OpenCL: GPGPU Benchmarks

Unlike the proprietary CUDA and APP APIs, OpenCL is platform-agnostic, presenting developers with a common base for creating applications optimized for parallelized architectures. Specifically, GPGPU is becoming more and more popular, since programmers now no longer need to code for a specific piece of hardware, but rather for the API, with the driver handling the rest. Gaming prowess aside, not all cards are created equal in terms of GPGPU performance, and so we’ll take a closer look at how the GeForce GTX 650 Ti stacks up against the competition, both old and new.

Of course, the most interesting comparison comes from comparing Nvidia's latest to its direct competitor, AMD’s Radeon HD 7850 with 1 or 2 GB of memory. Additionally, we are also evaluating how the various factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 650 Ti models behave at their respective clock frequencies. We are purposely not including the Radeon HD 7770 and GeForce GTX 650, since the GTX 650 Ti is meant to round out Nvidia’s mid-range family, while setting itself apart from these smaller models. Let’s see whether it succeeds.

As expected, AMD’s Radeons lead the pack when it comes calculating SHA-256 hashes. If you’re into bitmining, then none of Nvidia’s current- or past-generation cards are a good fit, and that applies to the GeForce GTX 650 Ti as well, even if you factor in its lower power consumption.

As comparisons with the factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 650 Tis show, performance scales practically linearly with clock frequency.

Once again, we're using LuxMark 2.0's slightly simpler scene for testing. Otherwise, the bars representing the GeForce GTX 650 Ti would have been nearly imperceptible. We see performance scale based on clock rate once again, and AMD's Radeon HD 7850 remains far out of reach.

PostFX combines OpenGL and OpenCL into one demanding workload. Although this benchmark comes directly from Nvidia’s own SDK, it also serves to demonstrate how quickly performance can shift with the introduction of a new architecture, such as AMD’s GCN.

The NQueens problem is the sole ray of light for the Nvidia cards here, and the GeForce GTX 650 Ti is finally able to beat out AMD's Radeon HD 7850.