Nvidia's Turing architecture trickles down to the entry level with $149 GeForce GTX 1650

Shawn Knight

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In brief: Offering up to 10x the performance of integrated graphics, twice the performance of the GTX 950 and up to 1.7x the performance of the GTX 1050, the new GTX 1650 delivers modern features like adaptive shading and a unified cache architecture with larger L1 cache in an affordable package.

Update: Read TechSpot's review.

Nvidia’s Turing architecture has finally trickled down to the entry level with the launch of the GeForce GTX 1650.

Based on the TU117 Turing GPU, the GeForce GTX 1650 features 896 CUDA cores, a core clock speed of 1,485MHz, a boost clock of 1,665MHz, a 128-bit memory bus and 4GB of VRAM. The GTX 1660, by comparison, has 1,408 CUDA cores, a core clock of 1,530MHz, a boost clock of 1,785MHz, a 192-bit memory bus and 6GB of GDDR5.

As referenced in yesterday’s leak, most variants of the GTX 1650 don’t require an external power connector thanks to the relatively low 75W TDP. As such, cards based on the TU117 GPU should be right at home in HTPCs and basic systems tasked with 1080p gaming. Our full review of Nvidia’s latest will be published tomorrow so be sure to check back then for a complete rundown.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 is available from today from select add-in card providers such as Inno3D, Zotac, EVGA, Gigabyte and MSI, among others. Pricing starts at $149 and scales up based on individual feature sets.

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I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.
 
I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?

Not a big fan of AMD because they're always behind on current (and quality) drivers. When I'm building for people who aren't tech-savvy, I need to make the rigs as simple as possible. And nVidia does a good - actually great job - on releasing current drivers. And I set up auto-install, so it's a no-brainer for them.
 
I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?
Don't they require a 6/8 pin connector? I'm guessing prebuilt PCs that don't have the power connections. Could probably use an adapter, but they're higher power draw as well. Probably better of spending ~$25 for a new PSU if it's not a proprietary HP PSU. :/
 
I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?
Don't they require a 6/8 pin connector? I'm guessing prebuilt PCs that don't have the power connections. Could probably use an adapter, but they're higher power draw as well. Probably better of spending ~$25 for a new PSU if it's not a proprietary HP PSU. :/

He already gave us his reason and it wasn't power connectors. That said, even many prebuilts have a single 6/8 pin connector. He's not doing pre-built, he's doing custom.

I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?

Not a big fan of AMD because they're always behind on current (and quality) drivers. When I'm building for people who aren't tech-savvy, I need to make the rigs as simple as possible. And nVidia does a good - actually great job - on releasing current drivers. And I set up auto-install, so it's a no-brainer for them.

This is just a cop out. AMD has had a better driver history then Nvidia the last 2 years. I'm tired of hearing this fake excuse from people who haven't tried AMD drivers. Releasing current drivers? Both companies release current drivers either on the same day or within a day of each other for new games. AMD's control panel far exceed's Nvidia's in simplicity. Both have auto-update. All of your reasons make it apparent you don't know how AMD drivers actually are, you just assume Nvidia is better. I hope the people you build PCs for realize you are willing to take a card with 30% less performance because you aren't willing to even give AMD cards a chance.
 
I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?
Don't they require a 6/8 pin connector? I'm guessing prebuilt PCs that don't have the power connections. Could probably use an adapter, but they're higher power draw as well. Probably better of spending ~$25 for a new PSU if it's not a proprietary HP PSU. :/

He already gave us his reason and it wasn't power connectors. That said, even many prebuilts have a single 6/8 pin connector. He's not doing pre-built, he's doing custom.

I do a lot of custom builds for friends and family. Rarely do they want a cutting-edge gaming machine like I have. But I'll always toss in a graphics card so they're not stuck with integrated graphics.

And this new card looks very attractive for those types of builds.

What's wrong with RX470/RX570?

Not a big fan of AMD because they're always behind on current (and quality) drivers. When I'm building for people who aren't tech-savvy, I need to make the rigs as simple as possible. And nVidia does a good - actually great job - on releasing current drivers. And I set up auto-install, so it's a no-brainer for them.

This is just a cop out. AMD has had a better driver history then Nvidia the last 2 years. I'm tired of hearing this fake excuse from people who haven't tried AMD drivers. Releasing current drivers? Both companies release current drivers either on the same day or within a day of each other for new games. AMD's control panel far exceed's Nvidia's in simplicity. Both have auto-update. All of your reasons make it apparent you don't know how AMD drivers actually are, you just assume Nvidia is better. I hope the people you build PCs for realize you are willing to take a card with 30% less performance because you aren't willing to even give AMD cards a chance.

Say what you want, I've owned AMD cards in the past and always keep an eye on best bang for the buck when it comes to graphics cards. So I'm not talking out of my a**. It's been my experience Nvidia typically releases drivers BEFORE a game is released - and are 95% of the time rock solid. AMD generally releases their drivers AFTER a game is released, and not always optimized the best.
 
This is just a cop out. AMD has had a better driver history then Nvidia the last 2 years. I'm tired of hearing this fake excuse from people who haven't tried AMD drivers.
The AMD RX570 is definitely the better value over the 1650 (faster & cheaper). If only AMD cards weren't such power hogs. Ugh!

Another point in favor of the 1650: It's the lowest end to support NV's "realtime raytracing" technology.
 
I am good with my 2060. 1650 / 1050 is not powerful enough.


I am good with my 1080ti. Rtx 2060/2070 are not powerful enough. (Cant get your comment tbh)

Now on a serious note, this card costs 174€ in my country. Barely beats a 1050ti and is far from a 1060. I would rather buy a RX570. No debate.

But the price vs performance king imo is still the gtx 1660, wich costs 240€, overclocks like crazy and beats a gtx1660ti once overclocked.
 
This is just a cop out. AMD has had a better driver history then Nvidia the last 2 years. I'm tired of hearing this fake excuse from people who haven't tried AMD drivers. Releasing current drivers? Both companies release current drivers either on the same day or within a day of each other for new games. AMD's control panel far exceed's Nvidia's in simplicity. Both have auto-update. All of your reasons make it apparent you don't know how AMD drivers actually are, you just assume Nvidia is better. I hope the people you build PCs for realize you are willing to take a card with 30% less performance because you aren't willing to even give AMD cards a chance.

I'm not the OP, but...

My old HD 6850 had driver crashes for 3 years in linux (my primary os). Nvidia also performs better in Wine. Around the same time, school lab PCs had Nvidia drivers that kept crashing, though I suspect it needed configuration rather than Nvidia driver changes. :/

On the windows side, AMD's OpenGL performance is terrible. Having CUDA access can be good, despite giving up a bit of OpenCL performance by moving to Nvidia.

Because of my bad experiences with AMD, I'd be hesitant to buy AMD for GPU ever again. Lowest I would buy for my own rig would be 1660. If I were building a casual build for someone else, it's either a $100 used graphics card or a r5 2400G and call it a day.
 
Sadly Nvidia not only has market share but they also have mind share right now ! It seems most are willing to pay a premium for Nvidia because of presumed performance with out doing much research and that company knows that ! AMD sells cards at a reduced priced ( and even includes more ' free ' games ) but most with out doing research will still buy the Nvidia card because they think it's better ( yes it will use much less power but with electricity being relatively cheap at 12 per kilowatt in the winter and 11 in the summer it's really a no go ) ! Compare a GTX 1060 6GB AND rx 580 8gb in price and performance ..... not only is the RX 580 8GB cheaper and includes 2 games the performance is quite telling ! https://www.techspot.com/review/1780-geforce-1060-vs-radeon-580-vs-radeon-570/
 
Say what you want, I've owned AMD cards in the past and always keep an eye on best bang for the buck when it comes to graphics cards. So I'm not talking out of my a**. It's been my experience Nvidia typically releases drivers BEFORE a game is released - and are 95% of the time rock solid. AMD generally releases their drivers AFTER a game is released, and not always optimized the best.

Exactly as I thought, preconceived notions. If a build needs to be low power I've got no problems using a 1050 or this new card. Otherwise Nvidia drivers are most certainly not materially better then AMDs to justify picking a vastly weaker card. I would even say that AMD's driver are the better one's. I'm not going to convince you though, you made up your mind to only buy Nvidia long before this conversation.

The AMD RX570 is definitely the better value over the 1650 (faster & cheaper). If only AMD cards weren't such power hogs. Ugh!

Another point in favor of the 1650: It's the lowest end to support NV's "realtime raytracing" technology.

The 1650 doesn't have RT cores, so by support it will likely do 10 FPS in games with Ray Tracing on. Not really a point in favor of the card at all. FYI none of the 16xx cards have RT cores enabled, rendering real time ray tracing not worthwhile.

I'm not the OP, but...

My old HD 6850 had driver crashes for 3 years in linux (my primary os). Nvidia also performs better in Wine. Around the same time, school lab PCs had Nvidia drivers that kept crashing, though I suspect it needed configuration rather than Nvidia driver changes. :/

On the windows side, AMD's OpenGL performance is terrible. Having CUDA access can be good, despite giving up a bit of OpenCL performance by moving to Nvidia.

Because of my bad experiences with AMD, I'd be hesitant to buy AMD for GPU ever again. Lowest I would buy for my own rig would be 1660. If I were building a casual build for someone else, it's either a $100 used graphics card or a r5 2400G and call it a day.

I've bought enough graphics cards to the point where I've had issues with both. AMD had poor drivers with the 6000 and 7000 series. The current drivers are just miles better. Both drivers have gotten to the point where you don't typically see big issues anymore, it's mostly smaller issues now. I really don't think saying one or the other has bad drivers is a valid excuse for not buying a modern graphics cards as both Nvidia and AMD drivers right now provide a good baseline of stability.
 
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This is just a cop out. AMD has had a better driver history then Nvidia the last 2 years. I'm tired of hearing this fake excuse from people who haven't tried AMD drivers. Releasing current drivers? Both companies release current drivers either on the same day or within a day of each other for new games. AMD's control panel far exceed's Nvidia's in simplicity. Both have auto-update. All of your reasons make it apparent you don't know how AMD drivers actually are, you just assume Nvidia is better. I hope the people you build PCs for realize you are willing to take a card with 30% less performance because you aren't willing to even give AMD cards a chance.

I'm not the OP, but...

My old HD 6850 had driver crashes for 3 years in linux (my primary os). Nvidia also performs better in Wine. Around the same time, school lab PCs had Nvidia drivers that kept crashing, though I suspect it needed configuration rather than Nvidia driver changes. :/

On the windows side, AMD's OpenGL performance is terrible. Having CUDA access can be good, despite giving up a bit of OpenCL performance by moving to Nvidia.

Because of my bad experiences with AMD, I'd be hesitant to buy AMD for GPU ever again. Lowest I would buy for my own rig would be 1660. If I were building a casual build for someone else, it's either a $100 used graphics card or a r5 2400G and call it a day.
The 6850 came out nearly 9 YEARS ago. This is like someone saying "Well ALL AMD CPUS ARE SLOW" because they used an original phenom quad core CPU one time on a single threaded game.

In the last 2 years, AMD's driver quality has dramatically increased, they have fixed a large number of old bugs, and their response time is measured in days rather then months. Given AMD's architecture is already well optimized, constant driver updates are no longer needed every month, as most games run well, unless some game breaking bug is discovered. While this changed with Vega, and will again with Navi, their support and update windows are very quick now.

The "AMD HAS BAD DRIVERS" argument is obsolete, and whomever is still arguing it despite evidence of changes in the last few years is willfully ignorant of the current situation, just like someone using FX 8100 to say Ryzen 2000 is slow without actually having used a ryzen chip.
 
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In the last 2 years, AMD's driver quality has dramatically increased...

Not everyone updates their graphics cards that often. If they had a bad experience with drivers a couple years ago or more and I know a few who did, it is going to take a while for the stigma to fade.

Despite NVidia's faults and the 1650's lackluster performance in my opinion, they have built a history of reliability that is deserved.
 
The 6850 came out nearly 9 YEARS ago. This is like someone saying "Well ALL AMD CPUS ARE SLOW" because they used an original phenom quad core CPU one time on a single threaded game.

In the last 2 years, AMD's driver quality has dramatically increased, they have fixed a large number of old bugs, and their response time is measured in days rather then months. Given AMD's architecture is already well optimized, constant driver updates are no longer needed every month, as most games run well, unless some game breaking bug is discovered. While this changed with Vega, and will again with Navi, their support and update windows are very quick now.

The "AMD HAS BAD DRIVERS" argument is obsolete, and whomever is still arguing it despite evidence of changes in the last few years is willfully ignorant of the current situation, just like someone using FX 8100 to say Ryzen 2000 is slow without actually having used a ryzen chip.

You should try to use an AMD gpu on a laptop and then repeat the "amd has bad drivers is obsolete" sentence. Not even funny.
 
Still rocking an HD7870 XT (7930) and it's lasted me well due to being more powerful than the PS4. If anyone is clever and enjoys PC gaming they'll just buy a similar GPU to what's in next Gen consoles. Done me well. Bring on Navi.
 
AMD's laptop drivers are unified with their desktop drivers. They offer the same interface as the desktop drivers and regular updates.
AMD only fixed that recently. They were launched October 2017. The change to the drivers only occurred early March 2019. Nearly 1.5 years of poor driver support.
 
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