Review Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 Review: Lobotomized Turing

[Admin]

We tested Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1630, a blast from the past with half its "brain" removed. Turing TU117 was already slow, and Nvidia just made it even slower, but without the necessary accompanying price cut.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 Review: Lobotomized Turing : Read more

 

[King_V]

Upon reading this review, I feel that I owe you an apology for being such a proponent for the GPU Battle of Meh...

Uh, but, I guess it's better than the 1050 non-Ti, so, uh, that's . . no, I can't even get myself to say it's some kind of victory.

My sympathies for your suffering on this one, @JarredWaltonGPU

 

[Eximo]

OEMs are still selling GTX1650 and 1650 Super in low end gaming desktops. Just don't see this happening, practically e-waste unless they cut the price in half.

 

[PiranhaTech]

Upon reading this review, I feel that I owe you an apology for being such a proponent for the GPU Battle of Meh...

Uh, but, I guess it's better than the 1050 non-Ti, so, uh, that's . . no, I can't even get myself to say it's some kind of victory.

My sympathies for your suffering on this one, @JarredWaltonGPU

I don't mind weak GPUs from Nvidia or AMD as long as they are priced okay. There's been a few times where an integrated GPU doesn't work for whatever reason (for a PC not used for gaming), or my good GPU goes out, I'm short on money, and I need a working PC.

They definitely have their uses. However, come on! With that kind of performance, be $120 at most, probably $80-100. It's 75W on top of all of this. I could be more forgiving if it ran at 50W or lower. Give us something, Nvidia! The GT 1030 is a 30W GPU

 

[King_V]

I don't mind weak GPUs from Nvidia or AMD as long as they are priced okay. There's been a few times where an integrated GPU doesn't work for whatever reason (for a PC not used for gaming), or my good GPU goes out, I'm short on money, and I need a working PC.

They definitely have their uses. However, come on! With that kind of performance, be $120 at most, probably $80-100. It's 75W on top of all of this. I could be more forgiving if it ran at 50W or lower. Give us something, Nvidia! The GT 1030 is a 30W GPU

Well, as predicted when the specs were announced and when the card first came out, Nvidia released a GPU that makes the RX 6400 look like a hero.

 

[waffleinc]

When I first heard about this GPU, I was somewhat excited. At the time, I needed a cheap and cheerful GPU for nothing more than basic home use and video encoding. I figured that as long as it's only $100, that would be fine, even with the low core count and slow memory. Then I saw that it would be $200 and 75w. Yeah, no thanks.

 

[Giroro]

What version of NVENC does it have?
I assume the older/worse version of the GTX 1650... If so, I wouldn't even want this for $100... Maybe $80.

With the updated encoders, I could see myself paying nearly $125 as an entry point to throw my old 3700x into a dedicated streaming PC.

But today Newegg has a 1660 Super for $210 ($30 MIR), and you can get an RTX 2060 for $250 (which also completely embarrasses the pricing of the RTX 3050).

Nvidia needs to step back get real with how they're letting their board partners price their crappy new cards.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Upon reading this review, I feel that I owe you an apology for being such a proponent for the GPU Battle of Meh...

Uh, but, I guess it's better than the 1050 non-Ti, so, uh, that's . . no, I can't even get myself to say it's some kind of victory.

My sympathies for your suffering on this one, @JarredWaltonGPU

I'm still waiting for the "joy" of testing Arc A380. I mean, technically it should perform pretty decently based on specs. But I am not at all looking forward to the driver shenanigans I'll likely have to deal with. On the bright side, it's taken so long to get the GPU shipped from China that drivers will hopefully be quite a bit better by the time the card arrives! Also, AV1 encoding should be interesting, assuming it works properly. I'll try to encode and upload the A380 video using its AV1 hardware. 🙃

 

[Thunder64]

The article basically says "Don't buy this crap" and yet 2/5 stars. What is a one star product? This costs the same as much better cards and still requires external power.

What version of NVENC does it have?
I assume the older/worse version of the GTX 1650... If so, I wouldn't even want this for $100... Maybe $80.

With the updated encoders, I could see myself paying nearly $125 as an entry point to throw my old 3700x into a dedicated streaming PC.

But today Newegg has a 1660 Super for $210 ($30 MIR), and you can get an RTX 2060 for $250 (which also completely embarrasses the pricing of the RTX 3050).

Nvidia needs to step back get real with how they're letting their board partners price their crappy new cards.

Or for $10 more on Amazon you could get an RX 6600. That would have a bit more performance but more importantly 8GB of RAM.

I'm still waiting for the "joy" of testing Arc A380. I mean, technically it should perform pretty decently based on specs. But I am not at all looking forward to the driver shenanigans I'll likely have to deal with. On the bright side, it's taken so long to get the GPU shipped from China that drivers will hopefully be quite a bit better by the time the card arrives! Also, AV1 encoding should be interesting, assuming it works properly. I'll try to encode and upload the A380 video using its AV1 hardware. 🙃

How are you even going to review it? Intel should betting more flak about having to put games into "tiers". Do you separate your review by tier? The conclusion could be quite different depending on what you intend to play.

 

[missingxtension]

This is just a slap in the face, so disrespectful. Rx6400 was so disrespectful, then Nvidia comes and "hold ny beer".
I am waiting to see if Intel at least ca do something reasonable for the price, I just can't see Intel being good at pricing. But this guys here make em look like the value leader. Wait till the recession and shrinking computer market comes, they are trying to cause it.

 

[hannibal]

Nvidia knows exactly how fast (slow) this GPU is! When this is $199, just ques how much more faster GPUs are gonna cost!
4050 should cost douple of this gpu so $400 and that still makes 4050 to look good compared to this gpu.
The GPU price hike is not over, at least according the Nvidia!

 

[hannibal]

The article basically says "Don't buy this crap" and yet 2/5 stars. What is a one star product? This costs the same as much better cards and still requires external power.

One star = does not work I suppose This gpu "just work!" so it gets 2 star!

 

[JWNoctis]

I don't mind weak GPUs from Nvidia or AMD as long as they are priced okay. There's been a few times where an integrated GPU doesn't work for whatever reason (for a PC not used for gaming), or my good GPU goes out, I'm short on money, and I need a working PC.

They definitely have their uses. However, come on! With that kind of performance, be $120 at most, probably $80-100. It's 75W on top of all of this. I could be more forgiving if it ran at 50W or lower. Give us something, Nvidia! The GT 1030 is a 30W GPU

I wonder if those power figures are meant to make it less appealing to miners. In a market where, say, a regular RTX 3060 would sell for $800 if at all available, this would've looked a lot better if not itself far above MSRP. That ship has sailed, for now.

They really should've designed a newer -8 chip. Half a GA107 (i.e. RTX 3050) with an even smaller die area on 8nm...would have made sense without a silicon shortage. Would'be better if it'd also sell for no more than $120.

 

[warezme]

This is the kind of junk that Dell stuffs in their "business" class machines just so they can say it has a dedicated Nvidia card and business people don't know a darn thing about video cards so they are yea this is great when it's a piece of junk.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

One star = does not work I suppose This gpu "just work!" so it gets 2 star!

Pretty much. I mean, if it were a $100 card, as it should be, then suddenly the rating seems very wrong. It would probably be a 3-star at that price — still not awesome, but at least worth considering. Only products that are fundamentally broken fall into the 1-star range in my book.

 

[King_V]

Pretty much. I mean, if it were a $100 card, as it should be, then suddenly the rating seems very wrong. It would probably be a 3-star at that price — still not awesome, but at least worth considering. Only products that are fundamentally broken fall into the 1-star range in my book.

And the A380 might. It performs better, definitely, but the control software is really horribly broken, and, apparently, cannot be completely uninstalled then reinstalled.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

And the A380 might. It performs better, definitely, but the control software is really horribly broken, and, apparently, cannot be completely uninstalled then reinstalled.

We'll see. I've seen the GN video, but of course by the time I get my card I'll be skipping a bunch of older driver revisions and going straight to whatever is "current." Things should hopefully improve by then, maybe? As GN said, though, a bunch of the broken features in the drivers should just be removed until they're working properly, like Smooth Sync and related settings. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I also found it interesting that there's one guy claiming a 40% performance increase via "overclocking" (increasing power limit and voltages), but GN saw no real benefit from the same thing. Seems likely there are issues based on test bed hardware as well as drivers and firmware, always a great sign (not).

 

[Wisecracker]

Short-term, Navi 24 and AMD are the big wieners, here. Dr Su likely has done yet another 'rope-a-dope' ---- at a die size of 107 mm² no less.

I suspect a Navi 24 respin on the way with a few new bells and whistles: Updated Display/Video Core Next: 3.x leading the way . . .

"Maybe the pricing will correct, but realistically it needs to be cut in half for the cards to make any sort of sense. As a replacement in the product stack for the aging GTX 1050 — which hasn't been manufactured for a few years now, as far as we can tell — a GTX 1630 with a similar $110 price point would have been okay. You get double the VRAM at least, which means some of the games that choke on 2GB cards could still run. Alternatively, Nvidia could have made this a GT 1030 replacement, priced below $100. It still wouldn't be fast, but at least it would have the ultra-budget pricing angle going for it.

With AMD's Radeon RX 6400 delivering significantly better performance for $50 less, the only real selling point for the GTX 1630 would be its media encoding capabilities. If that's your primary consideration, waiting for Intel's Arc A380 to ship in the US would be a better choice."

 

[King_V]

We'll see. I've seen the GN video, but of course by the time I get my card I'll be skipping a bunch of older driver revisions and going straight to whatever is "current." Things should hopefully improve by then, maybe? As GN said, though, a bunch of the broken features in the drivers should just be removed until they're working properly, like Smooth Sync and related settings. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I also found it interesting that there's one guy claiming a 40% performance increase via "overclocking" (increasing power limit and voltages), but GN saw no real benefit from the same thing. Seems likely there are issues based on test bed hardware as well as drivers and firmware, always a great sign (not).

If I may quote Mrs. Doubtfire quoting her imaginary, deceased husband, Winston: "Brace ye'self, Effie!"

 

[mac_angel]

I didn't see anywhere if you said it can play Crysis.

 

[Eximo]

I didn't see anywhere if you said it can play Crysis.

Well now I want to see that. Need to get Dawid on the case.

 

[Krotow]

The article basically says "Don't buy this crap" and yet 2/5 stars. What is a one star product? This costs the same as much better cards and still requires external power.

This particular card would work in office PC at 2-3 monitor configuration. But not for this price and with external power requirement.