NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB GDDR6 Graphics Card Review – The Best SUPER Card Yet!

Conclusion - The Best SUPER Card of Them All & One For The Masses!

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, making a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences.

While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA's first big naming departure for two decades of GeForce GTX.

The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance.

NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing for more reasonable prices, so is also going back to the good old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX cards support.

A few months back, I got to take a look at the new GeForce 16 series cards based on the Turing GPU architecture, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the GeForce GTX 1660. Today NVIDIA has finally unveiled that they aren't just supercharging the GeForce RTX lineup but also the GeForce GTX line up. NVIDIA introduced the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER first which I tested here but today, I will be taking a look at the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, a $159 US graphics card which completely replaces the GeForce GTX 1650 and offers the biggest performance jump we have seen yet on a SUPER series graphics card.

When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER replaces the GTX 1050, promising far better performance than the GTX 1060 around $150 US. The GeForce GTX 16 SUPER series would also continue the trend of introducing a higher performance out of the box at the same price tag. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018	2016-2017	2014-2016
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan X (Maxwell)
Price	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US	$649 US	$649 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
Price	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 970
Price	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US	$379 US	$329 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 960
Price	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$199 US
Entry Tier	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 950	GTX 750 Ti GTX 750
Price	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US	$149 US	$149 US $119 US

For this review, I will be taking a look at MSI's GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X, a custom graphics card that will retail at $179 US. The reference card will be priced at $159 US so we are looking at a $20 premium price tag but with a much better dual-fan cooler, a custom PCB and a factory overclock out of the box.

With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference models, the custom variants offer a range of features such as dual-fan coolers, better heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher airflow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and RTX/DLSS features deep dive, head over to this link.

While we have already detailed the Turing GPU architecture, it should be pointed out that the TU116 GPU, while it shares the same DNA as the Turing architecture has some big changes to what've seen on the GeForce RTX 20 series cards.

Based on the 12th Generation Turing GPU architecture, the TU116 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 and the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER features the same shader innovations that were introduced on Turing but to balance it out in terms of power, cost and performance, a few adjustments had to be made. This is done through the exclusion of RT cores and Tensor cores on the GeForce GTX cards with Turing architecture. It is pointed out that the Turing architecture on GeForce GTX still delivers improved performance & better efficiency compared to its predecessor while supporting concurrent floating-point and integer Ops.

So let's talk about the balanced architecture design of the Turing TU116 and how it still manages to improve upon its Pascal-based predecessors. The first thing to mention is the three big changes in the Turing SM. The revamped structure of the Turing TU116 SM enables the processing of FP32 & INT operations concurrently through the use of dedicated cores within the SM. The list of features that Turing TU116 GPU adds over Pascal GP106 include:

• Concurrent FP and INT operations
• Variable Rate Shading
• Unified Cache Architecture
• GDDR6 Memory Subsystem
• Dedicated FP16 Cores
• Turing NVENC Support

The Turing SM can also perform FP16 operations at double the rate of FP32. The Turing TU116 GPU is rated at 11 TOPs (FP+INT), 11 TFLOPs FP16 and an improved bandwidth that is resultant of the higher cache size of 1.5 MB compared to just 480 KB on the Pascal GP106 GPU.

If we look at some modern gaming titles, then we can see that developers are widely mixing floating-point operations with integer instructions. For every 100 instructions in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for example, 62 are floating point and 38 integers, on average. In previous GPUs, the floating-point math datapath in the SM would sit idly whenever one of these non-FP-math runs.

Turing adds a second parallel Integer execution unit never to ever CUDA core that executes these instructions in parallel with floating-point math. This would allow the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER graphics card to deliver up to 2.0x performance improvement over the GeForce GTX 1050 4 GB.

Now coming to the raw specifications of the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER graphics card. The TU116 GPU is fabricated on the TSMC's 12nm FFN (FinFET NVIDIA) process node. It features 3 GPCs, 12 TPCs, and 20 Turing SMs. Each SM contains 64 cores which equal to a total of 1280 CUDA Cores. There are also 80 Texture Units and 32 Raster Operation Units on the card. The base clock is maintained at 1530 MHz while the boost clock is maintained at 1725 MHz. That's a massive GPU configuration difference versus the GeForce GTX 1650 which was based on the TU117 GPU core.

The card features 4 GB of GDDR6 VRAM running along a 128-bit bus interface. The memory system would be clocked at 12.0 Gbps delivering an effective bandwidth of 192 GB/s. The card features a single 6 pin connector to boot and has a TDP of 100W. Display outputs include a single DisplayPort, a single DVI-D, and an HDMI connector.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX/GTX "Turing" Family:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 D6	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
GPU Architecture	Turing GPU (TU117)	Turing GPU (TU117)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU104)	Turing GPU (TU102)
Process	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN
Die Size	200mm2	200mm2	284mm2	284mm2	284mm2	284mm2	445mm2	445mm2	545mm2	754mm2
Transistors	4.7 Billion	4.7 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	13.6 Billion	18.6 Billion
CUDA Cores	896 Cores	896 Cores	1280 Cores	1408 Cores	1408 Cores	1536 Cores	1920 Cores	2304 Cores	2944 Cores	4352 Cores
TMUs/ROPs	56/32	56/32	80/32	88/48	88/48	96/48	120/48	144/64	192/64	288/96
GigaRays	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5 Giga Rays/s	6 Giga Rays/s	8 Giga Rays/s	10 Giga Rays/s
Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	6 MB L2 Cache
Base Clock	1485 MHz	1410 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1500 MHz	1365 MHz	1410 MHz	1515 MHz	1350 MHz
Boost Clock	1665 MHz	1590 MHz	1725 MHz	1785 MHz	1785 MHz	1770 MHz	1680 MHz	1620 MHz 1710 MHz OC	1710 MHz 1800 MHz OC	1545 MHz 1635 MHz OC
Compute	3.0 TFLOPs	3.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	5.0 TFLOPs	5.0 TFLOPs	5.5 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	7.5 TFLOPs	10.1 TFLOPs	13.4 TFLOPs
Memory	Up To 4 GB GDDR5	Up To 4 GB GDDR6	Up To 4 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR5	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 11 GB GDDR6
Memory Speed	8.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	8.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps
Memory Interface	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	352-bit
Memory Bandwidth	128 GB/s	192 GB/s	192 GB/s	192 GB/s	336 GB/s	288 GB/s	336 GB/s	448 GB/s	448 GB/s	616 GB/s
Power Connectors	N/A	N/A	6 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin
TDP	75W	75W	100W	120W	125W	120W	160W	185W (Founders) 175W (Reference)	225W (Founders) 215W (Reference)	260W (Founders) 250W (Reference)
Starting Price	$149 US	$149 US	$159 US	$219 US	$229 US	$279 US	$349 US	$499 US	$699 US	$999 US
Price (Founders Edition)	$149 US	$149 US	$159 US	$219 US	$229 US	$279 US	$349 US	$599 US	$799 US	$1,199 US
Launch	April 2019	April 2020	November 2019	March 2019	October 2019	February 2019	January 2019	October 2018	September 2018	September 2018

The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X is the top variant within MSI's GTX 1650 SUPER series family. This graphics card utilizes the most advanced version of the iconic Twin Frozr cooling system known as the Twin Frozr VII. This graphics card is available in the market for $179.99 US right now which makes it $20 US more expensive than the reference MSRP which is not that big of a difference for a fully custom design with a cooler that seems to look and perform great too. The good thing with this graphics model though is that it excels upon the standard reference models in all possible ways.

In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER features 1280 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Turing TU116 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 284mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1530 MHz for the base clock and 1725 MHz for boost clock. The MSI Gaming X model is clocked up to 1755 MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.

The chip packs a total of 4.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 4 GB GDDR6 memory interface running along a 128-bit wide bus interface that delivers 192 GB/s bandwidth. The reference model is powered by a single 8 pin connector and has a TDP of 100W.

The Gaming X design is built upon the foundations of the previous Gaming X layout with dual Torx 3.0 fans that come with Zero Frozr technology and the dispersion fan blade design, allowing higher airflow to reach the heatsink underneath the shroud. The card features a custom 4+2 phase power design on the PCB and is powered by a single 8 connector. The custom PCB is fitted with an anti-bending bracket which offers better durability.

Following are some of the features of the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming X before we go into detail:

Features

Core/Memory

• Boost Clock / Memory Speed
  1755 MHz / 12 Gbps
• 4GB GDDR6
• DisplayPort x 3 / HDMI x 1

Twin Frozr 7 Thermal Design

• TORX Fan 3.0
  - Dispersion fan blade: Steep curved blade accelerating the airflow.
  - Traditional fan blade: Provides steady airflow to massive heat sink below.
• Mastery of Aerodynamics: The heatsink is optimized for efficient heat dissipation, keeping your temperatures low and performance high.
• Zero Frozr technology: Stopping the fan in low-load situations, keeping a noise-free environment.

Dragon Center

• A consolidated platform that offers all software including MYSTIC LIGHT functionality for your MSI Gaming product.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X graphics card comes within a standard cardboard-based package. The front of both packages has a large “GeForce GTX” brand logo along with the “MSI” logo on the top left corner. A picture of the graphics card can be seen on the front which as I've said before, is a nice touch from MSI.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR6, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI’s top tier custom cards are its Torx 3.0 fan design, the upgraded & much efficient Twin Frozr 7 heatsink design and support for the Mystic Light RGB implementation.

There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.

There’s a letter case within the box that is etched with the MSI logo. This box contains the card accessories and the graphics card itself is hidden behind it.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a Molex power connector which isn’t of much use in high-end systems since the PSUs already have the required cables.

Useful manuals and installation guides are packed within an MSI labeled letter case. There is an MSI Quick Users Guide, a Support bracket installation guide, a sticker letter, the MSI DIY comic, and a single driver's disk. It’s best to ignore the driver disk and install the latest software and graphics drivers directly from the NVIDIA and MSI official web pages as the ones shipped in the disks could be older versions and not deliver optimal performance for your graphics cards.

Out of the package, the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER comes in a stylish black and grey color scheme that looks stunning. The shroud is an update to the previous Twin Frozr VI which we remember from the GeForce 10 series era.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X is a very compact graphics card and it looks to be a great solution for many gaming PCs and even the more small form factor designs. Even with such a small design, MSI has packed a lot in this graphics card such as the enhanced Twin Frozr 7 heat sink, the dual Torx 3.0 fans and a custom PCB which is far better than the one featured on the Founders Edition. The cards weigh in at just 742 grams and have dimensions of 248 x 127 x 44 millimeters.

The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don't have to worry about installation as this compact graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning and offers a premium look. This is, in fact, the same brushed metal design that I have seen on all of MSI's Gaming X cards. The one used by MSI on the GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming X is a more compact version of that and it looks even better.

In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Twin Frozr heatsink for MSI GTX 16 series cards which is now in its seventh variation. The first iteration of the Twin Frozr heatsink goes all the way back to the GeForce 200 series era and you can tell that this heatsink design has come a long way since.

Compared to the MSI Gaming X Trio, the Gaming Z with Twin Frozr looks vastly similar but unique too. It has the same fans, a similar shroud, and a smaller backplate, all within a compact design. I personally think that the compact version looks much better than its bigger and beefier sibling that is used on the higher-end cards.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed silver finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. There are open vents for the hot air to move out from the back too. We can also see the MSI Dragon logo on the back which looks stunning. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.

Coming to the fans, the card features the Torx 3.0 system. Both fans combine traditional and dispersion fan blade technology to offer better cooling performance.

The dispersion fan blade technology has a steeper curved blade that accelerates airflow and as such increases effectiveness in keeping the GPU cool. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.

MSI also features their Zero Frozr technology on the Tri Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Tri Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don't feature any NVLINK connector as they don't support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower-end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn't the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher-end cards.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of the GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X. I can see that MSI has made no compromise with this graphics card even though its a much smaller version of the Gaming X Trio series cards. The same heatsink technology is used on Gaming X.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that may actually offer better cooling to a GPU like the Turing TU116.

Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 4x 6mm concentrated copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively.

The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses its exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X has a single 6 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 100W (reference TDP).

I/O on the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X graphics card includes three Display Port 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.0b.

MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X PCB Teardown

MSI makes use of a 3 phase PWM design that includes their Military Class components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chok, s and Japanese Solid Caps.

The following are a few close-up shots of the reference PCB which is being offered under the hood of the Gaming X series graphics cards.

MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X Mystic Light RGB

MSI GTX 16 Gaming X series cards utilize their Mystic Light RGB technology to offer you a visually pleasing lighting experience on your graphics cards. There are a total of 17 different RGB effects which you can choose from and the cards have five RGB accent points, three on the front one on the back and one lightbar surrounding the side of the card which looks really good. There's also the ability to set the speed and brightness at which the RGB LEDs operate.

You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the MSI Mystic Light application from MSI’s web page.

Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

GPU Test Bench 2019 (GTX 1650 SUPER)

CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz
Motherboard	AORUS Z390 Master
Video Cards	MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 56 ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC XFX Radeon R9 Fury X Liquid Cooled
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
OS	Windows 10 64-bit

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

DOOM

In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.

Red Dead Redemption II

RDR2 is using the latest iteration of the Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine, or RAGE, and has ditched DX11 in favor of being able to choose between Vulkan or DX12 for your preferred API.  Red Dead Redemption 2 has built-in benchmark utility that is fairly representative of typical gameplay and we used this to measure our performance.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off

We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.

You can read our detailed analysis of GPU Culling and Deferred Rendering graphical settings for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus here!

Battlefield V

Battlefield 5 brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Gears 5

The Coalition is back with the Gears of War series, but this time they've dropped the 'of War' so I guess war does change sometimes. Gears 5 is a bit of an interesting one from a release standpoint as it released on Xbox as well as the multiple stores on the PC; Steam as well as the Xbox PC App and Windows Store. Running off the Unreal Engine, the game boasts some seriously impressive visuals which can put even one of the best cards on their feet.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO's Interactive's Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Assassins Creed: Origins

Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics prowess in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).

The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition

Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. Both graphics cards that I tested are using advanced custom cooling solutions that come with silent and performance profiles. The cards were tested with the performance profile to see their full potential. Both cards from MSI use a dual-fan cooler design however, the Gaming X features the newer Torx 3.0 fans while the Ventus XS OC relies on the Torx 2.0 fans. Both cards come with a PWM cooling and an anti-bending plate that keeps the card sturdy and durable in the harshest environments inside your PC.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GTX 1660 SUPER is 125W (Reference) while the cards I tested feature custom PCBs with better power delivery. This puts the TDP of the card around the same level as the GeForce GTX 1060 and GeForce GTX 1660 which was also at 120W.

Also, it's worth noting that the 12nm FFN process from TSMC is a refinement of their 16nm FF node. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amounts of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chips built to date. It's likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.

The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER is the second card in the Turing based GTX 16 series family to receive a much needed SUPER update. This was mainly due to the underwhelming GTX 1650 graphics card which wasn't enough to take on AMD's still strong mainstream Polaris based graphics lineup. That changes today as not only does the GTX 1650 SUPER replaces the 1650 but offers the biggest performance uplift of any SUPER series card that we have seen.

A lot has changed with the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, it has received a new and much powerful GPU upgrade. The TU116 Turing GPU not only packs more cores but it also comes with the GTX Turing NVENC which replaces the older Volta-based NVENC featured on the TU117 GPU. While the performance boost going from GTX 1650 to GTX 1650 SUPER is impressive, the Turing NVENC will offer up to 15% better efficiency at encoding versus GTX 1650's encoder. The performance uplift for $10 US more is also a surprise that brings the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER now on par with the Radeon RX 590.

The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER really manages to take on the Radeon RX 500 series lineup which had pretty much dominated the sub $200 US market for a while now. Even the likes of the GTX 1660 didn't manage to affect Polaris sales since Radeon RX series cards are going for under $150 US in both 4 and 8 GB flavors along with AMD's own promo which lets you grab two AAA titles and an Xbox Game Pass. That brings me to the next point, while the SUPER upgrade is great, the 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM is still a limiting factor on the GTX 1650 SUPER. Sure the bandwidth is boosted by a lot but VRAM matters and upcoming titles may possibly be affected by the lower frame buffer that is available on the GTX 1650 SUPER graphics card.

For TDP, we get a 100W package design and the graphics card sticks to it in both gaming and stress tests. The added 25W TDP is due to the bigger TU116 die which has been featured on the graphics card rather than the much smaller TU117 die featured on the non-SUPER GTX 1650.

For $159 US, the GTX 1650 SUPER and its massive array of custom models, especially the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X which retails at a slight premium of $179 US is one of the best budget options you can go for right now. The days of the Radeon RX 580 are gone as the GTX 1650 SUPER now claims the title of the mainstream graphics card of choice, offering stunning graphics performance for 1080p gaming with amazing thermals and stellar performance per watt.

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