Gave up and bought the GTX 1650.

wandplus

Limp Gawd
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Jan 14, 2020
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I was hoping for a long while to buy the RTX 3050. I couldn't really accept the prices. Some of the reasons though were because I bought things earlier without anticipating what was going to happen. Like I bought a Corsair CX 450 watt power supply for example. I usually prefer to have some headroom so the PSU stays cool. Second, I bought a DVI KVM switch (to share one monitor between two computers) instead of an HDMI KVM switch. (Actually my HP monitors have either DVI, HDMI or VGA, no display port.)

In any case, part of it was because I spent enough money lately I couldn't easily have spent money on a new PSU & KVM switch to fix the issue. lol

Had I known what I know now maybe I would have bought an Intel i5-10400 instead of an i5-11500. I bought the Rocket Lake thinking the onboard video would play Unreal Tournament better in case something happened to the video card. As it turns out, when I tested Unreal Tournament with onboard video on the 10400 and 11500, they played both on medium about the same I think. Plus I wanted to have PCIe4 which I guess I won't need now. I can't imagine getting a 4000 series card if it uses way more power.

So has anyone else given up and bought the lower card?
 
I don't think PCI4 will make any appreciable difference with either of those cards TBH. You'd have been better off buying something second hand. 1650 is a pretty anemic gaming card.
 
1650 might be anemic but I already had the "unusual" experience of buying second hand on eBay. I ended up selling various bicycle parts with an accurate description of the issue and the feedback of course was like: "accurate description".

EDIT: I just watched a Youtube video that showed that you can play Cyberpunk 2077 with low or medium settings with a GTX 1650. Anyway, paired with my i5-11500 and 16GB of RAM, I'll do a lot better than with my i5-4570 + GTX 1050 Ti + 8GB RAM.
ANOTHER EDIT: I saw that Steam has the GTX 1650 second on the list of mostly used. The third on the list is the 1050 Ti. I have to hand it to AMD for price/performance on the RX 6500 XT but when I saw a Youtube video of someone comparing Nvidia to AMD he said he didn't mind the small issues with the AMD for the performance he got. My own opinion though is that I doubt I could have ignored the issues he encountered.
 
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I just wanted to post this as a possible use-case for the GTX 1650 Super, as I know that there are probably very few reasons for why somebody would actually want this card today especially with the price of the GTX 1660 Super being so close to it.

If you refer to my recent thread about my new Shuttle build in the SFF section, one of the decisions I made for my build was to go with the GTX 1650 Super instead of the GTX 1660 Super, even though the GTX 1660 Super was only $30 more. The main reason was the lack of an 8-pin connector on the Shuttle's PSU. I could probably use a 6 to 8-pin adapter but I am also a bit concerned about coming close to the 300W limit of the PSU during gaming. I figured that the Shuttle PSU probably has a 6-pin graphics dongle for a reason and I would rather not do anything that could shorten the life of my new build. If I really wanted the GTX 1660 Super, then I believe that the best thing to do would be to get a better PSU but then that destroys the economics of the two cards being about the same price.

As far as 6-pin graphics cards go, I believe that the GTX 1650 Super is the best card on the market right now. It's faster than the GTX 1060 and I believe even the RX 6500XT, while consuming less power than both of these cards. On the flip side, the GTX 1650 Super is quite a bit faster than the 1650 vanilla and is probably the difference between being able to play Halo Infinite and Forza 5 at 1080p with max graphics vs having to go down to a lower res. If power consumption is a concern then I do think that there is still legitimate reason today for a gamer to consider buying the GTX 1650 Super, but I admit that the use-case is pretty narrow, the GTX 1660 is just a much better card for almost the same price and I would go with it if possible.
 
I am offended someone in this community settled on a 1650. With that said, I still play ultima online! If you were considering just onboard graphics why didnt you consider a 5700G with fast ram? Helped a friend build one, i put some games on it and was really impressed. I think the next gen on board graphics with ddr5 will be a game changer for budget minded folks.
 
I am not. All these old games still have small communities that refuse move on. Hell I played FFXI for a solid 13 years before I moved on and I still go back from time to time.

Small?

I could throw up a stock Quake III server and be running full capacity most of the time assuming my latency was low enough.
 
I am offended someone in this community settled on a 1650. With that said, I still play ultima online! If you were considering just onboard graphics why didnt you consider a 5700G with fast ram? Helped a friend build one, i put some games on it and was really impressed. I think the next gen on board graphics with ddr5 will be a game changer for budget minded folks.
I remember back in the day when [H]ardOCP had articles about $500 gaming rig builds. The [H]ardness came from getting every drop of juice out of that $500 budget! :D
 
Yeah, someone should definitely start a new thread on "Old games We Still Play"...

But back on topic... 1650 is fine, but for what you likely spent on that card ($200?), there is the AMD 6500 XT that would be 50% better average game performance. Display port to DVI adapter is cheap (which you probably already know).

And there is always eBay (to sell / buy)...
 
good lord I didn't realize they still want $200~ even if things aren't a unreasonable as they had been a few months ago...it is still tough out there, budget gamers almost have to go the 2nd hand market at this point...
 
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I bought 5 6600xt to mine with a year ago and just started putting them in friends and family gaming rigs. Apex 2560x1440 on almost max settings gets 125-130fps in 3v3 arenas. Pretty impressed from what should be a $200 video card. 6600 8gb / 3060 12gb is really my bare minimum these days for a gaming pc. I dont think they are even faster then ps5 / xbox x.
 
But back on topic... 1650 is fine, but for what you likely spent on that card ($200?), there is the AMD 6500 XT that would be 50% better average game performance. Display port to DVI adapter is cheap (which you probably already know).

And there is always eBay (to sell / buy)...
Just out of curiosity, are you talking about the 1650 or the 1650 Super? I thought that the 1650 Super had a slight edge on the 6500 XT, which is mainly why I went with it (I can't speak for the OP). I could have probably saved around $35 if I had gone with the 6500 XT.

I mean, it's painful because the RTX 2060 is technically selling for cheaper than the 1650 Super right now despite being a card that is 50% faster. There is just no way that my Shuttle with a 300W PSU and 6-pin video power connector could handle something like that. I honestly wouldn't even want to risk trying the 1660 Super because even that card uses an 8-pin dongle for some reason. Shuttle has really fallen behind the times, unfortunately, if it wasn't for the really nice form factor of their XCube PC's I would probably just stayed away from them for my new build.
 
Just out of curiosity, are you talking about the 1650 or the 1650 Super? I thought that the 1650 Super had a slight edge on the 6500 XT, which is mainly why I went with it (I can't speak for the OP). I could have probably saved around $35 if I had gone with the 6500 XT.

I mean, it's painful because the RTX 2060 is technically selling for cheaper than the 1650 Super right now despite being a card that is 50% faster. There is just no way that my Shuttle with a 300W PSU and 6-pin video power connector could handle something like that. I honestly wouldn't even want to risk trying the 1660 Super because even that card uses an 8-pin dongle for some reason. Shuttle has really fallen behind the times, unfortunately, if it wasn't for the really nice form factor of their XCube PC's I would probably just stayed away from them for my new build.

I thought the OP had the 1650 regular, but I see the 1650S vs 6500 XT is only about 14% faster... so probably a moot point.
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1650S-Super-vs-AMD-RX-6600-XT/4058vs4117

I have a Shuttle SZ77 with EVGA 1660 Super in it right now. Been running games at 1080p no problem for at least a year. I think mine came with a better (500W) power supply, however IIRC it is available for purchase separately (not sure how much $$$). For a SFF gaming build, I would always invest in the highest rated power supply that fits in the case.

For 2022, you may have to decide if it's worth hunting for a better power supply and video card, or can you live with the mediocre performance? If it were me, I would look at the life expectancy of your Shuttle. If it should last 3 years or more, then a bigger power supply & video card is likely worth it. Selling the 1650 should offset the cost.

As a side note, Shuttle was great about 10 years ago (for hauling to LAN parties), but I agree they have fallen behind. Obviously, my Shuttle is pretty old, so when it finally dies, I'll likely just build my own SFF gaming rig.
 
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It was the overclocked version which may not make much difference because I'm thinking of downclocking to default speed for durability. I just had a brain wave though. I know I can endure the next several months with the 1650 but what if I bought an RX 7500 when it comes out? I read the performance per watt will be interesting. Heck, I might be able to keep using my Corsair CX 450 watt PSU.
 
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