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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 TU106

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 TU106: Review of a Budget GPU for Gamers and Professionals

(As of April 2025)

1. Architecture and Key Features

Turing Architecture: Legacy Without RT Cores

The GTX 1650 TU106 graphics card is based on the Turing architecture, which debuted in 2018. However, unlike the higher-end RTX models, this variant lacks RT cores for ray tracing and Tensor cores for DLSS. This is a classic "GTX," not "RTX," which limits its compatibility with modern NVIDIA technologies.

Process Technology and Features

The TU106 chip is manufactured using TSMC's 12nm process technology. While this is not the most advanced standard in 2025, it ensures low cost and moderate heat generation. The card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan, and OpenGL 4.6, but is not designed for hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

Unique Features: Minimal Innovations

The GTX 1650 TU106 does not have access to DLSS or AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). However, NVIDIA has optimized drivers to work with FSR 3.0, allowing for improved FPS in games through software scaling.

2. Memory: Speed and Volume

GDDR6: An Unexpected Upgrade

Unlike the original GTX 1650 with GDDR5, the TU106 version received 4GB of GDDR6. This increased bandwidth to 192GB/s (compared to 128GB/s of its predecessor). For 1080p gaming in 2025, this is sufficient, but in demanding projects, the memory volume becomes a bottleneck.

Impact on Performance

In games with highly detailed textures (for example, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty), 4GB leads to drops in FPS, forcing users to lower settings. However, for esports gamers (CS2, Valorant), memory does not pose issues even at ultra settings.

3. Gaming Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p: Comfortable Gaming

- Fortnite (Epic Settings, FSR 3.0): 60-70 FPS.

- Apex Legends (High Settings): 75-85 FPS.

- Elden Ring (Medium Settings): 45-55 FPS.

1440p and 4K: Not for This Card

Even with FSR 3.0, resolutions higher than 1080p are challenging. In Hogwarts Legacy, the average FPS barely reaches 30 at 1440p. The card is unsuitable for 4K gaming.

Ray Tracing: Technically Impractical

The absence of RT cores makes ray tracing impractical. Enabling RT in Cyberpunk 2077 drops FPS to 10-15 frames, which is unacceptable.

4. Professional Tasks: Modest Potential

CUDA and OpenCL: Basic Capabilities

With 896 CUDA cores, the GTX 1650 TU106 handles light tasks:

- Editing in DaVinci Resolve: 1080p video rendering takes 20% longer than with the RTX 3050.

- 3D modeling in Blender: Simple scenes process quickly, but complex projects require more powerful GPUs.

Scientific Calculations: Not the Best Choice

For machine learning or simulations, cards with larger memory capacities and Tensor Core support are better suited.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP 85W: Energy Efficiency

The card does not require additional power — the PCIe slot (75W) is sufficient. This makes it ideal for compact PCs and upgrading older systems.

Cooling and Cases

Even in models with passive cooling (for example, from ASUS), the temperature does not exceed 75°C under load. A case with 1-2 fans is adequate.

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (4GB GDDR6)

- Pros: FSR 3.0 support, slightly better FPS in DX12 games.

- Cons: Higher price ($160 versus $140 for the GTX 1650 TU106).

Intel Arc A380 (6GB GDDR6)

- Pros: More memory, support for XeSS.

- Cons: Weak driver optimization for older projects.

Conclusion: The GTX 1650 TU106 wins on price and stability, but falls short in future-proof scenarios.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: 400W Is Adequate

Even systems with Ryzen 5 5600G or Core i3-13100F can work with a budget PSU (for example, EVGA 400 W1).

Compatibility

- PCIe 3.0 x16: No performance loss.

- Drivers: Regular NVIDIA updates ensure support for new games.

Nuances

Avoid builds with processors stronger than Core i5/Ryzen 5 — the GPU will become a bottleneck.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price ($140-160).

- Energy efficiency.

- Support for modern APIs.

Cons:

- 4GB of memory.

- No hardware ray tracing.

- Limited to 1080p gaming.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Is the GTX 1650 TU106 For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

- Budget gamers playing at 1080p.

- Office PC owners wanting to add gaming capabilities.

- Enthusiasts of compact builds (HTPC, SFF cases).

In 2025, the GTX 1650 TU106 remains a niche solution. It lags behind new releases in performance but excels in accessibility and ease of use. If you need an affordable GPU for basic tasks, this is a worthy option. However, for future upgrades, it’s better to consider cards with 8GB of memory and support for DLSS/FSR.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

June 2020

Model Name

GeForce GTX 1650 TU106

Generation

GeForce 16

Base Clock

1410MHz

Boost Clock

1590MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

10,800 million

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

12 nm

Architecture

Turing

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

4GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

1500MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

192.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

50.88 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

89.04 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

5.699 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

89.04 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.906 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

896

L1 Cache

64 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

1024KB

TDP

90W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

7.5

Power Connectors

1x 6-pin

Shader Model

6.6

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

250W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.906 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro W5300M

3.136 +7.9%

Quadro P2000 Mobile

3.033 +4.4%

GeForce GTX 1650 TU106

2.906

GeForce GTX 1650 TU116

2.792 -3.9%

FireStream 9370

2.693 -7.3%