his gaming needs.

But i am not sure where he is shopping. Just know what i have always heard. Nvidia is usually the first pick for WoW players.

 

[cylon84]

WOW as his main game, you much better off with nvidia. that's been the case for awhile now.

i would like to ask the op where he is planning on buying his gpu

You can get the 650 from EVGA and BestBuy(free shipping) for 169.98

 

[coffeejunkee]

Well, you can get an R7 260X for 140-150 and it has 2GB too. Even if WoW favors Nvidia that card is so much faster I think it wins anyway. I'll say it again though, 2GB is a waste on a card like 650 Ti so you might as well go for 1GB version if you want it anyway.

 

[GTX650Ti]

You have got to be kidding? The 650 Ti non boost is on par with the 7850, The 650 Ti boost is well above the 7850, Also the 650 Ti has more than enough memory speed to handle 2GB and so does the 7850. I have no idea were you people get your info from. only a few benchmarks of the 650 Ti have been done and they are usually AMD fanboys doing the reviews. My card is a 650 Ti and it can play all games with eye candy with no problem at all. Yes the 7850 does have a little more power. But it does not justify the huge price gap. My 650 TI was only $104 after tax. The cheapest 7850 I could find was over $140 It is a good card but it is not worth it, If you are going to go around the $150 area you might as well pay a little more and get the 7870 or the 660.

 

[parvadomus]

You have got to be kidding? The 650 Ti non boost is on par with the 7850, The 650 Ti boost is well above the 7850, Also the 650 Ti has more than enough memory speed to handle 2GB and so does the 7850. I have no idea were you people get your info from. only a few benchmarks of the 650 Ti have been done and they are usually AMD fanboys doing the reviews. My card is a 650 Ti and it can play all games with eye candy with no problem at all. Yes the 7850 does have a little more power. But it does not justify the huge price gap. My 650 TI was only $104 after tax. The cheapest 7850 I could find was over $140 It is a good card but it is not worth it, If you are going to go around the $150 area you might as well pay a little more and get the 7870 or the 660.

650TI is by far slower then a 7850. Even the 650TI boost is destroyed when OCing both.