ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1650 OC Edition Graphics Card Review

ASUS GTX 1650 Phoenix The Nvidia GTX 1650 series launched just a few days ago with little fanfare. Admittedly, at the bottom end of the current Nvidia range, there isn't a whole lot to be excited about. However, the cards are not without merit. Built to game at 1080p on a tight budget, they're going to appeal to first-time system builders and those on a tight budget. I also suspect system integrators are going to go nuts for these things on their budget gaming ranges. So what about ASUS? Well, they've got their new OC Edition, in fact, no they don't, we do! As part of their STRIX series, it comes with a pretty massive cooler, relative to the chipset requirements. Out of the box, it has a slight overclock, and an additional 6-pin PSU header. Overall, it's still not going to be blazing fast, but will it rival the MSI and Gigabyte cards of a similar specification? We hope so! 16xx Reviews We've already tested the ASUS GTX 1660 OC Phoenix, and it was fantastic. Incredible performance for both 1080p and 1440p. At a reduced cost, I'm expecting the GTX 1650 to perform well at 1080p, but not so well at 1440p or 4K. Here are all our 1650 reviews so far. However, if you want to spend a little more, you can read our reviews of the 1660 and 1660 Ti's all linked below also. GTX 1650 ASUS GTX 1650 PhoenixMSI Gaming X GTX 1650Palit GTX 1650 StormXGigabyte GTX 1650 Gaming OC GTX 1660 ASUS GTX 1660 OC PhoenixZotac GTX 1660 Twin FanEVGA GTX 1660 XC UltraMSI GTX 1660 6GB Gaming XGigabyte GTX 1660 Gaming OC GTX 1660 Ti ASUS Strix GTX 1660 TiGigabyte GTX 1660 Ti Gaming OCNvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Features Pretty much all of the GTX 1650 cards are about the same. The fine details come down to the cooler, and any factory overclocks. The bigger the cooler, the higher the card can be clocked for more performance. The Phoenix is a fairly mid-range model, with a modest cooler, so I'm expecting it to sit in the middle of the range of GTX 1650 cards. GPU Model: TU117-300 (TU117)Nvidia Turing Architecture12 nm FinFET896 CUDAs56 TMUs32 ROPs4GB GDDR5128-bit Bus Specifications For in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page here. 4K Video Review Packaging A budget card this may be, but from the box, it looks just as premium as every other STRIX product. There's a big image of the GPU on the front. Furthermore, badges that show that it has AURA Sync RGB lighting, is the OC Edition, and features 4GB of GDDR5. Around the back, there's a nice technical breakdown of the cooler and fan design. You can also see that below 55c the GPU fan stops, giving you silent running in low-load. The packaging is durable, and the card is well protected overall. Of course, that's a very good thing. In the box, you'll find a pair of Velcro cable ties, the setup guide, and a setup CD. Personally, I think the CD should be left out, it's pretty useless. The GPU is covered in plastic to keep it free from scratches too. At least you get the pleasure of peeling it all off. A Closer Look The design of the card is actually pretty decent. I'd say it's easily competitive with the lovely design of the MSI model we reviewed recently. It has quite a big cooler for such a modest chipset though. That does mean there's room for huge fans, which should be very quiet as they can cool at lower RPM. The card can cool its self passively up to 55c though, which is extremely impressive given this chipset doesn't exactly run hot to begin with. Huge heat pipes and a big radiator go a long way. I really don't think those fans will have much work to do today. Premium Feature! This is something we see on their higher end models. However, this little fan header allows you to hook a fan directly to the GPU. If the GPU gets hot, it'll spin up the intake fan on your chassis for more air. This is much better than the GPU just spinning its fans harder. Power The GTX 1650 chipset can run on the 75 Watts of the PCIe slot. However, the faster models add a 6-pin for improved overclocking stability. As you can see, ASUS have done just that with this model. A nice little RGB backlit ASUS eye here. More Premium Things! ASUS even include this gorgeous back plate. It's so not needed on this card, but it does look cool. However, just how much of the cost is on materials here rather than performance? A handy LED on/off button, should you desire a blacked out build. Output Finally at the rear, you'll notice the bracket is finished in black rather than silver. There are 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI port; more than enough for anyone in this price range. Overall, a fantastic looking card. Now, let's see how it performs! How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test bench to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Aorus Z390 Gaming MasterProcessor – Intel Core i9-9900K (Stock)RAM – Crucial Ballistix Gaming 32GB (4 x 8GB) 3000 MHzCPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15SPower Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000WMain Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GBChassis – Thermaltake Core P5 TGOperating System – Windows 10 64-bitMonitor – AOC 28-Inch 4K Gaming Monitor Additional Hardware Killawatt style electricity usage meter wall plugPrecision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. With our previous reviews, we used the “Medium or Normal” preset. However, as GPUs get faster, we’ve now moved that up to “High” profiles for all games, at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, as is FreeSync and G-Sync technologies or similar. Graphics card power usage set to optimised or balance, and the system power mode set to High Performance within Windows and the available GPU driver software. Identical settings are used for all resolutions unless otherwise stated. Games and Settings Used Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pDeus Ex: Mankind Divided DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pGhost Recon: Wildlands High Preset1080p1440p2160pBattlefield V DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pBattlefield V DX12 High Preset (DXR Enabled) NVIDIA RTX Cards ONLY1080p1440p2160pMetro Exodus DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pMetro Exodus DX12 High Preset (RT, then RT and DLSS Enabled) NVIDIA RTX Cards ONLY1080p1440p2160pFar Cry New Dawn High Preset1080p1440p2160p The Division 2 High Preset1080p1440p2160p Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download)FireStrike Ultra BenchmarkUnigine Superposition (download)4K Optimised BenchmarkHWMonitor (download)GPU-Z Noise Everyone has a reasonable noise level preference when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC one meter above our open-air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Gaming noise levels are taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Power Consumption We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 50% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Gaming power consumption is taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Furthermore, the ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. Gaming temperatures are taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark FireStrike Scoring 1833 it's far down the charts as you would expect. However, it did nip ahead of the ASUS Phoenix, which is the cheaper version of this card. So clearly that extra "OC" and bigger cooler is doing something. 3DMark TimeSpy Again, you need to look down to the bottom 6 cards on the charts (and many others today) to find this card. However, with a score of 3856 it's competitive with the Gigabyte and MSI GTX 1650, although the RX570 still has the legs on all of them. Unigine Superposition Pretty much the same story here, albeit this time the ASUS card comes out on top of the GTX 1650 models by a small margin. This isn't a chipset that favours synthetic benchmarks though, so let's get onto some games! Shadow of the Tomb Raider Straight away, the ASUS STRIX is showing some good figures, hitting 54 FPS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Since most people skip the "how we test" page, I'll remind you we test all games using the default High profiles. That performance matches the MSI Gaming X, which is still more expensive too. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided The more demanding Deus Ex Mankind Divided put the heat on this card at High settings, scoring just 48.2 FPS. However, that's still the best we've seen from a GTX 1650 to date, so not too shabby. Of course, medium settings may be best suited for this one. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Again we see ASUS taking the lead over the other GTX 1650 cards. Hitting a respectable 58.6 FPS in Ghost Recon is great for this budget. It's still behind the 64.6 of the RX570 though, but more on that in a moment. Battlefield V Still not making it to the 60 FPS target, the ASUS card got to 51. Again, it's enough to tip it ahead of both MSI and Gigabytes models by 1 FPS, but they did all perform fairly similar. Drop down a few settings to medium though, and you'll be golden. Metro Exodus This game is like putting your GPU through a meat grinder. The games extremely demanding graphics chewed up this card and spat it out the other side with a score of 31.4 FPS. That's the same as the Gigabyte and MSI model, so no difference at all between the three here. Far Cry New Dawn Hurray, I'm half tempted to take a victory lap for this card on its behalf. 60 FPS, and our first one for any GTX 1650 review so far. It hit 60 FPS right on the nose, putting at between 3-9 FPS ahead of all the other GTX 1650 cards. The Division 2 Not 60 FPS glory here, but at 57 FPS, it's matching the MSI Gaming X's performance. However, the RX570 seems just storm into the lead in this one, which is pretty surprising. Power Consumption So, this is where things get interesting. Overall, it seems the RX570 is about 10% faster overall. However, to do that, the AMD card is burning through 312 watts to do so. That's a lot, that's more than a GTX 1080, more than an RTX 2060 too. It's also more than double the ASUS's 141.1 Watts. That's significant, and you'll no doubt notice the difference in your power bill between the two. Temperatures The RX 570 turns that power into heat too, getting up to 75 even with its high powered cooler. That likely means it's going to suffocate in small form factor systems and need a lot more airflow overall. The ASUS card, however, was just 58c at full load. Acoustics With zero RPM fan mode kicking in below 55c, the card actually sat silent for most of our testing. It only got to 58c at full load, which is just 3c above that limit. So the fan really doesn't have to work for long here. Even when it does, at just 36 dBa it's one of the quietest cards we've ever tested! How Much Does It Cost? The low-power budget model ASUS GTX 1650 Phoenix Graphics Card is available now. You can pick one up on Amazon.co.uk for just £138.99, or $154.99 in the US on Amazon.com. However, the STRIX cards are more premium and come in at around £190 in the UK and $179.99 in the US. Overview ASUS has delivered us one of the best GTX 1650 cards on the market with their STRIX model. It looks every bit as premium as their more expensive models, but of course, you do pay more for more. I can't help but think they could deliver the big performance boost on a smaller budget though. Lose the backplate, remove the RGB, even fit a smaller cooler, and reduce the extra stuff in the box. It would still be a great card for a bit less money. However, it wouldn't be a "STRIX" card at that point either. It's a tough call. Performance It managed to either match or beat the other high-end GTX 1650 models from both MSI and Gigabyte. That's pretty impressive, even if both the rival cards are also similarly priced and perform about the same. You can't go wrong with any of them really. However, the plucky ASUS card was the only one to hit 60 FPS in a game at high settings, which is worth a big thumbs up from me. We test at high though, as the GTX 1650 is clearly better suited to medium settings. Should I Buy One? If I were to buy a GTX 1650 I would likely go for an MSRP card. They perform amazingly well given their 75 Watt power limit and they're affordable at just £130. However, I can see the appeal for the STRIX model. It's stylish, runs virtually silent, and incredibly cool too. You pay a bit more, but you get a quality product for your investment without breaking the bank. ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1650 OC Edition Graphics Card Review

✨ We've just launched our NEW website design!

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Read Next

Zotac Gaming RTX 5080 AMP Extreme Graphics Card Review

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Performance – 40 Graphics Cards Tested!

ASUS RTX 5080 TUF Gaming Graphics Card Review

AORUS GeForce RTX5090 MASTER ICE 32G Graphics Card Review

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition Review

RTX 5090 – Has A New Driver Improved Performance & The 1% Lows?

ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 OC Edition Graphics Card Review

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition Review

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition Unboxing

Sapphire RX 7700 XT FROSTPUNK 2 Edition Graphics Card Bundle is Too Good to Miss!

We Benchmarked 35 GPUs in Black Myth Wukong

RTX HDR Tested – The Ultimate Game Changer

XFX 7800 XT & 7900 XTX Magnetic Air Review

Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Edition Graphics Card Review

Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition Graphics Card Review

INNO3D RTX 4080 Super X3 Graphics Card Review

RTX 4070 SUPER Vs RX 7800 XT in 42 Gaming Benchmarks!

XFX QUICKSILVER 309 RX 7600 XT Graphics Card Review

Sapphire Pulse RX 7600 XT OC Graphics Card Review

Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti SUPER WINDFORCE OC Graphics Card Review

Related Articles

AORUS GeForce RTX5090 MASTER ICE 32G Graphics Card Review

ASUS RTX 5080 TUF Gaming Graphics Card Review

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Performance – 40 Graphics Cards Tested!

Adblock Detected