The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Review, Feat. Zotac: Fighting Brute Force With Power Efficiency
by Ryan Smith & Nate Oh on May 3, 2019 10:15 AM ESTFar Cry 5 (DX11)
The latest title in Ubisoft's Far Cry series lands us right into the unwelcoming arms of an armed militant cult in Montana, one of the many middles-of-nowhere in the United States. With a charismatic and enigmatic adversary, gorgeous landscapes of the northwestern American flavor, and lots of violence, it is classic Far Cry fare. Graphically intensive in an open-world environment, the game mixes in action and exploration.
The Ultra, High, and Normal presets were used. Far Cry 5 does support Vega-centric features with Rapid Packed Math and Shader Intrinsics, these were left off for testing. Far Cry 5 also supports HDR (HDR10, scRGB, and FreeSync 2). This testing was done without HD Textures enabled, an option that was recently patched in.
For Far Cry 5, the GTX 1650 is again perched in the GTX 1060 3GB and GTX 1050 Ti performance gap, pulling away further from the GTX 1050 Ti at more intensive settings. The RX 570, while slower than the GTX 1060 3GB in this title, is still firmly ahead of the GTX 1650.
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dr.denton - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
I honestly thought you were doing a weird "ye olde" kind of thing there. Thanks for clearing that up :DOxford Guy - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
"Wow. This card makes no sense."It makes perfect sense for Nvidia. The corporation's goal is to sell the lowest-quality product for the most money possible. Nvidia has, can, and does, rely on its brand mindshare to overcome deficits in its products at various price points, especially around the lower end. In other words, people buy it because it's painted green.
eva02langley - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
I don't believe this trend is going to keep going. Everyone is now checking reviews online before making their choice. No way this will pass like butter in a pan.cfenton - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
"RX570 8GB pulse, fro sapphire is cooler running, quieter, vastly higher build quality, >10% faster, twice the vram and 135W board power, which is perfectly fine even for potato OEM builds anyway."Not if the OEM build doesn't have a 6-pin PCIE cable. If you're building you own computer, then I agree that the 570 is a much better choice. However, if you want to do a quick upgrade to an older OEM system running a 750TI without a 6-pin, then the 1650 makes sense.
nunya112 - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
Wow what a terrible product. a 570 beats it the price highlights that problem.SolarAxix - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
Many of my son's friends have lease-return desktop PCs their parents bought at a good price (i5/i7 2xxx to 4xxx) along with a 720p or 1080p LCD screen (usually less than a $300 investment) and many with SSDs. That being said, most of them use the iGPU (with a few of them with a lowend NVIDIA Quadro or AMD FirePro PCIe-based GPU). That being said, they want to be able to game at 720p/1080p with their friends and it usually doesn't cut it because of the iGPU or poor PCIe GPU.When it comes to upgrading the GPU, one of the drawbacks for these systems are the lack of a 6-pin PCIe connector from the power supply and lackluster power supplies in general which can't be easily upgraded. In the past, I've recommended they get a 1050 and they've been very happy with their purchase along with a quick 10 minute upgrade. I can see the 1650 being what I'd recommend to them in the future if it fits their budget.
I'm with with most of you though, where if you have a system that can handle a 570, that is a much better choice.
It would be interesting to see how big is the market for 75W GPUs based on desktop PCs which can't handle anything more than that (which has nothing to do with saving power on someone's electric bill).
Oxford Guy - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
If one has so little money that one has to do a significant amount of PC gaming on a machine that can't handle more than a 75W GPU perhaps it's time to reconsider spending that time on PC gaming.It seems like it would be a better idea to buy a used GPU and a cheap, but decent, PSU.
cfenton - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
Swapping out a GPU is relatively simple. Swapping out a power supply, especially in an OEM system with a custom power supply, is much more involved.yannigr2 - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
This is by far the most 1650 friendly review I have seen online. I mean, the choice of words, it's almost like someone is trying to not spoil his resume. Also it is the only review where AMD looks desperate, while it is a huge questionmark for how much time it will be willing to try to defend it's position with the RX 570 in the market. If only there where new cards coming from them in a couple of months, but I guess they don't prepare anything.Oxford Guy - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
Polaris is such an old architecture and it was very cheap to buy years ago, prior to the crypto surge. For it to be so competitive against the wealthiest GPU company's latest design is a sad statement about the quality of competition in the PC gaming space. Duopoly competition isn't good enough.If there were high-quality competition happening no company would be able to get away with putting overpriced turkeys into the market.