Gigabyte Lists Multiple GeForce GTX 1630 Graphics Cards With the EEC

A quartet of Gigabyte-branded GeForce GTX graphics cards has appeared on the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) online regulatory database. However, bitter experience has taught us that an EEC listing doesn't always precipitate a shipping product. Even so, it may be the most solid evidence regarding Nvidia's covert preparation of this low-end GTX 16 series product.

Above, you can see a screenshot of the EEC entry with four unannounced graphics cards: the GV-N1630OC-4GD, GV-N1630OC-4GL, GV-N1630D6-4GD, GV-N1630D6-4GL.

Those familiar with Gigabyte nomenclature will look at these codenames and determine that they all relate to Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 graphics cards. Moreover, all models come with 4GB of VRAM. In addition, the OC models will be overclocked compared to reference cards, the  GL models will be low-profile solutions, and the D6 models will come packing DDR6 memory (instead of DDR5). Lastly, the codenames point to these all being dual-fan cooled models, even the low-profile ones. If you check out the official Gigabyte product pages for the nearest neighbor GTX 1650 (with 19 models), you should get a good idea of the upcoming regular and low-profile GTX 1630 designs.

We have previously seen several rumors about the GeForce GTX 1630, and they were quite well fleshed out. Obviously, the new entry-level card sits somewhere below the existing GTX 1650. Its purpose is to replace the aging GTX 1050 Ti. Interestingly it might even be timed to battle with the new Intel Arc A380 desktop graphics card, which started its worldwide rollout in China earlier this week. However, we don't know the timing of this battle as Nvidia hasn't mentioned the GTX 1630, and the pace of Intel's Arc GPU rollout worldwide isn't known.

In the chart above, you can see how the GTX 1630 has allegedly been cut from the cloth of the Turing TU117 GPU, just like the GTX 1650 (and GTX 1650 Ti, and numerous mobile GPUs). The AMD Radeon RX 6400 provides some cross-architecture reference.

It looks like this entry-level sector of the discrete GPU market is where all the action has been recently (e.g., RX 6400 and Arc A380). However, making low-end GPUs and selling into the era that may become known as the 'second great crypto crash' risks the arrival of a flood of better-performing older-gen GPUs at desirable prices.