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Meet Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4G
The GeForce GTX 1650 launch is being driven by Nvidia’s board partners. There won’t be a Founder’s Edition card. Rather, companies like Gigabyte are introducing a range of models representing multiple price and performance points. Today’s review covers the GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4G, Gigabyte’s top-end $180 model that lands just $40 under the base-level Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G. The company also has $170 (Windforce OC 4G), $160 (OC 4G), and $150 (Mini ITX OC 4G) versions available.
As we continue making our way down Nvidia’s Turing-based product stack, it should come as no surprise that lower prices are accompanied by more cost-conscious designs. The GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4G isn't a slouch, though. From the front, it’s apparent that Gigabyte employs an aluminum heat sink topped by a Windforce 2X cooler. The plastic fan shroud houses two 100mm fans spinning in opposite directions.
Gigabyte’s PCB is about 7 ⅞” (20cm) long. However, the fan shroud and backplate extend beyond its edge, resulting in a ~10 ½” (26.5cm) length measurement. The GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4G is also relatively tall, measuring 4 ¾” (~12cm) from the bottom of the PCI Express slot to its top edge. A double-slot form factor is ideal for compact enclosures. There’s little reason, in our opinion, for a mainstream card to take up any more room than that.
Flipping the card over, a plastic backplate bears Gigabyte’s logo and adds a decorative touch over the PCB. There is no contact between the plate and any of the components underneath. Moreover, a bit of ventilation toward the backplate's rear does little to cool the PCB since it's cut out past where the board actually ends. This piece of plastic is mostly decorative, meeting the fan shroud’s bezel in the back.
Up top, the tall PCB dips down to keep your six-pin power connector from protruding too far. The connector is also rotated 180 degrees to avoid interfering with overhanging plastic pieces. Gigabyte's logo is back-lit and compatible with the company's RGB Fusion 2.0 software. Next to it, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX branding is molded into the plastic.
By choosing not to expose dual-link DVI, Gigabyte is able to fit a unique combination of three HDMI outputs and one DisplayPort connector on its slot bracket, plus leave tons of room for ventilation. For some reason, though, Gigabyte moves away from the horizontally-oriented fins we saw on its GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G and instead utilizes vertical fins that guide warm air down toward your motherboard and up against the fan shroud. Holes cut into the second slot bracket do little to encourage airflow, then.
With the backplate and sink removed, we see that Gigabyte’s cooler is more than just aluminum. A pair of flattened, copper pipes run through the center, right above TU117. They bend to the right and left, dissipating heat evenly through the array of aluminum fins. There are no thermal pads covering the voltage regulation circuitry or memory modules this time around; only Nvidia's GPU touches the sink.
Peeling away those pads allows us to identify on-board components. TU117 is centered in the middle of Gigabyte's PCB and flanked on two sides by a quartet of Micron MT51J256M32HF-80:B memory modules rated for 8 Gb/s data rates. They're the same ones used on GeForce GTX 1660, just two fewer.
The GPU’s power supply is composed of three phases controlled by a uP9509 on the PCB’s back side. Each phase utilizes a pair of Alpha & Omega AON6354 trench power MOSFETs and one AON6594.
Ubiq Semiconductor’s uP1542 buck controller handles the memory's voltage regulation circuitry, again, by way of two Alpha & Omega AON6354 trench power MOSFETs and one AON6594.
Clearly, this is a different PCB design than what we saw from EVGA’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti XC Black Gaming or Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G. There are no vacant pads on the board for additional phases or extra GDDR5 memory modules. The design is decidedly spread out in comparison, with its six-pin power connector way off to the upper-right corner.
How We Tested Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4G
GeForce GTX 1650 is now the most entry-level graphics card in Nvidia’s Turing-based portfolio. As such, our graphics workstation, based on an MSI Z170 Gaming M7 motherboard and Intel Core i7-7700K CPU at 4.2 GHz, is apropos. The processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3000C15Q-16GRR memory kit. Crucial’s MX200 SSD is used as well, joined by a 1.6TB Intel DC P3700 loaded down with games.
As far as competition goes, we’re most interested in comparing the 1650 to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and 1060, along with AMD’s Radeon RX 570. Of course, comparisons to GeForce GTX 1660 and 1660 Ti are inevitable as well. Those cards are included in our line-up, as are GeForce RTX 2060, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, and 1070. On the AMD side, we’re also interested in Radeon RX Vega 64, Radeon RX Vega 56, and Radeon RX 590.
Our benchmark selection includes Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Battlefield V, Destiny 2, Far Cry 5, Forza Horizon 4, Grand Theft Auto V, Metro: Last Light Redux, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Witcher 3 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
The testing methodology we're using comes from PresentMon: Performance In DirectX, OpenGL, And Vulkan. In short, these games are evaluated using a combination of OCAT and our own in-house GUI for PresentMon, with logging via GPU-Z.
We're using driver version 430.39 for GeForce GTX 1650, 419.35 for GeForce GTX 1660, 418.91 for GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, and build 417.54 for everything else. AMD’s cards utilize Crimson Adrenalin 2019 Edition 18.12.3.
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