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News hardware & software 24 April 2019, 10:51

author: Bart Swiatek

GeForce GTX 1650 First Reviews - The Weakest Touring in Action

Yesterday, Nvidia's new graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1650, debuted on the market. There is no shortage of tests of this GPU on the web. How does it compare to the competitive RX Radeon? We have a breakdown of the most trustworthy reviews.

GeForce GTX 1650 First Reviews - The Weakest Touring in Action - picture #1
GeForce GTX 1650 launches. Source: eTeknix.

Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 1650 GPU was released yesterday. It's the most low-end card based on the Turing architecture, but is it really worth the buck? How will the GPU cope with the popular Radeon RX 570 and the inexpensive Pascal? We already know the experts' stand on this.

Drivers 430.39 WHQL and a small confusion

GeForce GTX 1650 First Reviews - The Weakest Touring in Action - picture #2

Yesterday, Nvidia released a package of Game Ready drivers designed for the new GeForce (and mobile GPUs GTX 16) - marked 430.39 WHQL. The software improves the performance in Mortal Kombat 11, Anthem and Strange Brigade. Unfortunately, it didn't all go without a hitch - the drivers were not available to the reviewers of the new GPU in advance, which prevented them from properly testing the unit. So, for some time, available was a product that was a complete mystery for potential customers.

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GTX 1650 specification compared to other cards. Source: VideoCardz.

Breakdown of GeForce GTX 1650 Reviews

TechSpot

Our cost per frame graph will paint the ultimate picture of where the GTX 1650 stands at launch. Two years after the release of the RX 570, we’re getting a GPU that's more costly per frame.(...) Even if we ignore the insanely good value RX 570, the RX 580 is still better value thanks to its recent price cuts, offering way more performance for a small price premium - Full Review Here

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GTX 1650 - payback in dollars per frame (1080p resolution). Source: TechSpot.

TechPowerUp

Averaged over all our benchmarks at 1080p, the MSI GTX 1650 Gaming X is 35% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti and 9% behind the Radeon RX 570. This makes the card 11% slower than even the GTX 1060 3 GB and 25% slower than the GTX 1060 6 GB, and puts it a whopping 49% behind the GTX 1660 (the next step up in the Turing product stack). (...) at that price point, the GTX 1650 is simply way too expensive. AMD's Radeon RX 570 can be found online for $130 and offers significantly higher performance - Full Review Here

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GTX 1650 in Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 1080p, DX12. Source: TechPowerUp.
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GTX 1650 in Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 1440p, DX12. Source: TechPowerUp.

3D guru

Little is wrong with what ZOTAC brought to the table with his card, however, Nvidia's price level might once again be bothersome. Right now if you browse around a bit you can get an AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB for 139 EUR/USD and the 8GB version at 149 EUR/USD. Especially the 8GB on that RX 570 gives it a massive advantage. Design wise ZOTAC did well, I mean this is a lovely looking and very compact product. It does not run hot, it's fairly silent and power consumption is low. So once again it's pricing that is going to be a problem. In reality, I find this to be a 99 USD domain card, but yeah we'll have to wait and see how prices are going to develop in the months to come - Full Review of Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming.

GeForce GTX 1650 First Reviews - The Weakest Touring in Action - picture #7
GTX 1650 in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - 1080p. DX12. Source: Guru 3D.
GeForce GTX 1650 First Reviews - The Weakest Touring in Action - picture #8
GTX 1650 in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - 1440p. DX12. Source: Guru 3D.

Nvidia's lost opportunity

Experts' opinions leave no doubt - the GeForce GTX 1650 is not a good card. The GPU offers decent, but not outstanding performance, forcing users to compromise on the level of detail even in 1080p resolution (higher resolutions aren't supported, but it was almost certain even before the testing began). The success of GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 made us hope for something more impressive.

The pros include comfort and energy efficiency, but these are not enough to compensate for the biggest issue of the GTX 1650 - the very poor price/performance ratio. For less money, we can buy a more powerful Radeon RX 570, and if we pay a little extra, we will also find a much stronger and more future-proof (thanks to 8 GB of memory) Radeon RX 580. In this situation it will be very difficult to opt for the weakest Turing - unless Nvidia significantly reconsiders its pricing policy.

  1. Nvidia - official website