Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review

When it comes to enthusiast grades Graphics solution, ZOTAC needs no introduction as they have been in business for some while now and have been producing a high end to budget segment graphics cards based on the Nvidia’s GPUs (Nvidia AIB Partner). Their other line of products includes storage drives, mini PCs.

ZOTAC has a local presence in Pakistan through M/s PakDukaan who are their authorized distributor in this region. They have sent us for ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660Ti, GTX 1660 and Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review. This content is based on ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition graphics card, the last of the series.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 Review

The Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review is based on TU117 chip using 12nm technology with a die size of 200mm² packing 4700M transistors. The Zotac GTX 1650 OC packs 896 CUDA Cores with a base clock of 1485MHz and the boost clock of 1695MHz. It features 4GB VRAM GDDR5 rated at 8 Gbps having a bus width of 128-bit using 128.1 GB/s bandwidth.

The graphics card has 1x Display Port, 1x HDMI port and a DVI-D port. It features ZOTAC’s Icestorm 2.0 cooling solution using 1x 90mm fan and a specially designed aluminum heatsink mimicking sunflower, making direct contact with the GPU for effective heat dissipation till the endpoints. It is a small form factor design without any frills attached to it which is understandable. There is no backplate and the card draws power only from the PCIe slot of the motherboard (75W).

• Item:     Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review
• Manufacturer:  ZOTAC
• Price:     Check Price on Amazon

Zotac Gaming Geforce Gtx 1650 Oc Specifications

Zotac Gaming Geforce Gtx 1650 Oc Packaging and Unboxing

The graphics card is shipped inside a cardboard box.

The front side of the main packing box has ZOTAC GAMING tag printed on the top left side. OC is printed on the top right side. Salient feature highlights are printed on the bottom left side like 4GB GDDR5 Memory, Fire Storm application. 1650 is printed on the bottom right side.

The backside of the box is filled with information for the users. GeForce GTX 1650 is printed on the top left side. ZOTAC GAMING is printed on the top right side. There is a picture of the graphics card showing its shroud side followed by the feature highlights of the card like Super Compact, Firestorm, etc. The features, system requirements, and specifications are printed below the picture.

The left and right sides are identical. They have a ZOTAC brand logo printed on the top. OC is printed in the middle and GeForce GTX 1650 is printed at the bottom section.

The bottom side of the box has a yellow color background. Box’s contents are printed in 15 different languages. There is a sticker pasted on the left side showing the model, SKU, Part No of the graphics card in addition to the EAN and UPC bar codes.

The GeForce GTX 1650 is printed on the left side whereas the ZOTAC GAMING is printed on the right side.

Opening the box will show the contents of the box nicely placed inside the egged carton.

Zotac 1650 Contents

Following is provided inside the box:

• 1x Graphics Card
• 1x Quick Installation Guide
• 1x Driver Pamphlet
• 1x ZOTAC Products Brochure
• 1x Case Badge

Zotac 1650 Closer Look

It is time to take a closer look at the Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review. The main thing about this card is its compact size that would fit in approximate 99% of the cases except where the low profile graphics card is needed for which Low Profile version of GTX 1650 is also available from the ZOTAC.

It is based on TU117 GPU from Nvidia using 12nm technology with a die size of 200 mm² and packs 4700M transistors. It has 32 ROP and 56 TMU units with 896 CUDA Cores or shader units. The pixel fill rate is 54.2 GPixel/s and texture fill rate is 94.9 GTexture/s.

This card has 4 GB from Hynix using GDDR5 with a bus width of 128-bit and cap at 128.1 GB/s bandwidth. The base clock on this card is 1485MHz with a boost clock of 1695MHz. The dimension of the card is 151×111.15×38.8mm.

Unlike the wrap-around design that we saw on their GTX 1660/1660Ti Amp edition cards, this graphics card does not follow the same design. Though the shroud is still made with the same killer looks, there is no metallic backplate nor there is all-around cover around the PCB and cooling.

The shroud is mimicking the ZOTAC’s brand logo in an aggressive and bold manner. The outcome is one heck of a beautifully designed shroud finished in a gray color with black color fans blades complementing the looks. The top and the bottom sides of the shroud itself are identical. The grooves and sharp edges really add to the overall bold look.

Zotac 1650 Cooling Solution

The cooling solution employed on the ZOTAC GTX 1650 OC edition resembles the design of their GTX 1050Ti OC and is a relatively simple one as the PCB is not full form factor. The Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review features a single 90mm fan which is designed for optimal static pressure and maximum airflow. This card does not have Auto Fan stop as we have seen on many recent models.

The striped fan blades break the airflow into smaller channels enabling a more optimized flow and quieter rotation while the deep angled blade increases downward pressure.

The ZOTAC GTX 1650 OC Edition is using a specially designed aluminum heatsink which they refer to as sunflower due to its particular shape. This heatsink is making direct contact with the GPU for effective heat dissipation from the core to the outer edges. Since there was a restriction from the source, I did not open the card to see if the heatsink is providing cooling to the VRAM chips.

Now that we have looked at the cooling solution, it is time to take a look at the top side of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC edition from the top. There is a glossy black middle portion with ZOTAC GAMING branding printed in the white color.

There is no LED underneath it. GEFORCE GTX is printed on the rightmost side of the shroud. There is no power connector as this graphics card only draws power from the motherboard.

This side shows that the shroud is not fully covering the area. The aluminum heatsinks can be seen easily.

Taking a peek at the bottom side of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 would show that the PCB is in black color. The PCIe connector with golden pins is visible. A two-pin header and connector can also be seen to power the fan. No thermal pad is visible from this side.

Let’s take a look at the backside of the graphics card. There is no backplate on this graphics card which is obvious. There is a serial no sticker pasted on the top left side.

Normally this is the area where the power connectors are installed but since this card is designed to take power from the motherboard (75W), there is power connector there.

Following connectivity options are available on the Zotac Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review:

• 1x Display Port 1.4
• 1x HDMI 2.0b
• 1x Dual-Link DVI-D

Zotac Gtx 1650 oc Testing

Following is the information regarding the test system and drivers that I have used to test this graphics card:

• Intel i7 8700k @ 5.0GHz
• Asus Strix Z390-E Gaming Motherboard
• Ballistix Elite 16GB kit @ 3000MHz
• Asus ROG Ryuo 360 CPU Cooler
• HyperX 120GB SSD
• Seagate Barracuda 3.5” 2 TB HDD
• Thermaltake TP RGB 750W Gold PSU

Drivers

• Nvidia driver 417.71 for Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060
• Nvidia driver 411. For other RTX graphics cards
• Nvidia driver 398.35 for GTX (Pascal) graphics cards
• Nvidia driver 417.71 for GTX 1080 [Required for Battlefield V]
• Nvidia driver 430.86 for GTX 1600 Series
• AMD driver Adrenalin 2019 19.4.3 for the RX 570 and RX 580.

Monitoring Software

MSI Afterburner 4.60 was used to monitor and record the FPS for the games without in-built benchmarks. Three runs per game per API per resolution were made and the average is shown on the graphs. Tough ordeal for the tester!

Synthetic Benchmarks

Following synthetic benchmarks have been used:

• 3DMark Fire Strike
• 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
• 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
• 3DMark Time Spy
• 3DMark Time Spy Extreme
• Unigine Superposition

Games

Following games have been benched:

• Ashes of the Singularity [DX11, DX12]
• Battlefield 1 [DX11, DX12]
• Battlefield V (DX11, DX12]
• Metro Last Light Redux [DX11]
• Metro Exodus [DX11, DX12]
• Assassin’s Creed Origin [DX11]
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider [DX12]
• Grand Theft Auto – V [DX11]
• Final Fantasy – XV [Benchmark]
• Far Cry 5 – [DX11]
• Middle Earth – Shadow of War [DX11]
• The Witcher 3 [DX11]
• DOOM [Vulkan]
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus [Vulkan]

Zotac Gtx 1650 oc Synthetic Benchmarks

In all three Fire Strike benchmarks the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. This card is definitely making the case for the RX 570 stronger and compelling if power efficiency is taken out of the equation.

In 3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme benchmarks, the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570.

The graph of Unigine Superposition is sorted on the 1080p Extreme preset. On 1080p Extreme preset the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GeForce GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570.

Gtx 1650 Oc Gaming Benchmarks

Battlefield 1 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. The performance boost is approximately 25.67% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield 1 DX12

In DX12, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. The performance boost is approximately 32.17% in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield V DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. The performance boost is approximately 32.75% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield V DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. The performance boost is approximately 35.41% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Metro Last Light Redux

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC is sitting between the GTX 1050Ti and the RX 570. The performance boost is approximately 5.88% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Metro Exodus DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 34.70% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Metro Exodus DX12

The ZOTAC Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Review has a performance boost of approximately 27.57% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Ashes of the Singularity DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 13.69% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Ashes of the Singularity DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 18.75% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 35.29% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Assassin’s Creed Origin

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 27.02% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

DOOM Vulkan

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660Ti Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 36.81% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Vulkan

This zotac gaming geforce gtx 1650 review game is the very first game to utilize adaptive shading technology. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 41.42% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Far Cry 5 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 23.91% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Zotac 1650 Final Fantasy XV

We have used the benchmark utility of the Final Fantasy XV. The Final Fantasy XV benchmark outputs the result in terms of the score instead of the FPS. As this is a new title so I was only able to test it with the available graphics cards.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 36.34% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Grand Theft Auto – V DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 16.82% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 27.77% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

The Witcher 3 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has a performance boost of approximately 25.12% over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti in 1080p gaming.

In terms of the overall performance the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC has performed quite well in 1080p gaming as compared to the GTX 1050Ti. In two titles it even manages to beat the RX 570. The average performance boost over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti is above 27% which is quite good and can be seen as an upgrade path to the users of the GeForce GTX 960 and GeForce GTX 10501050Ti.

But, AMD’s RX 570 is making a compelling case here to be the right contender for the upgrade as it is not only beating the GTX 1650 in the gaming performance but can be had in almost same price margin.

Boost Clocks

Now that we have taken a look at the gaming and synthetic benchmark results, it is time to take a look at the maximum boost clocks.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has boosted to 1920MHz out of the box without any tweaking. The sustained clocks were on average 1845MHz.

Zotac Gaming Geforce Overclocking, Power Consumption And Thermals

For overclocking, the MSI Afterburner was used. I started with overclocking the VRAM only without touching the voltage slider and core clock. I was able to push the memory clock by another +900MHz.

Any attempt on going further was met with lowered scores clearly indicating that overclocking attempt was futile to even at 100% voltage bump. Finally, I was able to push the Memory to +900MHz and Core clock to +220MHz.

Gtx 1650 oc 4gb Power Consumption

To measure the power draw, I am taking a different route as HWInfo64 shows the GPU Power and this is exactly what I have been showing on my graphs instead of overall system power draw. To monitor the maximum power draw (Gaming Load), I am using The Witcher 3 at 2160p for 60 minutes gaming session and then record the maximum reported power draw from the HWInfo64.

This way any user can check their graphics card’s power consumption easily. Please, keep in mind that this method will only work if there is a sensor on the PCB.

This card like the other RTX/GTX 16xx graphics cards that I have tested was constantly hitting the power target. The maximum power limit on this card is 100%. A little more headroom in terms of power target could have been beneficial.

Zotac Gaming Geforce gtx 1650 lp Thermal Performance

I am not using Furmark or any other stress app for thermal performance checking. Instead, the reported temperatures are actually from the gaming session using The Witcher 3 at 2160p resolution for minimum 60 minutes gaming session.

MSI Afterburner is used to record the temperatures during the gaming session. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition was idling at 39°C. On stock clocks, it maxed to 64°C and with overclocking it maxed to 68°C.

Conclusion

Nvidia is completing the product line in the Turing architecture. The lowest model in the Turing architecture without using the RT and Tensor cores is TU117 SM. The GeForce GTX 1650 is based on this TU117. The launch price of the GeForce GTX 1650 is almost the one at which the GeForce GTX 1050Ti was launched.

I am not sure if they have any plan on launching the Ti version of the GTX 1650 but they have definitely the game-winner for the 1080p gaming in the form of GeForce GTX 1660Ti which is not only more efficient but the performance boost over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB is above 30%. Today, I have taken a spin on ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition graphics card.

It is based on TU117 GPU from Nvidia using 12nm technology with a die size of 200 mm² and packs 4700M transistors. It has 32 ROP and 56 TMU units with 986 CUDA Cores or shader units. The pixel fill rate is 54.2 GPixel/s and texture fill rate is 94.9 GTexture/s. This card has 4 GB from Hynix using GDDR5 with a bus width of 128-bit and cap at 128.1 GB/s bandwidth. The base clock on this card is 1485MHz with a boost clock of 1695MHz.

The card is designed to fit in over 99% of the systems with a focus on the compact design. This is effectively a single fan solution. The shroud of the graphics card is made of the plastic but is quite sturdy and it is symmetrical from its sides. It mimics the ZOTAC’s brand logo in design from all aspects. The cooling department has a sunflower designed aluminum based heatsink which makes direct contact with the GPU core and is designed to ensure the effective heat dissipation from the core to the edges.

IT employs a single 90mm fan designed for better static pressure and maximum airflow using a split blade design. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition has 1x Display Port 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b port, and 1 Dual-Link DVI-D port for the connectivity options and has support for multiple displays. It does not have any power connectors because it uses 75W from the motherboard.

There is no LED lighting on this card. I could not check for the power phases as I did not open the card due to restriction from the source. The card supports Vulkan 1.0, DX_12, OpenGL up to 4.5 APIs.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition is listed at Rs.29,199/- at the time of the review. Its dollar value is 149.99. The price is about right given the new technology and the performance it offers. The compact design makes this card a perfect choice for the HTPC builds, builds which require a dedicated card for the display, and for the budget users who would still love to game at lower resolution with mixed graphics settings without breaking their wallets.

The graphics card was put to test 14 games using various APIs and at all three resolutions. On average, this card has given above 27% performance boost over the GeForce GTX 1050Ti. This is clearly an upgrade path for the GeForce GTX 1050Ti users. But at the same very point, the AMD’s RX 570 makes its case even more compelling if we take out the power efficiency from the equation.

The Sapphire RX 570 was giving approximately 13.54% better performance than the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 OC edition but definitely at a higher power draw than the GeForce GTX 1650. Both graphics cards fall in the same price range and RX 570 has 8GB of VRAM onboard. The tradeoff is clear from the above equation.

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