Introduction

We have with us Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6 OC. NVIDIA sprung a cute little surprise in the middle of the COVID-19 panic in the form of an upgrade to its entry-level "Turing" based graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1650. The new GTX 1650 G6 (GDDR6) sees NVIDIA replace the 8 Gbps GDDR5 memory with newer and faster 12 Gbps GDDR6 memory to yield a 50% boost in memory bandwidth. From prevalent online pricing, it appears the G6 variant was meant to gradually replace the original GTX 1650 at around $160. Stocks of GDDR6 memory chips are aplenty and memory makers are beginning to phase out GDDR5.

The switch to GDDR6 was probably also intended to improve NVIDIA's outlook in the sub-$200 market below the GTX 1650 Super. Currently, no AMD "Navi" RX 5000-series graphics card uses GDDR5 (at least not in the retail channel), and with the RX 5500 XT 4 GB going for around $170, the original GTX 1650 was beginning to look obsolete. The switch to GDDR6 comes at a cost, though. NVIDIA had to lower GPU clock speeds slightly—1410 MHz base and 1590 MHz GPU Boost vs. the 1485 MHz base and 1665 MHz GPU Boost of the original GTX 1650. This was probably done while keeping an eye on the power envelope necessary to enable graphics card designs without any PCIe power connectors.



The GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6 runs with 896 "Turing" CUDA cores, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs—same as the original GTX 1650, with memory type and clocks being the only difference. The size of the memory is the same at 4 GB. With these specifications, NVIDIA is targeting 1080p gaming at mid-thru-high settings, or 1080p eSports gaming at 60 Hz, with titles such as PUBG.

The GIGABYTE card we have with us today is the company's cheapest offering, which lacks any power connectors yet comes with a small overclock out of the box. It uses a simple fan-heatsink cooler that's not much unlike Intel's stock heatsink. GIGABYTE is pricing the card at $175, which seems close to this SKU's baseline pricing.