A comparative test and review of the three younger video cards of the current generation – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super, GTX 1660 Super, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT.
Today we’ll talk about the most important topic in hardware. Which entry-level graphics card is the best? We will test the latest market news – these are the GeForce GTX 1650 Super, GTX 1660 Super and Radeon RX 5500 XT. Everything from ASUS and from the elite Strix series. Looking ahead, I’ll say that it’s for Strix that you don’t have to overpay. The chips are all cold, and almost any cooling system can handle them.
I’ll also add that thanks to the new dollar exchange rate and the special view from the side of stores, the initial level doesn’t mean budget. The GTX1650S is 15,000 rubles, the 1660S is 21-22,000 rubles and the RX 5500 XT is from 17 to 21,000 rubles for the 8 GB version.
Chips
Since we once missed absolutely all of these chips, I’ll quickly tell you about each of them. The GTX 1650 Super is a direct and very correct replacement for the regular GTX 1650, which at one time was unsuccessful. And from 1650 here, fortunately, there is one name left.
Super is a slightly truncated GTX 1660. There is a TU116 chip, not a TU117. And the memory used is not GDDR5, but GGDR6 at 12 Gb / s. Plus, Super got the NVENC chip and now normally records video and streams games. Of the minuses, I note a narrow bus of only 128 bits and a memory capacity of 4 GB.
With the GTX 1660 Super, the opposite is true. This is an improved GTX 1660. But an improved memory only. GDDR5 was upgraded to GDDR6, as on the 1650S, but they delivered more expensive chips at 14 Gb / s. But the processor, unfortunately, was not touched, since 1660 Ti is located very close, which has only 9% more CUDA cores. That is, if NVIDIA added cores to the Super, then the Ti version could be kicked out of the market, and nobody wants to do that.
Finally, AMD RX 5500 XT. The prefix XT card does not give anything. This is the same RX 5500, but for general sale, not PC builders. Actually, the processor here is AMD Navi 14 based on the RDNA architecture. Relative to the older 5700 card is cut by about 40%. And at the same time it is very close to the 1650 Super. That is a total of 32 rasterization engines and a 128-bit memory bus. The only thing is that the RX 5500 XT has faster chips – 14 Gb / s, and the memory capacity can be either 4 or 8 GB, which naturally affects the price.
ASUS ROG Strix
Now let’s talk about ASUS and our versions. ROG Strix is the company’s top line, as can be seen from the cards themselves. I’ll start with GeForce, because they are generally indistinguishable from each other. Cards look very expensive, although they are actually expensive. At the back is an aluminum stiffener plate. Front – two DisplayPort and two HDMI, for which, by the way, special thanks. Well and above – a plastic casing with two fans.
Turntables here Axial Tech. They have a narrow center and long blades enclosed in a ring. Thus, ASUS centers the air flow and accordingly increases the pressure. The fans themselves operate only under load, and their behavior can be changed by switching the lever on the back of the board.
This is called Dual Bios and it has two modes: Power Mode with aggressive fan behavior and Quite Mode, in which the video card tries to keep itself as quiet as possible. In general, these modes are configured in the complete program of the Tweak 2 GPU. But there is no sense in doing these switchings at all, on an open stand I did not notice these fans even under full load.
Another external control is the backlight button, which can turn it on and off. The light bulb, however, is only one, illuminating the logo on its side. But it supports synchronization with any devices from ASUS and even some other companies that have included support for Aura Sync.
Another feature is the ASUS Fan Connect 2 connector. It is located on the back of the board, and you can connect a case fan to it, which will synchronize in speed with the main turntables. I can’t say that the option is useful for younger chips, but in general you can get confused, put a large fan in front of the video card and put it under the control of the GPU.
As for the radiator, it is made seriously. This is a single piece with very thin ribs. But on GeForce, it’s rustic connected to the board itself. It relies directly on the processor with tubes, and in contact with the memory through a thick thermal pad. And only part of the modules is covered for her.
On Radeon, the system is much more serious. Firstly, the card itself is 3.7 cm longer and 0.7 cm thicker. Secondly, the radiator is double and has five pipes. Thirdly, it has tides and a separate plate for contact with VRM. Fourthly, it relies on the processor with a normally polished base and covers all memory chips.
results
Naturally, this affected the difference in cooling. Radeon turned supercool. At a frequency of 1860 MHz in games, it reaches 54 ° C, and when heated through 3dmark – up to 60. If you spin the turntables to full, you get 52 degrees, but there’s no point in doing it.
The GTX 1650S has approximately the same performance – 60 degrees on standard settings and 55-56 ° after fan unwinding. But the 1660S heats up noticeably more – up to 70 °.
Now about performance. I’ll start with the younger RX 5500 XT and GTX 1650S. Personally, I had high hopes for Radeon’s 8 GB of memory, but according to tests, the cards are exactly the same. Yes, sometimes GeForce, sometimes Radeon, sometimes pulls ahead, but in aggregate their average difference is 0%, and for all resolutions and even 0.1%.
In real numbers, such a picture. In all games, the graphics in Full HD can be twisted to the maximum, and the cards will give out more than 30-35 fps, and somewhere around 60. Moreover, there are no strong friezes anywhere. Yes, periodically 0.1% falls below 30 fps, which is already noticeable by eye, but these are rare failures, and we are talking about 25-28 frames, which is not particularly critical.
And this means that if you choose between the 1650S and 5500 XT, then you should focus on the price. NVIDIA wins here and offers its card for 14.5-15 thousand rubles, while for AMD with the same performance you need to pay from 17 000 rubles. The only thing that can tip the tide in favor of Radeon is memory.
Purely theoretically, 8 GB can provide good service in the future. But this is quite theoretical, because the performance of both cards primarily rests on the graphics chip, and this is clearly visible at high resolutions. That is, if the GTX 1650S did not have enough memory, then it would fail on QHD and 4K, but, as can be seen from the tests, this does not happen.
As for the 1660S, then this, of course, is a completely different level. For all resolutions and games, it shows an increase of 28%. But the price difference between the 1650S and 1660S is 44% or 6.5 thousand rubles, and this is a very significant increase in money. You need to go to it, clearly understanding that 30, 35, 40 fps is not enough for you.
Especially for those who squandered to the end, we give a brief conclusion. When choosing between the GTX 1650S and RX5500 XT, grab the first. Card performance is the same, but GeForce is cheaper. Whether the extra gigabytes of memory on the Radeon will give any advantage in the future is not yet known, the performance of both cards obviously rests on the GPU, and not the GDDR6 volume. The GTX 1660S is significantly faster than both lower cards, but for stable 45-60 fps you will have to pay 44% more.
