Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 1630 is a shortened version of the GTX 1650, which is the same GPU that was released back in April 2019. was quite pathetic at the time and often lost to the then 2 years older Radeon RX 570.
This GeForce GTX 200mm2 chip codenamed TU117 is back, but this time with 42% fewer cores (512 cores), 42% fewer texture mapping units and half the number of ROPs with just 16. 7% increased to 1785MHz, but we get an embarrassingly small 64-bit wide memory bus with 4GB of GDDR6 memory for a bandwidth of just 96GB/s, a 25% reduction over the old GTX 1650.
Based on those numbers, the GTX 1630 is going to cost about… $50? What we’re saying is that the original GTX 1650 was poor value at $150 at launch three years ago, and AMD’s recently released Radeon RX 6400 kind of sucks at $160, so something as flimsy as the GTX 1630 certainly will. are well below the price. $100 in 2022.
Well, apparently not. Rumor has it that this model will cost at least $150, with many models costing between $170 and $200. In fact, EVGA is currently listing their dual fan SC Gaming model for $200which is complete madness.
We understood the crap prices for bad products like the Radeon RX 6500 XT during the height of the mining boom, but now that the boom is over and graphics card sales have slowed down, we don’t understand what Nvidia is playing with here.
Anyway, we’ll talk more about pricing soon, let’s go through the specs of the test system now. We’re using our Ryzen 9 5950X GPU test system — and yes, we know no one is going to pair a budget graphics card with this CPU — but it’s all about testing GPU performance, and so we want to avoid having a CPU bottleneck is introduced which would distort the data.
For our low to entry level testing, we usually use medium quality settings, or settings that make sense for a particular title. We’ve tested games at 1080p and 1440p, but in this case we’ll focus more on the more relevant 1080p results.
Benchmarks
Starting with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla using the medium quality preset, we see that the GTX 1630 averaged only 32 fps, which is a really miserable result.
In comparison, the old GTX 1050 Ti was 22% faster and AMD’s nearly useless RX 6400 was 53% faster with PCIe 3.0, or ~70% faster in a PCIe 4.0 system, a really embarrassing result for Nvidia.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was released in 2018, so it’s older than even the TU117 silicon the GTX 1630 is based on, so we’re testing this title with the highest quality preset. The old GTX 1650 was good for 47 fps, while the RX 6400 achieved 53 fps with PCIe 4.0, the GTX 1630, however, was only good for 30 fps. A miserable result for this new GPU.
Watch Dogs: Legion was rejected for medium, but even here the GTX 1630 was only good at 35 fps on average, making the old GTX 1050 Ti nearly 10% faster, while the RX 6400 with PCIe 3.0 was a whopping 51% faster, and we can’t stress enough how uninspiring AMD’s offering is at $160. So what does that say about the 1630?
Rainbow Six Siege is the only game we’ve been able to play at over 60 fps and we’re doing it with the ultra-quality preset. Performance was actually comparable to the RX 6400, although the GTX 1050 Ti was still 18% faster.
Fans of F1 2021 can look forward to performance below 60 fps using the preset ‘high’ quality. Here, the GTX 1630 was almost 10% slower than the RX 6400 with PCIe 3.0 and over 30% slower than the budget Radeon GPU when using PCIe 4.0. It’s also worth noting that the GTX 1050 Ti was again much faster, this time with 24% better performance.
Horizon Zero Dawn is quite memory intensive and as a result the GTX 1630 falls off a cliff, or rather an anthill, as it never had to fall far. Shockingly, the GTX 1050 Ti was 31% faster, while the RX 6400 with PCIe 3.0 was an insane 66% faster.
Far Cry 6’s performance was weak as you’d expect, although it at least matched the GTX 1050 Ti and that meant the RX 6400 was at least 38% faster, or 81% faster when using PCIe 4.0.
Interestingly, the GTX 1630 actually performed “okay” in Doom Eternal, averaging around 57 fps. Overall still a weak result, but fair compared to the Radeon competition, which is very weak. The GTX 1630 fell short of the GTX 1050 Ti and was slower than the old technology which is the Radeon RX 570.
Moving on to Resident Evil Village, we tested using the ‘balanced’ quality preset, which is a medium-type option. The GTX 1630 was able to average only 32 fps, making the GTX 1050 Ti 22% faster, while the RX 6400 was an absurd 88% faster with PCIe 3.0.
Things couldn’t improve in Death Stranding, where the GTX 1050 Ti was 20% faster than the GTX 1630, while the RX 6400 was 75% faster. More really terrible results for Nvidia’s new, but not quite new, entry-level graphics card.
As we’re used to, the GTX 1630 is terrible when testing Hitman 3, as it only averaged 27 fps with the medium quality settings, making the GTX 1050 Ti 52% faster and the GTX 1650 111% faster.
Finally, we have Cyberpunk 2077 and this time the GTX 1630 can match the 1050 Ti, but at only 22 fps average at 1080p with the medium quality settings, it was completely unplayable.
Energy consumption
The GeForce GTX 1630, like the 1650, is a 75W graphics card, meaning it can ditch external power and just get what it needs from the PCIe x16 slot. However, for reasons unknown, Gainward has taped a 6-pin PCIe power connector to their ‘Ghost’ model, meaning external power is mandatory for use with this model.
In principle, no GTX 1630 should have an external power supply, although, like the GTX 1650, it’s possible that PCIe slot-only models will be even slower, although the 1630 is certainly damn slow enough. Anyway, the GTX 1630 uses only slightly less power than the GTX 1050 Ti, meaning the performance per watt is somehow worse.
12 game average
Moving on to the average data from 12 games, we see how inadequate the GTX 1630 is for gaming, averaging 37 fps, meaning the GTX 1050 Ti is typically 16% faster and the RX 6400 nearly 40% faster with PCIe. 3.0, or just over 60% faster with PCIe 4.0. The GTX 1650 is also typically 65% faster and the old RX 570 almost 80% faster.
Cost per frame
Given the data we’ve just seen, the cost per frame seems a bit pointless, considering you shouldn’t buy the GeForce GTX 1630, of course, but let’s take a look anyway and have a quick discussion. It’s rare for a new entry-level GPU to rank so poorly, but the 1630 is something very special – and not in a good way, of course.
Should this new GPU become available for $150, it will be a disaster, representing the worst value we’ve seen in a long time. At this price point, it costs just over $4 per frame, an 18% premium over the already useless GTX 1650 and 22% over the RX 6400 with PCIe 3.0, or 43% more expensive than the PCIe 4.0 configuration .
At this point, we recommend gamers spend a minimum of $330 on the Radeon RX 6600. Yes, that’s a little more than double the price, but that’s actually a usable GPU that provides a great gaming experience at almost 4x the performance of the GTX 1630. What’s scary is the fact that some GTX 1630 models can sell for as much as $200, resulting in a cost per frame of $5.40, a 90+% premium compared with the RX 6400 using PCIe 4.0.
Calculating how much the GTX 1630 must cost to match the already disappointing RX 6400 with PCIe 4.0, the answer to that is $105. To match the RX 6600, it can’t cost more than $87. But since you can play most games with should play low quality settings, the GTX 1630 should be even cheaper, no more than $70 seems reasonable to us.
What we learned
The GeForce GTX 1630 is an absolute disgrace when marketed as a gaming graphics card. We don’t see any redeeming features to speak of, and unless it goes on sale for under $100 it should be ignored or used creatively for some Nvidia memes.
If you’re looking for a graphics card under $200, you’re much better off hitting the second-hand market for now. If you check eBay, you’ll find that GTX 1650 Super cards regularly sell for around $150. That’s as cheap as we imagine the GTX 1630 will be available, and the 1650 Super offers about 125% more performance.
Those who don’t want to go second-hand better dig deep and cough up the cash for the Radeon RX 6600, which, as we’ve just shown, is a significantly better value, despite costing just over $300.
Finally, if you have to buy brand new and want to spend less than $200, get the Radeon RX 6400. It’s a significantly better product, despite its crappy nature on its own. Nvidia has done the seemingly impossible with the GTX 1630, making the awful Radeon product look somewhat good by comparison.
We can’t wait for the DDR4 version of the GTX 1630 which will no doubt be quietly pushed out in a few months. Until then, this is the worst GPU we’ve seen in quite some time.
Shopping shortcuts:
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 on Amazon
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super on Amazon
- AMD Radeon RX 6400 on Amazon
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 on Amazon
- AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT on Amazon
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 on Amazon
- AMD Radeon RX 6600 on Amazon
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti on Amazon
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 on Amazon
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