Read All About It: ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP Edition Unboxing!

There comes a time in every PC person's life when you need a new graphics card yet money's somewhat on the, how shall we put it, tighter side. That's OK, we've all been there. I've been in spots where I couldn't afford a DVI to VGA adapter, let alone the whole card!

Assuming things aren't that fiscally disconcerting, you may need a more budget-friendly graphics part for a quick upgrade, a cost-conscious build, or a secondary machine. Whatever the case may be, you may opt to go for something other than the absolutely out of the world top of the line deluxe range.

Thankfully, the 28nm generation has been very kind to us, with multiple sweet spot offerings. We've covered the 660's and the 7870's, now it's time for something even friendlier and yet, almost as powerful. Behold, the GTX 650 Ti!

It may not ship with a drum roll sample, but it's a cool card. Yes, it has DirectCU with dual fans on it, so it's literally cool. Actually 20% cooler and generally also quieter than the reference blueprint. But what makes it really cool is that it will run everything out there currently and coming soon in very nice detail. OK, it won't be able to handle full ultra, but you will get nice custom settings performance out of it, something along the lines of mid-high preferences. It's true, not everyone can be as well-equipped as yours truly.

The ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP has a 2.5 billion transistor GK106 core that's been factory-overclocked to 1033MHz boost, which is around 100MHz over reference. The 1GB GDDR5 memory runs at approx. 5400MHz, and the bus is 128-bit. There are 576 CUDA cores in the GPU logic, and the card is a two-slotter that measures 10.79". Not short, but will fit in mATX cases quite easily, unless you have those hard drives stacked in there.

As is typically the case with the seemingly tamer cards, they're sleepers waiting to be awoken, and the GTX 650 Ti got that suffix mostly because NVIDIA and partners figured out these cores can be pushed further. So the overclocking margin is definitely generous here, and you will be able to harness the card. Mind you, on stock dual fan air cooling it will only go so far, and I wouldn't count on it to break any AquaMark 3 world records any time soon, but for extra smoothness in games - yes, definitely.

To make this overclocking easier, ASUS yet again includes exclusive DIGI+ VRM digital voltage regulation and Super Alloy Power components. All solid-state capacitors. MOSFETs that laugh in the face of heat, and those concrete-core chokes I can't stop thinking about. I mean, concrete! That's something buildings are made of!

In short, if you want the game without the big spend, the GTX 650 Ti is definitely a great option to consider. I've been saying that a lot the last year. But that's only because the 28nm era has been so awesome thus far. So which one for you, GTX 650 Ti or GTX 660? Or above? Let us know!