Packing Performance at $179
Introduction
Finding good gaming performance under $200 can be challenging. As you get toward the more value, lower-end GPU spectrum performance starts to fall off drastically at the higher resolutions. You are bound to the more common 1080p or even 720p for a good gaming experience. It’s just the sacrifice of saving a buck.
However, it doesn’t have to be gloomy down here, in fact with a good factory overclocked video card, and some overclocking potential it can even be quite fun for a hardware enthusiast.
Today we have our first review of an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 based video card. This is the non-SUPER variant, the original release as it were. The MSRP of the GeForce GTX 1650 is $149 so this is definitely a value-priced video card.
The model we are reviewing today is the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1650 O4G GAMING. This video card is the cream of the crop, it has one of the highest factory overclocks and packs overclocking potential. It does cost a bit more at $179.99 MSRP, but this is still well under $200 of gaming performance.
Why the GeForce GTX 1650 Now?
Why are we reviewing this video card today when the new GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER variants have just been released? Well, those video cards are a bit more expensive; the GeForce GTX 1650 will still remain the cheapest variant if you are looking to save the most money you can.
In addition, we will be reviewing GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER video cards in the future, therefore we’d like to have a baseline we can compare with. In this way, we can see how much faster the new SUPER cards are in the future compared to the original release. Finally, we never got a chance to look at this specific GPU at the time since we were in transition as a hardware review website when these video cards were launched at the end of April 2019 so we are covering it now since it is of relevance.