Is The GTX 1650 Graphics Card Worth It. How good is a 1650 ti

Our latest synthetic benchmark is the 2017 Unigine release, Superposition. This benchmark does cover ray tracing, but it is performed in software, not hardware, and therefore does not use RT cores or other aspects of the GPU.

Is The GTX 1650 Graphics Card Worth It?

Is the NVIDIA GTX 1650 graphics card worth it or is it better with something else? See the simplest answer to this question here.

The GTX 1650 is a decent budget GPU. However, we strongly recommend that you buy the RX 570 instead – it offers better performance in the same price range.

If the high-end RTX 20 series cards are too expensive for you, and even the cheaper GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti are out of your budget, you’ve probably been waiting for a really affordable Nvidia card.

The GTX 1650 was introduced as Turing’s most affordable card, and people were understandably excited.

However, before you make a purchasing decision, make sure that it offers the best value for money. Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Read all about the GTX 1650 here: How does it work? Is it good? More importantly, is it worth your hard-earned cash?

Contents Show

Specifications

As you can see from the most critical specs mentioned above, the GTX 1650 doesn’t look spectacular. In any case, you shouldn’t expect a $ 150 GPU to surprise you with its paper specs. So how does it work in practice?

Well, the GTX 1650 offers a significant performance boost over the previous generation GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, so it’s a definite step up from the budget Pascal GPUs of the past.

Basically, it’s a reliable 1080p card. It can be squeezed for extra performance with a suitable cooler and has a very low power consumption.

However, it’s disappointing with the memory department as it only has 4GB of GDDR5 RAM. Unfortunately, that’s not enough with 2022 video game graphics, and it certainly won’t be able to handle resolutions higher than 1080p in more demanding games.

That said, the GTX 1650 is a decent budget card in its own right, but doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Considering its current price and competition, we simply can’t recommend it to anyone as a first choice, which brings us to our next point.

If my 1650 laptop had the same 1024 CUDA cores as the 1650 Ti, the difference would be even smaller. On the other hand, if my 1650 was the older GDDR5 model, the difference would be a bit bigger.

1650 Ti vs. 1660: Specs comparison and basic performance lowdown

Both the 1650 Ti and the 1660 share the same core clock speed, length, memory clock speed, memory type (GDDR5), and interface. Here are the main differences:

• The GTX 1660 has 1408 CUDA cores compared to 1024 in the 1650 Ti.
• the 1660 is also better at boost clocking (1785 MHz vs. 1725 MHz).
• the 1660 also has 1,900 million more transistors.
• The 1650 Ti has a TDP of 75 W compared to the 120 W of the 1660.
• the 1660 has the width of a 192-bit memory bus compared to the 128-bit 1650 Ti.

In terms of performance and standard benchmarks, the GTX 1660 performs 20-40% better than the 1650 Ti. Similar results also exist for differences in popular FPS games.

Comparison with other GPUs

It is difficult to say in absolute terms which one is better. However, it’s easy to get an idea by comparing both cards with a few other popular ones.

The GTX 1660 is a mid-range graphics card for decent gaming. It exceeds the several years old GTX 1060 6 GB. Nvidia has suggested that the expected 1660 performance is somewhere between the 10 and 20 series.

The GTX 1650 Ti surpasses the Nvidia 1050 in terms of performance. It has a TU117 based CPU, just a weak version of the TU116 in the GTX 1660. The AMD RX 570 8GB outperforms the GTX 1650 (it also has twice the memory and may be cheaper).

Moreover, its GDDR5 memory uses a 256-bit interface as opposed to the 128-bit used by the GTX 1650. Most importantly, it costs about as much as the GTX 1650, and many models are now easily grabbed at a discount.

Laptops used for testing

The two laptops I’m testing here are the Acer Nitro 5 with the GTX 1650 and the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 with the 1650 Ti. These are the exact graphics specs for both of the laptops I’m testing, so keep in mind that my 1650 doesn’t have up to the 1024 CUDA cores that Nvidia specifies. Plus, both of mine have the same 50 watt power limit and both of my laptops use GDDR6 memory as well.

It would be ideal to use the exact same laptop with GPU swap, but unfortunately I was not able to do so. Both of these laptops still have the same 6-core Ryzen 5 4600H and 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory in dual-channel mode, and considering I’m going to be focusing on the higher settings in games that are typically more GPU-related, we should it’s still waiting for a fairly honest comparison so that apart from that, let’s move on to some of the results.

20 games tested

Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested using the game benchmark. The 1650 Ti was less than three FPS higher than it was without the Ti, so there’s not much of a difference, but it’s still one of the biggest performance differences among the games in question, with Ti almost 8% ahead. The control was essentially the same on both. Technically, the other than the Ti 1650 was the front end, but that’s less than half a frame, which is definitely within the margin of error. The Apex Legends had less than 4fps ahead on 1650 Ti at all settings to the maximum, which was an above-average difference, making the Ti in this game about 5% faster. Battlefield 5 saw the biggest difference of all 20 games, with Ti 16% above the average FPS on ultra settings. CS: GO is usually more CPU dependent than GPU dependent.

The Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti was on average less than 5% faster than the GTX 1650 out of the 20 games I tested. As you can see, the results can vary greatly from game to game. Some outliers include Fortnite and Control, which were slightly ahead of 1650 non Ti, but the difference in Fortnite was 2 FPS and the control was less than 1 FPS, so it’s still about equivalent performance. Battlefield V was a bit outlier, however, scoring a 16% higher score over the 1650 Ti.

Honestly, I’m surprised the difference was even that big considering both had the same power cap and the GPU specs are the same.

If my 1650 laptop had the same 1024 CUDA cores as the 1650 Ti, the difference would be even smaller. On the other hand, if my 1650 was the older GDDR5 model, the difference would be a bit bigger.

I also tested FireStrike and TimeSpy with 3DMark and the 1650 Ti only had a 6% advantage in Timespy’s graphics scores and less than 5% in firestrike graphics scores, so it’s similar to some games and doesn’t make much difference. I also tested SPECviewperf which tests various professional 3D loads. In most cases, the 1650 Ti was ahead, but the margins could vary considerably depending on the specific test.

More of the same here. The GeForce GTX 1650 has once again been beaten by the Radeon RX 570 and barely exceeds the limit compared to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

Nvidia GTX 1650 vs 1050 Ti: Conclusion

All in all, the GTX 1650 offers a pretty decent performance boost over the outgoing GTX 1050 Ti, which considering they currently cost exactly the same amount of money makes the GTX 1050 Ti almost obsolete as an entry-level graphics card. As I mentioned above, the main problem is that the AMD Radeon RX 570 also currently costs around £ 150 / $ 150, which is even faster than the GTX 1650.

It cannot be denied that the GTX 1650 is a decent entry-level graphics card for those looking for something small and energy efficient, but in terms of sheer power, the RX 570 still reigns supreme as a top graphics card for money-hungry 1080p buyers.

Tagged With

Katharine is the editor-in-chief of the RPS, which means she is now to blame for it all. After joining the team in 2017, she spent a lot of time in the mines of RPS gear testing all the components that are in our computers, but now she can write about all the cute games we play as well. She will play pretty much anything she can get her hands on and is very biased in JRPG games and quest downloads.

Support Rock Paper Shotgun

Subscribe and access members only articles, ad-free reading, free gifts and game discounts. Your support helps us create more great content about PC games.

However, before you make a purchasing decision, make sure that it offers the best value for money. Well, you’ve come to the right place.

GTA V

GTA V typically publishes significantly better performance on NVIDIA than AMD compared to other games, and that remains true here. At 1080p, the GTX 1650 SC Ultra compares the RX 570 for the first time. These two scores are roughly within the margin of error for the averages, although we’d like to see better lows than the published 1650. The GTX 1060 still leads both ways, with AVG’s 83fps – that is It’s not even close to what some rumors predicted, and the 1060 6GB still has a 31% advantage over the 1650. Overclocking allows AVG’s 68fps improvement, which is enough to tie the base 780 Ti reference model, although of course the 780 Ti overclocked does a significant advantage. The RX 570, no matter how much it’s worth, can also be overclocked here, but at this point we’re arguing over single-digit moves.

At 1440p, the GTX 1650 SC Ultra continues its draw with the RX 570, with overclocking to 46FPS AVG, getting closer to the base card of the RX 580 Gaming X. Not bad, but GTA V has been the only example of this so far. The overclocked 570 would step in similarly to the 580, as we showed years ago for the RX 400 and 500 launches.

SOTTR

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is another modern DirectX 12-based title. In this case, the GTX 1650 SC Ultra runs on average around 50 FPS, which predictably allows it to drive a 960 and 1050 Ti, but also gives the RX 570 an advantage of around 9.3%. Please note that further reducing the settings would obviously make the relative playability of Shadow of the Tomb Raider possible. The AVG 50 FPS is fine for comparison purposes with our higher settings, but if you’d like to play the game at a higher frame rate, it can be done with quality dropping to roughly average. Overclocking brings us to AVG’s 52fps, although instability in the OC has diminished our performance at lower levels, ensuring frame timing consistency. This can be improved with more time – for example.

At 1440p, the 33FPS AVG 1650 doesn’t inspire much confidence at these settings. The game would need some serious downsizing to bring it closer to smooth. However, strictly for comparison purposes, we learn that the RX 570 has an edge once again, this time at AVG 38 FPS, an edge of around 15%.

As you can see from the most critical specs mentioned above, the GTX 1650 doesn’t look spectacular. In any case, you shouldn’t expect a $ 150 GPU to surprise you with its paper specs. So how does it work in practice?

GAMING PERFORMANCE

ANTHEM

Anthem has been tested with a built-in benchmark using ultra quality. At 1080p, the 1660 Ti achieves 50.7% higher average frames per second compared to the 1650 in this game. At 1440p, the 1660 Ti now has a 52% higher average frame rate.

APEX LEGENDS

Apex Legends was also tested using the built-in benchmark, and there were some pretty big gains in this test with the GTX 1660 Ti. At 1080p, the 1660 Ti achieved 50% higher FPS and 52% higher FPS at 1440p.

BODERLANDS 3

Borderlands 3 has been tested using the built-in benchmark on ultra settings. There was a 41% increase in average frame rate at 1080p, followed by 41.8% at 1440p. 41

F1 2019

F1 2019 has been tested with a built-in benchmark using the ultra quality setting. At 1080p, we expect a 42% improvement in average frames per second from 1660 Ti. At 1440p this slows down slightly to 41% growth.

FAR CRY NEW DAWN

Far Cry New Dawn has been tested using the built-in ultra quality benchmark. At 1080p, the 1660 Ti got 49% higher average FPS. With the resolution set to 1440p, the 1660 Ti now achieved 50% higher average frames per second.

GEARS OF WAR 5

Gears of War 5 is a resource-intensive game and I can play it well at a solid 30fps, and I don’t find it bad even at 1440p with ultra quality at 1650, though obviously I would use the lower settings to improve the frame rate. In any case, at 1080p, the 1660 Ti was 44% higher in terms of average frame rate, and then 41% better at 1440p.

GREEDFALL

Greedfall has been tested using a built-in benchmark with ultra quality. In both resolutions, 1660 Ti was about 41% faster.

METRO EXODUS

Metro Exodus has also been tested using the built-in benchmark. At the bottom of the chart for our results at 1440p, the GTX 1660 Ti achieved almost 37% higher average frame rates compared to 1650. At 1080p, there was a 40% improvement.

RESIDENT EVIL 2

Resident Evil 2 has been tested using an ultra quality built-in benchmark. At 1080p we have a 39% increase in average frame rate when using the RTX 1660 Ti and a 40% improvement at 1440p.

WORLD WAR Z

World War Z was tested against the Ulletical FPS benchmark and saw a 42% improvement over average frame rates at 1080p and 42.8% at 1440p.

SYNTHETIC PERFORMANCE

In the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test, the GTX 1660 Ti scored 170,781 points, which is only slightly ahead of the GTX 1650, which reached 167,059 (a performance increase of 2.2).

The GTX 1660 Ti made more progress in the 3DMark Fire Strike test, scoring 11,584 points compared to the 8397 GTX 1650 (performance increase of 38).

Finally, in the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra test, the GTX 1650 scored 2,828, surpassing the 1935 GTX 1650 (an increase in performance by 46.2).

This is the Futuremark benchmark for predicting the performance of games that support DirectX 12. It uses major API features including asynchronous computing, explicit multi-card support, and multi-threading.

Overclocking and Thermals

The Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 OC is – as the acronym “OC” at the end of the model name suggests – is already overclocked, taking Nvidia’s standard clock from 1665 MHz to 1725 MHz. (The base clock remains the same.)

By using Zotac’s user-friendly overclocking and card management software, Firestorm, I was able to get 150MHz more off the boost clock while keeping things stable at temperature.

However, when testing in Bioshock: Infinite and 3DMark, I didn’t notice enough frame or score difference to quantify even a 1% increase in actual performance. I imagine this is less due to the OC capability of the card itself and more due to the 75W power limitation imposed by the PCI Express interface. No matter how much more power the software can tell the card to pull, it has already peaked at what it is capable of from a power standpoint alone.

At full load during actual testing, we pulled a temperature of 34 degrees Celsius from the heat sink with a laser thermometer, while internal software readings during a stress test after 10 minutes of operation showed that the card was just over 57 degrees Celsius. This makes it a pretty cool working card, which again speaks for a key use case: in a compact computer that doesn’t have a lot of room for airflow.

Other Budget Cards Do It Better

If you have a very tight PC or power supply that doesn’t support any new connections, the 75W Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 OC will act as a replacement for the GeForce GTX 1050 or earlier compact card, especially considering the various Radeon RX 570 cards are larger in size and significantly higher power requirements.

Outside of this niche case, however, it’s better to go for an AMD card in almost every way if you have room in your PC for a full-sized card. (unless you live in an area where energy costs are a nuisance and 100 watts of potential peak consumption matters) esports athletes (although it’s certainly fine for casual play) and barely enough to max AAA mode at 1080p . The problem with this card is competition both inside and outside the home. Last-gen Nvidia “Pascal” cards are available in the new and used market, and mainstream AMD cards, as old as their architecture and power requirements may be in terms of graphics cards, still have great value for money, especially here at this zone for $ 150.

In short, we expected a bit more pop for the price than Nvidia in 2019. Now, of course, considering GTX 1650 cards start at $ 149 and cards based on the next GTX 1660 start at $ 219, there’s enough daylight between these cards for Nvidia to run through a possible GeForce GTX graphics card 1650 Ti. But the competition will not stand still: with the release of cards based on the new AMD “Navi” architecture expected later this year, you may be able to get even more performance for the same amount or close in a few months. If you believe the gossip mill, it means.

When shopping, keep these twin phantoms in mind – the possible GeForce GTX 1650 Ti card and AMD’s outstanding graphics upgrade. If you’re looking to upgrade from a budget card of a similar tier like the GeForce GTX 1050 or GeForce GTX 960, you may want to hold on a little longer and see if you can get a little more for $ 150 while you wait.