Palit GTX 1650 StormX OC Graphics Card Review

Palit GTX 1650 StormX OC In what may be one of the smallest cards we've ever had in for review, the Palit GTX 1650 Storm X OC still promises quite a lot. It's one of the few GTX 1650 cards that doesn't use an additional GPU power cable. It only draws power from the motherboard, which may limit the performance, and more so, the overclocking. However, for those needing a cheap and ultra-compact gaming card, it has certainly got some appeal. After all, it still features the same hardware as all the other Nvidia GTX 1650 cards, just with a smaller cooler and power delivery setup. How hard that will affect the gaming performance remains to be seen; so let's get it on our test bench! 16xx Reviews We've already tested quite a few of the new 160xx series cards. They've certainly proved to be a great card for both 1080p and 1440p gaming. At a reduced cost, it's obvious the GTX 1650 should perform well at 1080p, but we're not expecting much at 1440p or 4K. Here are all our 1650 reviews. 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 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 The box is pretty compact, but it's a small card, so that's not a big surprise. I'm not sure I like their current Logo design though. I mean, I know it should say "PALIT" but all I can see is something like "PIAILIT" so maybe they should give that a bit of a tweak on the next run. On the box, we can see it's the StormX OC 4K model, which features the usually setup of Turing Shaders, GDDR5, etc. There's not much more detail around the back either, at least that we don't already know. However, it has all the usual technical information. I would, however, have liked to see a picture or two of the graphics card its self. A Closer Look The card is freaking tiny, I mean, I didn't know GPUs this small were still even possible. It's so short that the card literally ends at the PCIe slot and it's even smaller than most mini-ITX class cards. The card uses a rather small heatsink with a tiny little blower fan on the top. It doesn't look like much, but well... it's not. However, this card doesn't have any additional power except what it can get from the PCIe slot. Low power often means low heat, so perhaps this little cooler will surprise us yet. Slim The card does sit two slots high, albeit only just. However, the rear bracket is only one slot deep, so it only has room for a single HDMI output, and a single DVI-D output. That's not a lot, but it's really all we need. Other than that, there's a plastic shroud with the Palit logo on it and little else. It's small, but honestly, I think it looks pretty neat and tidy too. No back plate, but again, it's not like this card is going to run hot or droop due to its own weight. Therefore, a back plate would be throwing money away. Size Comparison The Palit card next to my Roccat mouse. Now that's what I call compact! 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 The 4K test really doesn't favour these cards at all, the 4GB VRAM runs out of puff pretty quick. That being said, all of the GTX 1650's perform about the same. However, like this one, the cards without the addition of a power cable do lag behind a little. 3DMark TimeSpy Things went much better here, although the tiny Palit card does lag behind. However, that's no surprise, it's the size of a darn credit card. Unigine Superposition Good results here though, a little behind the pack, but again, this is what we expect from a card with a 75 watt power limit. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Despite the tiny size, the Palit still hit 50 FPS in Tomb Raider, matching the bigger ASUS 1650, and only 2 FPS behind the much bigger Gigabyte card! Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Even in Deus Ex, it was still pretty competitive at 42.7 FPS. Again a few FPS behind the bigger models, but I think it's safe to say that's going to be a theme here. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Scoring 51.7 FPS from such a small card is impressive, and even 1440p did better than expected, hitting an average of 35.5. If you drop to medium graphics, this would be great for this game at either resolution. Battlefield V Even the mighty Battlefield V scored strong at 48 FPS. Again dropping to medium would be ideal though, especially for a faster paced FPS like this. Metro Exodus Want to play Metro on anything under £300? Then low graphics are the way forward. At High, the poor Palit scored just 27.6 FPS, but even that's more than I expected. Far Cry New Dawn Far Cry is well optimised, and at 51 FPS, we're just 4 FPS off the cards with much bigger coolers. Not amazing, but not too shabby either. The Division 2 Finally, we have The Division 2. The card has been pretty consistent around the 50 FPS mark and does the same here. However, for a small card using high settings, that's remarkable in my opinion. Power Consumption Finally, we have the GTX 1650's party trick. While the other GTX 1650's clocked a fantastically low 120-148 Watts, this one used just 93.3. Seriously, UNDER A HUNDRED WATTS. How the bloody hell did they do that on an i9-9900K powered rig. Temperatures Extremely low power usage means extremely low temperatures too. Just 45c at full load is insanely low. I'm amazed there wasn't frost on the back of the card. It may have been 4 FPS behind the other GTX 1650's, but this cool, this low on power, is incredible. Acoustics The downside is that tiny fan does work away pretty hard at stock. It's 43.7 dBa. Why though, I don't know, as the card isn't hot. I'd dial back your fan profile a lot and keep things quiet. How Much Does It Cost? Unfortunately, I couldn't see stock of the card today. However, it is launching today and this should change very soon. Expect to see it on Amazon UK and Amazon US for £138.99 and $149.99 respectively. That's the lowest Nvidia MSRP for the GTX 1650, making this extremely affordable. Overview This card isn't winning any awards for blazing performance. However, given how freaking small the card is, it was never going to topple the other GTX 1650's with their big aftermarket coolers. However, for those building a pint-sized PC that want great 1080p gaming performance, it's impossible to beat. You can't get faster our of anything else this small. Performance Scoring around 50 FPS in most games is not that bad overall. Especially using high settings. Start using medium settings and 60 FPS is easily within reach. What's remarkable to me is how they got performance close to the other GTX 1650 cards while using significantly less power, and producing so little heat. It might not look fancy, but this tiny card is packing plenty of surprises. Should I Buy One? It's easily one of my favourite GTX 1650 cards, just because it performed bigger than its dimensions implied it could. You can built a seriously compact SFF or mini-ITX based system with this. Plus, since it doesn't need a PSU cable, and takes all its power from the PCIe lane, you can get away with a very small power supply too. Palit GTX 1650 StormX OC Graphics Card Review

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