NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost adds a strong sub-$200 option to the company's lineup. Thanks to the added Boost clock algorithm and a beefed up 192-bit memory interface, we see massive performance gains compared to the GTX 650 Ti without Boost. EVGA's GTX 650 Ti Boost SuperClocked comes with a 92 MHz overclock out of the box, which is amongst the largest on the market. This gives the card a 6% performance boost over the reference design, which is quite significant, putting the card just 3% behind GTX 660 non-Ti. Memory clock remains unchanged; it would have been nice to see an overclock here. Compared to other cards, we see a large 31% improvement over the original GTX 650 Ti, which definitely makes the difference between "slow" and very playable at 1080p. Compared to AMD's lineup, we see performance that is 9% higher than the HD 7850 and 27% higher than the just-released HD 7790.
Overclocking on EVGA's card works very well and reaches good GPU clock levels but lower memory clock than what we have seen in reviews of other cards. However, when looking at performance at maximum OC, we see the GTX 650 Ti Boost SC take a leading spot, ending up a hair faster than other cards.
EVGA's heatsink handles the heat output of the GPU well, but seems to be a bit less capable than NVIDIA's reference design cooler; same noise, slightly higher temps. Temperatures are of course fine, but I, unlike cards from other board partners, see no evidence for a possible improvement in cooling potential. This also limits EVGA in their noise reduction options, and idle noise has apparently not been looked at at all. The card could be so much quieter since an idle temperature of 30°C provides plenty of headroom to do so.
Pricing of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost is fantastic. NVIDIA's recommended pricing for the 2 GB GTX 650 Ti Boost is only $169, which makes the card the most cost-effective solution on the market by a large margin. EVGA is asking a very reasonable $10 price increase, so the GTX 650 Ti Boost SC costs $180, which is the same price as HD 7850 that is a bit slower (but it includes a Bioshock Infinite coupon). With its large overclock out of the box, this card is definitely for those who don't want to bother with manual overclocking but are willing to pay a small premium for higher performance. Thanks to the generous overclock out of the box and the modest price increase, performance per dollar actually ends up slightly better than with NVIDIA's reference design.