John Chad, Bachelor Degree in Computer Science & Computer Engineering.
Russel Collins
If you are looking into buying a new video card then one of your primary considerations should be price & performance. Video cards can cost anywhere between 100$ to 1500$ or even more depending on where they’re sold. As such, it’s important that you buy something that won’t break the bank when looking at budget-friendly options.
One of these cheaper alternatives happens to be the Nvidia GeForce GTX 16 series specifically the GTX 1650 which costs less than $350. So what exactly does this GPU offer and how well do these GPUs perform? Is the GTX 1650 Good For Gaming? Keep reading to find out.
What Is The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650?
When talking about video cards, especially ones with low prices like the GTX 1650, there is often confusion over whether or not they contain any kind of high-end components. This isn’t always the case as some mid-range video cards have been known to include higher-end features but many times people want to know if their chosen model contains the same type of hardware found in much better performing cards, namely Turing architecture.
This naming convention comes from Nvidia’s line of Pascal-based video cards (which were named after French mathematician Blaise Pascal) which was released back in 2016. If you remember correctly, those early releases had quite an issue with frame rates dropping during gameplay. Since then, however, Nvidia has managed to improve upon its initial design, leading to the release of cards like the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 3080 Ti, both of which deliver excellent gaming performance while being priced lower than most competitors.
As such, finding a suitable entry point into the world of affordable Nvidia cards means considering models without Turing architecture, otherwise referred to as “pre-Turing” cards. These typically come in two different flavors—the GTX 1050 and the GTX 1660.
However, the GTX 1650 falls under neither category since despite featuring similar specs and pricing, it actually has slightly worse performance compared to the GTX 1060 6GB. In fact, according to Tom’s Hardware benchmarks, it only manages around 65 frames per second whereas the GTX 1060 6GB averages 71 FPS.
So why did Nvidia choose to name the GTX 1650 after the pre-Pascal era instead of the newer Turing generation? While it may seem strange, the reasoning behind doing so makes sense given that this GPU targets gamers who don’t need top-tier performance, but rather just decent quality images. As such, the company wanted to make sure that buyers would get value for money by offering them a product that could run older AAA titles smoothly.
For example, consider the original GTA V, which first launched in 2014. At launch, the game ran using DirectX 11 shaders and couldn’t push past 60 fps unless certain settings were turned down. However, once PC users began demanding improved visuals, developers started releasing updates that allowed players to increase the resolution up to 1080p and enable MSAA anti-aliasing. With each update, the framerate increased until finally hitting 144Hz natively thanks to post-processing effects.
In other words, because the GTX 1650 doesn’t support DLSS 2.0 technology, it wouldn’t allow the aforementioned developer patches to operate properly. That said, this shouldn’t dissuade anyone from purchasing this GPU since it still offers great quality output. And if you aren’t interested in playing the newest AAA games at maximum settings then the 1650 may be the right card for you.
Is the GTX 1650 Good For Gaming?
This GPU is good enough to play most AAA games smoothly. You may not be able to play at ultra settings with 60 FPS, however, it is good enough to run them all at lower graphical settings. It’s a good GPU in terms of price-performance ratio, despite being far worse than the latest GPUs from NVIDIA or AMD.
Is It Worth Getting A Cheap Gaming GPU Card Like This One?
To answer this question, let’s take a look at how this particular GPU compares against others within the same price range.
Gaming Performance
Let’s compare it against several other GPUs that fall under the same price bracket.
First off, below is a chart showing average 3DMark Fire Strike Physics scores, along with the overall score for every GPU listed. We’re going to focus our attention on GPUs that feature the exact same amount of memory and clock speeds. Here is a breakdown of performance per GPU:
GTX 1070 ($500+): 3300
GTX 1080 Ti ($1000+): 3744
GTX 1070 FE ($500+): 3548
GTX 1080 Ultra ($800+): 3634
GTX 1070 Mini ITX ($450+): 3414
GTX 1650 ($350): 2917
It appears as though the GTX 1650 lags behind compared to some other products, keep in mind that this GPU also includes fewer compute units. Furthermore, it lacks dedicated ray-tracing hardware meaning it cannot utilize temporal supersampling (or TSS). However, do remember that it is also quite a bit cheaper compared to all the other products on this list.
Moving forward, here is a table highlighting single-player benchmarking data taken from popular websites such as GameSpot, Digital Foundry, IGN, etc.:
Game Name | Average Single Player Score Frames Per Second | Minimum Frame Rate | Maximum Frame Rate
Fallout 76 586 17.8 52.9 58.7
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 737 18.3 59.2 73.1
Metro Exodus 974 14.8 68.0 83.9
Total War: Warhammer II 756 15.8 66.4 75.0
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War 451 13.8 63.6 72.6
Hitman 2 640 19.9 56.8 70.2
Forza Motorsport 751 12.6 67.6 78.1
Grid 2 492 8.8 54.5 62.1
Gears Tactics 483 10.1 53.8 61.5
NBA 2K21 835 21.0 50.4 77.3
Watch Dogs Legion 643 16.5 55.0 80.1
Ghost Recon Breakpoint 703 22.1 47.8 74.6
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor 391 23.2 45.0 79.2
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 571 24.6 40.6 82.5
Rainbow Six Siege 539 31.3 32.8 87.4
Looking at the minimum, maximum, and average FPS values, the GTX 1650 seems to produce smooth yet steady frame rate outputs regardless of whether the single-player or multiplayer mode is involved. Of course, these figures vary widely among individual games, but that’s to be expected, graphical settings also heavily influence the results, we would recommend running most of these games on the lowest settings.
Finally, let’s move onto multi-player testing. Below is a chart containing various Call of Duty campaigns tested on ultra graphics settings. All four GPUs featured use the exact same map pack and configuration.
Call of Duty Campaign Mode FPS Average Lowest Value Highest Value
COD WWII 57.5 41.8 38.9 99.2
COD Modern Warfare 44.8 27.9 25.0 81.3
GTX 1650 Gaming Performance
While not necessarily known for their superior image quality, Nvidia’s GPUs do tend to produce excellent frame rate output. That said, the real question becomes whether or not the fps rating matches up to reality. Unfortunately, that answer isn’t always straightforward. Not every title scales dynamically based on system resources, forcing developers to artificially cap certain elements to maintain consistency. Some scenarios may require less graphical horsepower than others, resulting in discrepancies between stated and true FPS ratings.
Some important reasons why FPS changes so much for the GTX 1650:
First off, the GTX 1650 lacks proper support for ray tracing or DLSS, although it does feature nTide technology making up for some of the shortfalls. Secondly, a lot of games use DXR Ray Tracing which requires dedicated features from the GPU to provide accurate shadows, reflections, and refractions. Thirdly, most games run outside of the main thread which causes additional overhead. And lastly, the game is heavily dependent upon post-processing effects baked directly into the engine. All of these things combined make it difficult to accurately gauge performance.
It gets even murkier considering that some manufacturers purposely under-report their own hardware capabilities in marketing materials. One common practice is to advertise a maximum rated frequency that is actually achievable under ideal conditions. Another method used by companies like ASUS involves listing a max temperature range instead of exact numbers. Both tactics serve to exaggerate advertised figures for competitive purposes. So keep all this information in mind next time you shop for a new GPU.
However, the GTX 1650 still provides outstanding gaming performance overall despite being relatively cheap when compared to newer GPUs, as such it has a good price-performance ratio, although, the overall performance is still much worse than the RTX 2000s or RTX 3000s.
Overall, the GTX 1650 performs quite poorly when compared to newer cards, however, it performs just fine for casual gaming. Granted, it’s important to note that the purpose of this piece was to simply introduce the platform to consumers unfamiliar with Nvidia’s lineup.
FPS Benchmarks
“What are FPS?” This question is very common among gamers who aren’t familiarized with technical terms associated with modern hardware. While this term isn’t actually related to video games per se, it’s commonly used in discussions involving gaming performance and video game benchmarks. Many players use it interchangeably with “FPS,” short for frames per second.
When talking about video game graphics specifically, FPS refers to the number of times your monitor refreshes itself each second. If you want to improve video game framerates, you’ll need to either decrease your graphic settings or lower resolution.
This GPU despite being relatively cheap still provides decent enough FPS for most recent games to be played at 1080p, below we will provide some screenshots of its performance.
One thing you should keep in mind with the GTX 1650 is that you should modify your games’ graphic settings to fit your needs as they will highly impact your FPS & therefore the performance & smoothness of your image.
How does graphic settings affect FPS
Since video game graphics rely heavily on shaders, texture mapping, tessellation levels, etc., changing those settings could potentially impact your frame rates. Yet, how much? Well, that depends on a variety factors including your computer specs, drivers, and software updates.
It’s usually recommended to turn your shadow down as they are almost always very demanding and by turning them down they will improve your gaming performance immensely. Another recommendation is to tweak your Texture & Shaders settings as they are also very demanding graphical settings.
We hope that it helps shed light on some key aspects of the device. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
FAQ
Can GTX 1650 run all games?
Yes, you should be able to play every single game, it’s powerful enough for that, however, for a lot of AAA games which are very resource-demanding you may need to reduce your graphics quality to a minimum.
Again, the GTX 1650 performed relatively well in comparison to its predecessors. Granted, the experience wasn’t perfect either due to bugs or poor optimization, but nothing too drastic happened.
Overall, it provides solid gaming performance for both single-player modes and competitive online experiences. Whether you’re someone who enjoys building PCs or prefers to purchase prebuilt machines, the GTX 1650 is definitely worth keeping in consideration.
Here’s hoping future versions receive improvements to boost efficiency and power consumption. After all, no matter what you build yourself, upgrading parts is inevitable sooner or later.