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We like the new box artwork, a fire breathing dragon. It may be slightly reminiscent of Zotac artwork, but it works well in a retail store environment, especially with younger kids.
A very sparse bundle, a software/driver disc and quick install guide. We recommend you grab the latest Forceware drivers from Nvidia's website however.
The Sparkle GTX650 OC Dragon Series is built around a tiny dark blue PCB with a silver and black cooler taking centerstage. It is reassuring to notice that Sparkle are using a large fan. This fan can also be popped out of the shroud for easy cleaning.
The Sparkle GTX650 OC Dragon Series takes power from a single 6 pin PCI power connector. Sadly it isn't SLI capable as there is no connector on the PCB.
A single slot I/O panel has output for two DVI connectors and a mini HDMI port.
The little PCB has 1GB of Samsung GDDR5 memory on board. The cooler is a simple design with no heatpipes, just a smoothed section positioned in the middle of a block. The large fan is positioned directly above this block.
The Sparkle GTX650 OC Dragon Series is based around the GK107 processor with a modest 384 CUDA cores, manufactured on the 28nm process. This particular ‘OC’ model has received a core clock increase to 1,098mhz. It ships with 1GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 128 bit interface.
Seems like a decent card for the money. good for a media center, but may they will bring out a single slot version.
Its a good point, I remember when a low end card struggled to get good frame rates at 1280×1024.
> It is worth pointing out that onboard graphics solutions just don’t make the grade for me, as I crave the highest image quality possible, only achievable from either Nvidia or AMD discrete solutions.
This might be about to change with the release of AMD’s desktop trinity parts (rumoreded for the 1st of October)
I would really like to see this card tested at more appropriate resolution and details. Its a $100 card its not meant to push 8AA@fullhd res.
The fact it can though is pretty incredible ! I was amazed to see it can cope with many engines at 1080p. I dont know anyone who games at 720p anymore anyway. but you can be sure it will cope with it if it can at 1080p