NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1650 SUPER REVIEW

[SH3LBONA @ CSBD]

NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1650 SUPER REVIEW

Today marks the official launch of Nvidia's latest graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1650 Super. Like the other Super branded GPUs launched this year—the RTX 2080 Super, RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2060 Super, and GTX 1660 Super—the 1650 Super represents modest improvements to an existing part. In this case, the specific part that's being used is the TU116. If you're up to snuff on Nvidia's GPUs, that's actually the step up from the bottom Turing TU117 GPU used in the GTX 1650. Why the change? Simple: the TU117 lacks a few of the extra features found in its big brother. Specifically, it uses the older Pascal-era NVENC block. It may also lack GDDR6 support, though Nvidia hasn't made any clear comments in that regard. Either way, TU116 has both the new and improved Turing NVENC that promises better quality than x264 Fast encoding via the CPU with a minimal hit to framerates, as well as GDDR6 support. That should be useful for any budding streamers. It's also possible that Nvidia is getting enough TU116 chips that aren't fully functional that it just makes good sense to come out with the 1650 Super using TU116.

In terms of core specs, the GTX 1650 Super is a healthy jump in performance from the existing GTX 1650. It has 42 percent more GPU cores, and while it sticks with a 128-bit memory interface, the move to 12Gbps GDDR6 means it has 50 percent more bandwidth than the 1650. Perhaps even more interesting, it ends up with the same bandwidth as the vanilla 1660, though with fewer cores and lower clocks. There is one potential concern with the 1650 Super: VRAM, more specifically, the 4GB of GDDR6. It may have the same total bandwidth as the 1660, but with 2GB less memory there are definitely going to be situations where performance will be lower. How much lower depends on the game and settings, and I've seen quite a few new games during the past year where only having a 4GB GPU is going to be limiting. Things won't get any better going forward, either, with the next generation of consoles arriving in 2020.