NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, making a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences.
While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA’s first big naming departure for two decades of GeForce GTX.
The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance.
NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing for more reasonable prices and as such, going back to the good old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX cards support.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 – The Pricing and Where It Stands In The Turing Family
We have already tested the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660 earlier. Today, we will be taking a look at the newly launched GeForce GTX 1650 which was introduced yesterday. The card has a price point of $149 US, making it the cheapest entry into the Turing based family. While the card is said to offer competitive performance, NVIDIA didn’t provide drivers to the press until the launch which is why the majority still haven’t posted their reviews even though we had the cards in our hands for some time now.
The GeForce GTX 1650 goes up against the Radeon RX 570 4 GB which is up for sale at under $149 US on various retail outlets. The GTX 1650’s strong points can be its Turing architecture which has been tuned for power efficiency but that is something we have to conform ourselves in this review.
When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660, on the other hand, try to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a popular gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | Titan X (Maxwell) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan Xp (Pascal) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan RTX (Turing) |
| Price | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $2999 US | $2499 US |
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
| Price | $649 US | $649 US | $699 US | $999 US | $999 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce RTX 2080 |
| Price | $549 US | $549 US | $549 US | $699 US | $699 US |
| High-End Tier | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce RTX 2070 |
| Price | $329 US | $379 US | $379 US | $499 US | $499 US |
| Mainstream Tier | GeForce GTX 960 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 |
| Price | $199 US | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $349 US $279 US $219 US |
| Entry Tier | GTX 750 Ti GTX 750 |
GTX 950 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1650 |
| Price | $149 US $119 US |
$149 US | $139 US $109 US |
$139 US $109 US |
$149 US |
For this review, I will be taking a look at two custom models, the GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X from MSI and the GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC from Gigabyte. Both cards are based on a complete custom design and feature high-end cooling system to keep the GPU running cool. In terms of the price model, both cards are said to feature a price close to $149 US.
With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference models, the custom variants offer a range of features such as triple fan coolers, bulky heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher air flow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.
In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and RTX/DLSS features deep dive, head over to this link.[nextpage title=”NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and Turing TU117 GPU”]
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is based on the same Turing architecture that is found on the RTX cards. The main differences between the Turing based RTX and GTX lineup is that only RTX 2060 and above feature hardware support for tensor and ray tracing operations while the GTX series has been stripped off from these specific features.
Based on the 12th Generation Turing GPU architecture, the TU117 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 1650 features the same shader innovations that were introduced on Turing but to balance it out in terms of power, cost and performance, a few adjustments had to be made. This is done through the exclusion of RT cores and Tensor cores on the GeForce GTX cards with Turing architecture. It is pointed out that the Turing architecture on GeForce GTX still delivers improved performance & better efficiency compared to its predecessor while supporting concurrent floating point and integer Ops.
So let’s talk about the balanced architecture design of the Turing TU117 and how it still manages to improve upon its Pascal based predecessors. The first thing to mention is the three big changes in the Turing SM. The revamped structure of the Turing TU117 SM enables processing of FP32 & INT operations concurrently through the use of dedicated cores within the SM. The list of features that Turing TU117 GPU adds over Pascal GP106 include:
- Concurrent FP and INT operations
- Variable Rate Shading
- Unified Cache Architecture
- Dedicated FP16 Cores
- Volta NVENC Support
The Turing SM can also perform FP16 operations at double the rate of FP32. The Turing TU117 GPU is rated at 6 TOPs (FP+INT), 6 TFLOPs FP16 and an improved bandwidth due to the higher cache count compared to the Pascal-based GP107.
If we look at some modern gaming titles, then we can see that developers are widely mixing floating point operations with integer instructions. For every 100 instructions in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for example, 62 are floating point and 38 integers, on average. In previous GPUs, the floating point math datapath in the SM would sit idly whenever one of these non-FP-math runs. Turing adds a second parallel Integer execution unit never to ever CUDA core that executes these instructions in parallel with floating point math.
Now coming to the raw specifications of the GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The TU117 GPU is fabricated on the TSMC’s 12nm FFN (FinFET NVIDIA) process node. It features 2 GPCs, 8 TPCs, and 14 Turing SMs. Each SM contains 64 cores which equal to a total of 896 CUDA Cores. There’s also 56 Texture Units and 32 Raster Operation Units on the card. The base clock is maintained at 1485 MHz while the boost clock is maintained at 1665 MHz.
The GeForce GTX 1650 features 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM running along a 128-bit bus interface. The memory system would be clocked at 8.0 Gbps delivering an effective bandwidth of 128 GB/s. The card is rated at 3.0 TFLOPs FP32 and 6 TFLOPs FP16 compute power. Officially, the card doesn’t require any external power connector but manufacturers offering factory overclocked cards have added them nonetheless. Display outputs include a single DisplayPort, a single DVI-D, and an HDMI connector.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX/GTX "Turing" Family:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | Turing GPU (TU117) | Turing GPU (TU116) | Turing GPU (TU116) | Turing GPU (TU106) | Turing GPU (TU106) | Turing GPU (TU104) | Turing GPU (TU102) |
| Process | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN |
| Die Size | 200mm2 | 284mm2 | 284mm2 | 445mm2 | 445mm2 | 545mm2 | 754mm2 |
| Transistors | 4.7 Billion | 6.6 Billion | 6.6 Billion | 10.6 Billion | 10.6 Billion | 13.6 Billion | 18.6 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 896 Cores | 1408 Cores | 1536 Cores | 1920 Cores | 2304 Cores | 2944 Cores | 4352 Cores |
| TMUs/ROPs | 56/32 | 88/48 | 96/48 | 120/48 | 144/64 | 192/64 | 288/96 |
| GigaRays | N/A | N/A | N/A | 5 Giga Rays/s | 6 Giga Rays/s | 8 Giga Rays/s | 10 Giga Rays/s |
| Cache | 1.5 MB L2 Cache | 1.5 MB L2 Cache | 1.5 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 6 MB L2 Cache |
| Base Clock | 1485 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1365 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1515 MHz | 1350 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1665 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1770 MHz | 1680 MHz | 1620 MHz 1710 MHz OC |
1710 MHz 1800 MHz OC |
1545 MHz 1635 MHz OC |
| Compute | 3.0 TFLOPs | 5.0 TFLOPs | 5.5 TFLOPs | 6.5 TFLOPs | 7.5 TFLOPs | 10.1 TFLOPs | 13.4 TFLOPs |
| Memory | Up To 4 GB GDDR5 | Up To 6 GB GDDR5 | Up To 6 GB GDDR6 | Up To 6 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 11 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 8.00 Gbps | 8.00 Gbps | 12.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 352-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 128 GB/s | 192 GB/s | 288 GB/s | 336 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 616 GB/s |
| Power Connectors | N/A | 8 Pin | 8 Pin | 8 Pin | 8 Pin | 8+8 Pin | 8+8 Pin |
| TDP | 75W | 120W | 120W | 160W | 185W (Founders) 175W (Reference) |
225W (Founders) 215W (Reference) |
260W (Founders) 250W (Reference) |
| Starting Price | $149 US | $219 US | $279 US | $349 US | $499 US | $699 US | $999 US |
| Price (Founders Edition) | $149 US | $219 US | $279 US | $349 US | $599 US | $799 US | $1,199 US |
| Launch | April 2019 | March 2019 | February 2019 | January 2019 | October 2018 | September 2018 | September 2018 |
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X ($149.99 US) Overview”]
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X is the top variant within MSI’s GTX 1650 series family. This graphics card utilizes the most advanced version of the iconic Twin Frozr cooling system known as the Twin Frozr VII. This graphics card is available in the market for $149.99 US right now which is great considering you get a fully custom design at the reference price. The good thing with this graphics model though is that it excels upon the standard reference models in all possible ways.
In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 features 896 CUDA cores, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Turing TU117 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 200mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1485 MHz for Base and 1665 MHz for Boost. The MSI Gaming X model is clocked up to 1860MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.
The chip packs a total of 3.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 4 GB GDDR5 memory interface running along a 128-bit wide bus interface that delivers 128 GB/s bandwidth. The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X is powered by a single 6 pin connector and has a TDP of 75W.
The Gaming X design is built upon the foundations of the previous Gaming X layout with dual Torx 3.0 fans that come with Zero Frozr technology and the dispersion fan blade design, allowing higher airflow to reach the heatsink underneath the shroud. The card features a custom 3+1 phase power design on the PCB and is powered by a single 6 connector.
Following are some of the features of the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X before we go into detail:
Features
Core/Memory
- Boost Clock / Memory Speed
1860 MHz / 8 Gbps - 4GB GDDR5
- DisplayPort x 2 / HDMI x 1
Twin Frozr 7 Thermal Design
- TORX Fan 3.0
– Dispersion fan blade: Steeply curved blade accelerating the airflow.
– Traditional fan blade: Provides steady airflow to massive heat sink below. - Mastery of Aerodynamics: The heatsink is optimized for efficient heat dissipation, keeping your temperatures low and performance high.
- Zero Frozr technology: Stopping the fan in low-load situations, keeping a noise-free environment.
Dragon Center
- A consolidated platform that offers all software including MYSTIC LIGHT functionality for your MSI Gaming product.
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X Package”]
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X graphics card comes within a standard cardboard based package. The front of both packages has a large “GeForce GTX” brand logo along with the “MSI” logo on the top left corner. A picture of the graphics card can be seen on the front which as I’ve said before, is a nice touch from MSI.
The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR5, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.
The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI’s top tier custom cards are its Torx 3.0 fan design, the upgraded & much efficient Twin Frozr 7 heatsink design and support for the Mystic Light RGB implementation.
There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.
There’s a letter case within the box which is etched with the MSI logo. This box contains the card accessories and the graphics card itself is hidden behind it.
The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a Molex power connector which isn’t of much use in high-end systems since the PSUs already have the required cables.
Useful manuals and installation guides are packed within an MSI labeled letter case. There is an MSI Quick Users Guide, a Support bracket installation guide, a sticker letter, the MSI DIY comic, and a single drivers disk. It’s best to ignore the driver disk and install the latest software and graphics drivers directly from the NVIDIA and MSI official web pages as the ones shipped in the disks could be older versions and not deliver optimal performance for your graphics cards.
Out of the package, the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 comes in a stylish black and grey color scheme which looks stunning. The shroud is an update to the previous Twin Frozr VI which we remember from the GeForce 10 series era.
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X Closer Look + Teardown”]
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X is a very compact graphics card and it looks to be a great solution for many gaming PCs and even the more small form factor designs. Even with such a small design, MSI has packed a lot in this graphics card such as the enhanced Twin Frozr 7 heat sink, the dual Torx 3.0 fans and a custom PCB which is far better than the one featured on the Founders Edition. The cards weigh in at just 957 grams and have dimensions of 247 x 129 x 52 millimeters.
The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don’t have to worry about installation as this compact graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of. The back of the card does not feature any backplate which the GTX 1660 and above from MSI do include.
In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Twin Frozr heatsink for MSI GTX 16 series cards which is now in its seventh variation. The first iteration of the Twin Frozr heatsink goes all the way back to the GeForce 200 series era and you can tell that this heatsink design has come a long way since.
Compared to the MSI Gaming X Trio, the Gaming Z with Twin Frozr looks vastly similar but unique too. It has the same fans, a similar shroud, and a smaller backplate, all within a compact design. I personally think that the compact version looks much better than its bigger and beefier sibling that is used on the higher-end cards.
Coming to the fans, the card features the Torx 3.0 system. Both fans combine traditional and dispersion fan blade technology to offer better cooling performance.
The dispersion fan blade technology has a steeper curved blade that accelerates airflow and as such increases effectiveness in keeping the GPU cool. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.
MSI also features their Zero Frozr technology on the Tri Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Tri Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don’t feature any NVLINK connector as they don’t support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn’t the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher end cards.
With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what’s beneath the hood of the GTX 1650 Gaming X. I can see that MSI has made no compromise with this graphics card even though its a much smaller version of the Gaming X Trio series cards. The same heatsink technology is used on Gaming X.
The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that may actually offer better cooling to a GPU like the Turing TU117.
Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 2x 6mm concentrated copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the base to the heatsink more effectively.
MSI is using direct contact heat pipes which go right over the GPU to help dissipate heat faster and more effectively. To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X has a single 6 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 75W (reference TDP).
I/O on the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X graphics card includes two Display Port 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.0b connector.
MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X PCB Teardown
MSI makes use of a 3+1 phase PWM design that includes their Military Class components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chok, s and Japanese Solid Caps.
Following are a few close-up shots of the reference PCB which is being offered under the hood of the Gaming X series graphics cards.
MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X Mystic Light RGB
MSI GTX 16 Gaming X series cards utilize their Mystic Light RGB technology to offer you a visually pleasing lighting experience on your graphics cards. There are a total of 17 different RGB effects which you can choose from and the cards have five RGB accent points, three on the front one on the back and one light bar surrounding the side of the card which looks really good. There’s also the ability to set the speed and brightness at which the RGB LEDs operate.
You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the MSI Mystic Light application from MSI’s web page.
Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.
[nextpage title=”Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC ($154.99 US) Overview”]
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC holds the top place in Gigabyte’s lineup for the GTX 1650 graphics card. It comes at a price of $149 US and has a very solid cooling system that should help keep the card cool at all times.
In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 features 896 CUDA cores, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Turing TU117 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 200mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1485 MHz for Base and 1665 MHz for Boost. The Gigabyte Gaming OC model is clocked up to 1815 MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.
The chip packs a total of 3.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 4 GB GDDR5 memory interface running along a 128-bit wide bus interface that delivers 128 GB/s bandwidth. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC is powered by a single 6 pin connector and has a TDP of 75W.
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC graphics card is fitted with the latest version of the Windforce 2X cooler. The Windforce 2X is the dual fan design which features two 100mm fans. These fans come with a unique blade fan design with the airflow being split by a triangular edge on the fan blade, guiding it smoothly through the 3D stripe curve on the fan surface. This helps enhance air flow by a good bit over traditional fan designs.
Following are some of the features of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC before we go into detail:
Features
- Powered by GeForce GTX 1650
- Integrated with 4GB GDDR5 128bit memory interface
- WINDFORCE 2X cooling system with alternate spinning fans
- 100mm unique blade fan
- RGB Fusion 2.0 – synchronize with other AORUS devices
- Protection backplate
- Core Clock – 1815 MHz (Reference card is 1665 MHz)
[nextpage title=”Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Package”]
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC graphics card comes in a standard cardboard box package. The front of the package has a large “GeForce RTX” brand logo along with a “Gigabyte” logo on the top left corner and the iconic Gigabyte robot eye in the middle.
The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR5, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.
The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The key aspects of Gigabyte’s Gaming custom cards are its Windforce 2X cooling system, the pure copper heatsink, protection metal backplate, and the new RGB Fusion 2.0 LED lighting.
There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.
The card accessories include a driver disk and an installation Quick Guide, there’s nothing else to see in the package apart from these and the card itself.
Out of the package, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC comes in a stylish black and grey color scheme which they have been using on their recent Windforce series cards.
[nextpage title=”Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Closer Look + Teardown”]
Gigabyte’s Windforce 2X heat sinks are a more compact version of their high-end Windforce 3x cooler design. The card measure in at 265 x 118 x 40 mm (Length, Width, Height) and comes in standard 2 slot design.
The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don’t have to worry about installation as this graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of.
The new heatsink looks like a more sleeker variant of the previous Windforce with the main changes being the shroud and heatsink design. In addition to the heatsink and shroud changes, you also get a slight bit of RGB in the new shroud which is compliant with Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion lighting system and is fully user-customizable.
The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks nice and offers a premium look on this entry-level card. There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. There are open vents for the hot air to move out from the back too.
Coming to the fans, the card actually features two different fan designs which utilize the Unique Blade Fan design. The airflow is split by the triangular fan edge, and guided smoothly through the 3D stripe curve on the fan surface, effectively enhancing the airflow.
In addition to the standard fan spin, Gigabyte Windforce fans have an alternate spinning mode. It leads the middle fan to spin in a clockwise manner while the two fans on the side spin in anti-clockwise mode. This helps reduce airflow turbulence and allow more airflow to be blown away from the card, effectively increase heat dissipation.
The fans are fully compliant with the 3D Active Fan technology which will allow the fans to stay in idle mode until the temps exceed a certain threshold. This threshold is based on both the GPU load and the temperatures, allowing for smooth and quiet operation under lower application loads.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don’t feature any NVLINK connector as they don’t support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn’t the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher end cards.
With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what’s beneath the hood of the GTX 1650 Gaming OC. The fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB.
Talking about the heatsink, there’s a single massive aluminum block with fins edged on the top side. The lower layer houses four heatpipes which offer direct contact with the GPU and dissipate heat over the entire surface area of the heatsink.
The heat pipes made direct contact with the GPU die, allowing for faster dissipation of heat from the core. Gigabyte is one of the few GPU manufacturers who is still using direct contact surfaces while others have switched over the nickel plated, cold plates. It will be interesting to see how this heatsink performs compared to the nickel plated designs we have tested more recently.
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC has a single 6 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 75W (reference TDP).
I/O on the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC graphics card includes a single Display Port 1.4a and three HDMI 2.0b connectors.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC PCB Teardown
Gigabyte makes use of a 4 phase PWM design that includes their Ultra Durable components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chokes, and Japanese Solid Caps.
Following are a few close-up shots of the reference PCB which is being offered under the hood of the Gaming OC series graphics cards.
[nextpage title=”Test Setup”]
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. Latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
GPU Test Bench 2019
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | AORUS Z390 Master |
| Video Cards | MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Armor OC ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning OC Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 (Reference Air) ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC XFX Radeon R9 Fury X Liquid Cooled |
| Memory | G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz |
| Storage | Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB) |
| Power Supply | ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit |
- All games were tested on 1920×1080 (HD), 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
- All cards run at their stock factory configured frequencies. Those that are manually overclocked have the “Overclock” label next to them. The OC part of the manufacturer naming scheme should not be mistaken as manual OC.
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Benchmarks (VULKAN)”]
DOOM
In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.
Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off
We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.
You can read our detailed analysis of GPU Culling and Deferred Rendering graphical settings for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus here![nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Benchmarks (DirectX 12)”]
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.
Hitman 2
Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO’s Interactive’s Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.
The Shadow of The Tomb Raider
Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine which delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Benchmarks (DirectX 11)”]
Assassins Creed: Origins
Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows the strength of its graphics in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.
We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.
Far Cry 5
Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.
Grand Theft Auto V
GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???
Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy’s: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).
The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition
Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Thermal Tests”]
No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. Both graphics cards that I tested are using advanced custom cooling solutions which come with silent and performance profiles. The cards were tested with the performance profile to see their full potential. Both cards use a dual fan cooler design with the Gaming X featuring MSI’s new Torx 3.0 fans while the Gigabyte Gaming OC makes use of the Windforce 2X cooling system. Both cards come with a PWM cooling but only the Gaming OC from Gigabyte features a backplate.
Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!
[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Power Consumption”]
I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plug in on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GTX 1650 is 75W (Reference) while the cards I tested feature custom PCBs with better power delivery. This puts the TDP of the card at the same level as the GeForce GTX 1050 series.
Also, it’s worth noting that the 12nm FFN process from TSMC is a refinement of their 16nm FF node. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amount of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chip built to date. It’s likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion – Priced Way Too High”]
Today, I got to test the third card within the Turing based GeForce 16 series family. A family that is similar and also different than the GeForce RTX 20 series lineup. The first two entrants to the GTX Turing lineup, the GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 offer very competitive performance at their respective prices along with the best in class power efficiency. Both of these cards were placed in the sub-300 USD segment and now Turing has arrived in the sub-200 USD segment which is largely dominated by AMD’s extremely popular and competitive Radeon RX 570 and RX 580 graphics cards. With our performance numbers, we can now tell whether it was worth waiting for the GTX 1650 or not.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 costs $150 US and custom models range anywhere from reference MSRP to $170 US. Given the specifications, I would’ve said it was a decent price but the first issue is that the Radeon RX 570 4 GB exists and it starts at $129 US. If that is not enough, you’re paying 150 bucks for a 4 GB GDDR5 graphics card whereas a new Radeon RX 570 8 GB graphics card can be bought for as low as $159 US. If you’re going for the standard 1080p resolution of gaming, then even the Radeon RX 580 4 GB option, starting at $169 US, is still a great option which delivers much better performance than the GeForce GTX 1650 out of the box.
You see, the problem with the graphics card is related to both the price and specifications. If you take a look at the GTX 1050 which we got with the Pascal lineup, it launched at $109 US. The $109 US price would’ve made the GTX 1650 a decent if not perfect option compared to the 4 GB RX 570 considering it boasts superb power efficiency, even with the 6 pin connector on board. The lower temps, lower acoustics and highly efficient and compact designs would’ve made this card work but at $149 US, I just can’t call this a perfect 1080p graphics card. In many upcoming titles with higher resolution textures, 4 GB VRAM would become a limitation, that’s why the RX 570 8 GB exists for just a few bucks more.
It would’ve been wise for NVIDIA to offer the full configuration of their TU117 core on the graphics card for the same price but I believe NVIDIA is keeping that for a future variant, possibly the GTX 1650 Ti which has been rumored for a while. If the GTX 1650 doesn’t perform well, I doubt how the Ti model would as it would cost around the same as the RX 580 4 GB models while performing under the RX 570 based on the numbers we have today. Now, NVIDIA has always had a market for such graphics cards as 75W designs are in huge demand in APAC based e-Cafe’s but for the general audience who demand better gaming performance, I don’t think the insanely good efficiency of this card is going to entice them much.
If we talk about the custom models, I think each AIB has tried their best to make their respective GTX 1650 stand out from the rest. The main models which I got today are the $149.99 MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X and the $154.99 Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC. Both graphics card are solid in terms of design, cooling and the little feature they have to offer which are a plus for such a small GPU.
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X at $149 US has the highest clock speeds of the two models at 1860 MHz, a better cooler with MSI’s TORX 3.0 fans and a fantastic Twin Frozr VII cooler design.
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X delivers exceptional results in terms of cooling performance and the card run at a stable boost speed of around 1950 MHz at most of the times through my test which means that even the toned down heatsink still performs great for TU117. The card rocks a great display configuration of three HDMI ports and a single DP port. There’s no backplate on the card but MSI does have a Dragon logo etched on the back of the PCB
Also, the card does feature some of the best efficiency for Turing GPUs that I have noticed. This is true for all GeForce 16 series cards (GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660 included). At 75W, it does shine in the efficiency department and just shows that come the 7nm GPUs, NVIDIA may stir up some impressive numbers on smaller dies with more cores, more RTX and more raw power. The cooling and thermals were great too with both cards performing great and the TORX and WindForce fans on both variants offering low noise levels.
I believe that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is stuck between the Radeon RX 570 and Radeon RX 580 4 GB models which are already so competitive price in the sub-$200 US segment, that everything else feels overpriced.
The GeForce GTX 1650 is a decent card, it’s not the best in this segment but it has some great things such as an extremely efficient GPU on a 12nm process, runs really cool, has many compact variants which are ideal for small form factor PCs and as I mentioned, you don’t have to be surprised if you see an e-Cafe running GTX 1650’s over Radeon RX 500 series only because of that impressive 75W TDP figure which is still good enough the play several of the most popular eSports titles there are today.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is an extremely efficienct graphics card with several compact designs such as the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X ($149) and Gigabyte GeForce GTX ($154) 1650 Gaming OC which run cool, make next to noise and can run on just about anything and play your favorite gaming titles at 1080p at a decent framerate. There’s also the RX 570 as its competition (starting at $129 US) which offers much better gaming performance minus the rest.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Score Card:
MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming X Score Card:
The post NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card Review Ft. MSI Gaming X and Gigabyte Gaming OC – Is Entry Level ($150 US) Turing Worth It? by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.
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