The GeForce GTX 1650 Super is NVIDIA's latest addition to their Turing product stack. The new card is based on the same TU116 GPU that powers the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Super, whereas the original GTX 1650 is powered by the TU117. This change was required because TU117 only has 1024 shaders in its silicon, which isn't enough to reach the performance targets NVIDIA has set for their new card to conclusively beat AMD's Radeon RX 5500. With 1,280 shaders, or +40% more than the GTX 1650, the GTX 1650 Super promises a huge performance boost, which is crucial to reach those 60 FPS at Full HD.

MSI's GeForce GTX 1650 Super Gaming X is a highly customized, factory-overclocked version of the GTX 1650. It runs at 1755 MHz rated boost, which is a 30 MHz increase over the NVIDIA reference design (which isn't sold anywhere, only partner boards are being released). Looking at overall performance at 1080p Full HD, we're seeing dramatic performance improvements over the GTX 1650 non-Super. The GTX 1650 Super is 37% faster, which is much better than everyone expected, I think. Not only the increased shader count plays a role here, but NVIDIA upgrading the memory to GDDR6 makes a difference, too, as available memory bandwidth is increased by 50% for only a minor increase in manufacturing cost. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660 is 11% faster than the GTX 1650 Super, and the GTX 1660 Super is 24% ahead. Last generation's most popular card, the GTX 1060, is 10% slower than the GTX 1650 Super. Things aren't looking good for AMD as the GTX 1650 Super beats the Radeon RX 580, delivering 5% higher performance, and the more expensive Radeon RX 590 is only 5% faster. We received a Radeon RX 5500 today and managed to squeeze in its results, too. Against the RX 5500, the MSI GTX 1650 Super Gaming X is 7% faster, which makes this an important win for NVIDIA, but AMD pricing isn't finalized yet, so they could get their revenge. Overall, we can easily recommend the GTX 1650 Super as a great choice for gaming at Full HD 1080p in all titles.

MSI has paired their GTX 1650 Super Gaming X with a powerful cooler that is based on the thermal solution of the GTX 1660 Super, a card that puts out much more heat. Temperatures are excellent, reaching only 62°C during heavy gaming, which is very impressive. Not only temperatures are good, noise levels are outstanding, too. With 27 dBA, the card is basically inaudible during gaming when installed in a case. While the vast majority of the market is demanding idle fan stop on their graphics cards, some vendors, especially in this lower-priced segment, choose to skip the feature, fearing increased RMA rates. Not so MSI—their Gaming X will shut off its fans during idle, desktop work, and light gaming. Since the fans don't start until 60°C, and we measured 62°C with heavy gaming, it is possible that the card might even stay completely passive in many games if you limit the FPS rates a bit or reduce the power limit slightly. Mighty impressive work, MSI. What I'm not happy with is the lack of a backplate. Even a simple one, made out of plastic, like on some MSI Ventus cards, would have greatly improved the look and feel of the product without adding much cost. I talked to various board partners, and they tell me that they're making "no money due to NV pricing," which would explain such cost-cutting measures.

Like all other Turing GPUs, Performance per Watt of the GTX 1650 Super is excellent, and we've not been expecting anything else. Compared to cards like the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti, gaming power efficiency is similar—more than twice (!) as efficient as AMD's Radeon Polaris cards. What's noteworthy here is that non-gaming power consumption is extremely low. Especially multi-monitor at 7 W and 4K media playback at 8 W opens up a lot of use cases for the card. Gaming power draw clocked in at roughly 100 W, which is great, too, as it ensures pretty much any PSU out there will be able to run the GTX 1650 Super. This is an important factor because NVIDIA wants people to upgrade their prebuilt gaming PCs, and these often come with weak power supplies of questionable quality. Unfortunately, MSI did not increase their card's power limit over the NVIDIA default of 100 W. It would have been an easy way to unlock additional performance as the cooler can certainly take it.

While manual overclocking is complicated a bit due to the power limiter because you can no longer dial in a specific frequency, we saw excellent OC results, especially on the GDDR6 memory chips. We went from 1500 MHz to 1880 MHz, which is a 25% increase! GPU overclocking potential seemed more limited with 6%. Still, overall, we gained more than 10% in real-life performance, which boosts the card well above RX 590 FPS levels.

Video memory size of 4 GB might sound low at first, but you have to consider that pricing matters a lot in this segment. Adding more memory would make the card more expensive with little or no performance difference at 1080p Full HD. Looking at our performance numbers, we can definitely see reduced FPS at 4K resolution compared to cards with more memory, but I'm not seeing anything in our data that would suggest these cards are memory-bound at 1080p. We're running maximum details, including optional HD texture packs when available, so there are lots of options to reduce memory requirements should it come to that. I rather buy a more affordable card now than waste money on future-proofing, at least in this segment.

NVIDIA has positioned their new GTX 1650 Super very aggressively. With an MSRP of $160, the card is priced similarly to AMD's aging Radeon RX 580, yet offers better performance, noise, and thermals. The Radeon RX 590 is $190 at the moment, down from its launch price of $280—I'd rather buy the GTX 1650 Super. AMD has announced the Radeon RX 5500 a while ago, but market availability, or even just pricing, is nowhere in sight. We charted several price points for the RX 5500, and it looks like they'll have to sell their card at $160 or below to be competitive.

MSI is pricing their GeForce GTX 1650 Super Gaming X at $180, which is a $20 increase over the NVIDIA MSRP. As mentioned before, reference design cards are not available, so we couldn't measure the performance increase of the Gaming X over the reference card, but I doubt it's the 10% required to justify the $20 increase. However, looking at thermal performance, idle-fan-stop, and the super low gaming noise levels, I'd spend that extra money in a heartbeat just for the better cooler alone.

We have three GTX 1650 Super reviews today: MSI GTX 1650 Super Gaming X, Zotac GTX 1650 Super Twin Fan, Palit GTX 1650 Super StormX OC. The full Radeon RX 5500 review has been posted, too.