Final yr, it was almost unimaginable to seek out affordable costs on the greatest graphics playing cards, by no means thoughts discovering something that might qualify as a “price range” or low cost choice. The GeForce GTX 1650 Tremendous and Radeon RX 6500 XT we’re right this moment principally weren’t accessible in 2021, regardless of the previous having launched in late 2019 — it was promoting for as a lot as $350, in response to our historic GPU pricing knowledge.
2022 has fortunately introduced an finish to the GPU drought, and AMD’s Navi 24 playing cards are promoting for lower than their official MSRPs. The RX 6500 XT could be had for as little as $180 (opens in new tab), and the GTX 1650 Tremendous is again in inventory as effectively, not less than in some locations — the EVGA 1650 Tremendous SC goes for round $200 now, at Amazon (opens in new tab) and Newegg (opens in new tab) as effectively. Which suggests we are able to put these two sub-$200 graphics playing cards up in opposition to one another to see which low cost GPU is the higher selection.
We’ll take a look at efficiency, value, options and tech, drivers and software program, and energy and effectivity with a purpose to decide a winner. These classes are listed so as of reducing significance, in our view not less than, so we’ll begin with the crucial elements and transfer on down the listing from there.
Gaming Efficiency: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
Gaming stays the principle draw for graphics playing cards, although they will additionally assist with video encoding and different duties — or not less than a few of them can. Funds GPUs aren’t meant for high-resolution gaming, as an alternative delivering efficiency much like previous-generation midrange and high-end GPUs at considerably decrease costs. We put the GTX 1650 Tremendous and RX 6500 XT to the check with our up to date 8-game check suite, three totally different settings and backbone combos.
| Sport | Setting | GTX 1650 Tremendous | RX 6500 XT | % Distinction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Sport Common | 1080p Medium | 73.7 | 71.2 | 3.50% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 37.1 | 34.3 | 8.20% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 27.3 | 20.1 | 35.60% |
| Borderlands 3 | 1080p Medium | 77 | 81.0 | -4.90% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 38.6 | 37.1 | 3.90% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 26.3 | 24.2 | 9.00% |
| Far Cry 6 | 1080p Medium | 80.4 | 83.1 | -3.30% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 51.7 | 43.7 | 18.10% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 38.9 | 25.6 | 51.80% |
| Flight Simulator | 1080p Medium | 65.1 | 59.7 | 9.20% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 37.4 | 35.4 | 5.60% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 24.9 | 23.7 | 5.30% |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 1080p Medium | 82.9 | 80.2 | 3.40% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 30.8 | 28 | 10.00% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 26.4 | 11.8 | 123.90% |
| Horizon Zero Daybreak | 1080p Medium | 79.2 | 71.4 | 10.80% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 54.6 | 56.2 | -2.80% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 42.3 | 21.9 | 92.90% |
| Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2 | 1080p Medium | 82.4 | 86.5 | -4.70% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 38.3 | 30.2 | 27.00% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 29.7 | 24.9 | 18.90% |
| Complete Struggle Warhammer 3 | 1080p Medium | 44.1 | 33.7 | 30.90% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 24.0 | 17.7 | 35.80% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 14.7 | 10.4 | 40.30% |
| Watch Canines Legion | 1080p Medium | 78.8 | 74.3 | 6.10% |
| Â | 1080p Extremely | 21.5 | 26.1 | -17.60% |
| Â | 1440p Extremely | 14.9 | 18.3 | -18.30% |
1080p gaming is the actual goal for these playing cards, although some lighter video games would possibly handle 1440p at decrease high quality settings. 1440p extremely clearly pushes issues too far, with sub-30 fps efficiency in many of the video games we examined. So let’s simply ignore the 1440p extremely numbers and give attention to 1080p efficiency.
It’s kind of of a blended bag, with wild swings in relative efficiency, relying on the sport. General efficiency at 1080p medium principally ended up a tie, with the GTX 1650 Tremendous holding a negligible 2% lead. Within the particular person video games, the 1650 Tremendous was anyplace from 4% slower (Borderlands 3) to a whopping 31% sooner (Complete Struggle: Warhammer 3). However for essentially the most half, the 2 supplied a comparable expertise.
Bumping the standard settings from medium to extremely creates issues in a number of of the video games, which begin to use greater than the 4GB of VRAM that is accessible on these GPUs. Forza Horizon 5, Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2, Complete Struggle: Warhammer 3, and Watch Canines Legion all see efficiency principally minimize in half, typically extra. A lot of the video games remained playable, that means 30 fps or extra, however TWW3 and WDL each dropped beneath that mark.
Technically, AMD’s RX 6500 XT has the benefit of additionally supporting DXR (DirectX Raytracing), which the GTX 1650 Tremendous fails to run (you want a 6GB GTX 10- or 16-series GPU for restricted DXR help). Nonetheless, efficiency in DXR video games on the 6500 XT, even at 1080p medium, is often so sluggish as to be meaningless. In our 6-game DXR check suite, the RX 6500 XT averaged 13.5 fps and didn’t run Management (which requires 6GB or extra to allow DXR). Fortnite was the most effective consequence, at 20 fps, whereas a few the video games did not even break 10 fps. Do not hassle, in different phrases.
It is fascinating what AMD is ready to do with considerably much less reminiscence bandwidth, even with a comparatively small 16MB Infinity Cache. The RX 6500 XT has simply 144 GB/s of bandwidth, in comparison with 192 GB/s for the GTX 1650 Tremendous, because of the 64-bit reminiscence bus on Navi 24. Nonetheless, the 232 GB/s of Infinity Cache bandwidth principally makes up the distinction, more often than not. It begins to fall quick at extremely settings, however these largely aren’t playable anyway.
By the way, whereas we’re solely exhibiting common fps, the 99th percentile lows are largely the identical story, besides Nvidia’s lead is barely bigger. General, the GTX 1650 Tremendous was 4.9% sooner on minimal fps at 1080p medium, 10.0% sooner at 1080p extremely, and 43.7% sooner at 1440p extremely. In different phrases, the framerate consistency was barely worse on the RX 6500 XT.
Whereas the efficiency would possibly seem like a tie, that is utilizing a contemporary check system that helps the PCIe 4.0 interface. We additionally examined RX 6500 XT with PCIe 3.0 speeds, and efficiency dropped by 9% general, however there have been cases the place it was as much as 40% slower. Testing the GTX 1650 Tremendous on the identical two PCs confirmed a 2% enchancment in efficiency on the older Core i9-9900K system, so the drop in AMD efficiency can safely be attributed to the PCIe interface and platform. That provides Nvidia the general lead for this class.
Winner: Nvidia GTX 1650 Tremendous
Nvidia got here out forward in any respect three examined settings and resolutions, utilizing a contemporary check PC. 1080p medium efficiency was just about tied, and we might throw AMD a bone for its ray tracing {hardware}. Nonetheless, for price range {hardware}, we really feel there is a far better likelihood these playing cards will find yourself in a PC that does not help PCIe 4.0, which implies Nvidia will get the lead. Neither one among these GPUs are notably potent, after all. You are getting the equal of an RX 580 8GB (however with much less VRAM), or a bit sooner than a GTX 980, half a decade after these GPUs had been of their prime.
Worth: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
Costs have been all over for many of the previous two years, although the RX 6500 XT solely launched again in January 2022. The GTX 1650 Tremendous initially debuted with a value of simply $159 in 2019, and it was a superb worth on the time. Costs trended upward in 2020, after which spiked horrifically in 2021 when the GPU shortages and pandemic-influenced provide chain points had been at their worst. Even now, almost three years after its launch, the bottom costs on the GTX 1650 Tremendous are nonetheless $200.
Until you are keen to take an opportunity with a used card, which adjustments issues up barely. The GTX 1650 Tremendous could be had for round $130 on eBay (opens in new tab), whereas the RX 6500 XT begins at round $150 (opens in new tab). Each of these costs are very a lot estimates, as eBay reveals much more fluctuations than retail shops. Plus, shopping for a used graphics card represents a danger. The excellent news is that neither of those GPUs would have been an amazing choice for mining functions, attributable to having solely 4GB of reminiscence, so that they in all probability weren’t run into the bottom by their former house owners.
What’s not clear is whether or not Nvidia continues to be actively producing the TU116 chips that sit on the coronary heart of the GTX 1650 Tremendous. It hasn’t formally discontinued manufacturing so far as we’re conscious, however the provide of budget-friendly GTX 16-series playing cards hasn’t been all that nice for some time now. The RTX 3050 in the meantime represents a big step up in value, efficiency, and options, so Nvidia does not have a direct substitute for the GTX 1650 Tremendous. And no, the GTX 1630 will not be the GPU you are on the lookout for [waves hand].
Winner: AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
Retail pricing trumps eBay pricing, and proper now you save $20 by going with the AMD RX 6500 XT. Until Nvidia begins offering a gentle provide of TU116 chips — for the GTX 1650 Tremendous in addition to the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Tremendous — AMD will doubtless preserve its modest pricing benefit.
Options and Know-how: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
| Graphics Card | GTX 1650 Tremendous | RX 6500 XT |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | TU116 | Navi 24 |
| Course of Know-how | TSMC 12FFN | TSMC N6 |
| Transistors (Billion) | 6.6 | 5.4 |
| Die dimension (mm^2) | 284 | 107 |
| SMs / CUs | 20 | 16 |
| GPU Cores | 1280 | 1024 |
| RT/RA Cores | N/A | 16 |
| Enhance Clock (MHz) | 1725 | 2815 |
| TFLOPS FP32 (Enhance) | 4.4 | 5.8 |
| VRAM Velocity (Gbps) | 12 | 18 |
| VRAM (GB) | 4 | 4 |
| VRAM Bus Width | 128 | 64 |
| Bandwidth (GBps) | 192 | 144 |
| ROPs | 48 | 32 |
| TMUs | 80 | 64 |
| PCIe Interface | 3.0 x16 | 4.0 x4 |
| Video {Hardware} | H.264/H.265 encode/decode as much as 8K HDR | H.264/H.265 decode solely, as much as 4K HDR |
| TDP (watts) | 100 | 107 |
| Launch Date | Nov-19 | Jan-22 |
| Launch Worth | $159 | $199 |
| On-line Worth | $180 | $200 |
Usually, newer GPU architectures include further options. AMD’s Navi 24 and Nvidia’s GTX 16-series symbolize an exception to that rule, in several methods.
Regardless of utilizing the Turing structure, the GTX 1650 Tremendous does not help ray tracing or DLSS — two of the largest additions to Turing. It does help the improved Turing NVENC {hardware}, which guarantees greater high quality streaming encodes with much less of successful on gaming efficiency, nevertheless, which does beat Navi 24.
AMD’s Navi 24 GPU in the meantime represents some critical cuts to the essential RDNA 2 structure function set. There is no video encoding {hardware}, solely video decoding {hardware}. The PCIe interface additionally will get trimmed to only an x4 hyperlink, which regardless of being PCIe 4.0 succesful nonetheless has half the potential throughput because the GTX 1650 Tremendous’s PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. It is also restricted to 2 show outputs, usually one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4.
The one main function AMD helps with RX 6500 XT that Nvidia doesn’t is ray tracing, however as famous earlier, it is rather more of a checkbox function than one thing most individuals would think about using. Different competing options are largely comparable, like G-Sync vs FreeSync, Reflex vs Anti-Lag, and so on. You get the identical quantity of reminiscence (4GB), and each GPUs require a 6-pin (or typically 8-pin) energy connection.
Winner: Nvidia GTX 1650 TremendousÂ
We mentioned in our preliminary evaluation that Navi 24 represented too many cuts to the essential function set. A 64-bit reminiscence interface, x4 PCIe interface, and no encoding {hardware} make this a GPU that feels extra like one thing from 5 years in the past. Certain, there’s RT {hardware}, nevertheless it’s solely a token effort and is basically ineffective with solely 4GB of reminiscence. This can be a shut name, however in the end we give Nvidia a slight edge.
Drivers and Software program: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
AMD and Nvidia launch common driver updates for his or her GPUs. In AMD’s case, the corporate usually drops bigger annual overhauls of its Radeon drivers, however the greatest adjustments previously couple of years have targeted on enhancing DirectX 11 efficiency in just a few circumstances, and cleansing up bugs. Most main recreation launches are inclined to see AMD Sport Prepared drivers, although not essentially WHQL licensed drivers.
Nvidia maintains an identical launch schedule for its GeForce drivers. It does not at all times have a month-to-month driver replace, however you possibly can depend on having Sport Prepared Drivers on launch day for many main recreation releases. Practically each Nvidia driver (outdoors the occasional hotfix) is WHQL licensed. It is an additional step, although in apply we’re unsure how a lot it actually issues — we have seen UI bugs and different points nonetheless slip via the WHQL course of.
AMD and Nvidia have totally different approaches to their driver consumer interfaces. Nvidia splits its GeForce driver choices into two purposes. Nvidia Management Panel handles the GPU settings, reminiscent of decision, texture filtering, vertical sync, low latency mode, energy administration, and extra. The management panel additionally handles show configuration settings, reminiscent of coloration, rotation, and multi-display setups. Nvidia GeForce Expertise handles recreation settings, driver updates, and contains recreation streaming and recording options in addition to efficiency tuning choices. To entry the GeForce Expertise options, you need to log in with an Nvidia consumer account.
AMD takes a considerably extra streamlined strategy in that the Radeon driver software program is a one-stop-shop for all of your Radeon GPU settings and options. The Radeon Adrenaline 2022 software program suite contains computerized driver updates, recreation efficiency profiles, built-in broadcasting software program to stream and file your gameplay, and efficiency metrics and overclocking choices.
Winner: Tie
Each Nvidia and AMD have totally different benefits with their drivers and accompanying software program, however they provide typically equal experiences. Driver updates come frequently, and each corporations are effectively versed in testing and tuning their drivers to extract good gaming efficiency. Nvidia would possibly do a bit higher on a collection of much less fashionable video games, however we already gave it the efficiency class so we’re calling this a tie.
Energy Consumption / Effectivity: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
The GTX 1650 Tremendous and RX 6500 XT aren’t notably demanding playing cards, with official TBP (typical board energy) scores of 100W and 107W, respectively. As you possibly can guess, real-world testing would possibly present some minor variations, however any respectable energy provide ought to show ample for these GPUs.
Some fashions might need a bigger manufacturing unit overclock and require an 8-pin connector, and all playing cards will want not less than a 6-pin connector. That is sufficient for the cardboard to make use of as much as 150W (75W from the 6-pin and 75W from the PCIe slot), and even the biggest manufacturing unit overclocks are unlikely to push issues that far.
AMD’s earlier technology GPUs typically used much more energy than their Nvidia counterparts, however that is not the case with the present lineup. In our testing,the RX 6500 XT used 90W of energy in our Metro Exodus check and 113W in FurMark, whereas the GTX 1650 Tremendous used 101W in Metro and 102W in FurMark. There is a good likelihood different video games would have the RX 6500 XT utilizing extra energy, which implies general it is a tie.
That is definitely an fascinating consequence, contemplating Nvidia’s GTX 1650 Tremendous makes use of TSMC’s older 12nm FFN node whereas the AMD RX 6500 XT makes use of the newer 7nm node. AMD’s Navi 24 additionally has a 107mm^2 die dimension in comparison with Nvidia’s TU116 with a 284mm^2 chip dimension (although an honest chunk of the TU116 chip is disabled on this card). However decrease clock speeds and different architectural variations come into play, and in the end energy draw finally ends up being very related.
Winner: Tie
A distinction of 5–10W in real-world use circumstances principally does not matter, when each playing cards have the identical PSU connectivity necessities. 100W of energy, give or take, means your graphics card should not want a large cooler with a lot of followers, and the followers ought to spin at comparatively low speeds, resulting in a quiet PC general.
Backside Line: GTX 1650 Tremendous vs RX 6500 XT
| Spherical | AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Tremendous |
|---|---|---|
| Gaming Efficiency | ✗ | |
| Worth | ✗ | |
| Options and Know-how |  | ✗ |
| Drivers and Software program | ✗ | ✗ |
| Energy and Effectivity | ✗ | ✗ |
| Complete | 3 | 4 |
General Winner: Nvidia GTX 1650 Tremendous
The Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce GTX 1650 Tremendous are comparatively effectively matched playing cards. Frankly, that is greater than just a little stunning, contemplating the GTX 1650 Tremendous is now nearly three years outdated, whereas the RX 6500 XT hasn’t even reached its first birthday but. However AMD initially meant the Navi 24 GPU for cellular options, which implies it might usually be paired with built-in graphics options that would supply some further options.
That proves to be a limiting issue general. If you wish to save $20, definitely AMD deserves some thought. Nonetheless, at $200 even, with options like video encoding (stay streaming) help and barely higher efficiency within the majority of video games, plus the power to make use of the GTX 1650 Tremendous with older PCIe 3.0 methods with out tanking efficiency, Nvidia comes out forward.
That is to not say the RX 6500 XT could not work simply positive for lots of people, however the identical goes for the GTX 1650 Tremendous. Frankly, we would be extra inclined to try to step as much as the following stage of efficiency and options, with the Radeon RX 6600 and GeForce RTX 3050 — and even the GeForce GTX 1660 Tremendous. However that is perhaps too huge of a step for a lot of wallets. GPU costs proceed to fall, however Nvidia’s “price range Ampere” playing cards nonetheless promote effectively above MSRP.
Pricing and relative efficiency are the important thing components. Proper now, the RX 6500 XT and GTX 1650 Tremendous go face to face, but when the AMD card will get cheaper or provides of the GTX 1650 Tremendous dry up and costs improve, issues might rapidly change. Availability of older GTX 16-series has turn out to be considerably unreliable, so if the GTX 1650 Tremendous fades away and the GTX 1650 has to take its place within the sub-$200 market, RX 6500 XT would simply take the efficiency crown — and the GTX 1630 is laughable by comparability.
Regardless of the age of the GTX 1650 Tremendous, we additionally do not anticipate a critical substitute to reach any time quickly from Staff Inexperienced. AMD’s RX 6500 XT is simply too new to want a substitute as effectively. Which means despite the fact that next-generation Nvidia Ada and AMD RDNA 3 GPUs are on the horizon, it is perhaps a while earlier than the price range will get any love.Â
