News NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Launching April 2019

Copernicus

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 21, 2019
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I read today on tweakers.net there will be no new 75W cards.
Engadget agrees; they say the new 1650 card is going to be a massive upgrade, but will be a 100w card.

 

Copernicus

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Apr 21, 2019
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It feels kind of surreal, but I now have one of the Zotac 1650 cards. I worked up the confidence to get the Newegg offering (thanks @CottonTexas !), and it was shipped to me from Abbotsford, British Columbia.

No problems with the shipment, arrived in perfect quality. (I kind of expected that there would be combo English/French documentation on the box, but it appears this unit was not labeled following Canadian rules; it was just English.) The low-profile bracket fit perfectly (take that, MSI!), and I had no problem installing it in my machine. (I did have a problem getting the appropriate Linux Nvidia drivers, but that was my own fault for manually playing around with drivers a few months ago. Once I cleaned up my mess, the drivers installed just fine.)

The card works beautifully. It is replacing my trusty-but-ancient GT 730 in this particular box; I was somewhat surprised to find that simple desktop operations were snappier right off. I thought the speed improvements would only be visible in graphics-intensive games, but it looks like this is going to produce improvements throughout most operations.

One thing I do want to note, about the noise level. I've yet to push this card very hard yet, but I can say that at 70% speed, the fans are noticeable. But not what I myself would call "loud". I'll have to see what 100% sounds like.

However, at 40% speed, I can't hear them at all!

I've done a little testing with a decibel meter on my phone. The GT 730 was, for all intents and purposes, silent: I measured 35 decibels at my seat when it was running. Ambient noise in this room mainly comes from the system fans of two computers. After installing the Zotac, at the 40% (minimum) speed, the app was able to detect it, barely: the average volume rose to 36 decibels. Once I got the fan speed all the way up to 70%, the app showed an average of about 42 decibels.

So, for now, I'm happy with the product. Time to start pushing it and see what happens...
 

Comrade

Caliper Novice
Oct 6, 2019
26
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Copernicus
What distro do you use? i was messing around, trying to get nvidia updates from ubuntu sources, but it didn't work and i still use 435.21 from graphics ppa, its newer then 430.50 from nvidia
 

Copernicus

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Apr 21, 2019
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Copernicus
What distro do you use? i was messing around, trying to get nvidia updates from ubuntu sources, but it didn't work and i still use 435.21 from graphics ppa, its newer then 430.50 from nvidia

I'm using Ubuntu 18 right now; I'd been flipping around between distros for a while, but kind of settled down on Ubuntu for the last few years.

Yeah, I'm using the PPA repository; the driver version is 440.26.
 
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CottonTexas

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Oct 14, 2019
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I'm using Ubuntu 18 right now...

Very cool. I'm pretty stoked too, but I won't be able to run my new Zotac until I get the rest of the hardware together for my build, so thanks for the RL input, for sure. I plan on trying (my very best) to ditch Win10 in favor of Mint using Proton & Lutris for gaming, so I'm glad to know there's another Linux user in here, especially since driver support has been kinda' hit/miss for me in the past. Cool deal man. Cheers, Cotton
 
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Copernicus

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Apr 21, 2019
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I plan on trying (my very best) to ditch Win10 in favor of Mint using Proton & Lutris for gaming, so I'm glad to know there's another Linux user in here, especially since driver support has been kinda' hit/miss for me in the past.

I got sick enough of Windows that I left it completely more than 10 years ago. I've been using Linux as well for, well, most of my life, but back then the combo of OS X and the new Mac Mini led me to be an Apple fan for a while. But Apple has pretty much given up on the Mini over the years, and so I'm back to mostly just Linux.

Wine has made life bearable for some time, but Proton is something of a game-changer (pun intended). The ability to run almost any Windows game on Linux (at full speed!) without fiddling with any settings or drivers or libraries means, to my mind, there's little reason for anybody to run Windows on their home PCs any more. :)
 
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Kagemand

Trash Compacter
Feb 24, 2017
35
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I think I'll wait and see what happens in the LP space, despite the 100W TDP
With the time it takes to bring LP versions of new cards to market, it seems like we're at least half a year away from either a RX 5500 LP or a GTX 1650 Super LP, unfortunately.
 

Comrade

Caliper Novice
Oct 6, 2019
26
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I'm using Ubuntu 18 right now; I'd been flipping around between distros for a while, but kind of settled down on Ubuntu for the last few years.

Yeah, I'm using the PPA repository; the driver version is 440.26.
Used Mint 7 or 8 on thin laptop years ago and sticked to ubuntu on desktop since 16 release.. Didn't hear about Proton, sounds interesting. Have installed Win 10 as second os specially for games, but booted few times when i bought card)
 
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Copernicus

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 21, 2019
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Didn't hear about Proton, sounds interesting.

Yeah, Proton is Valve's latest effort to emphasize multi-platform capability. It is based on top of Wine (similar to Crossover), and designed to integrate with Steam (so is very hard to use with non-steam games, so far as I know), but emphasizes push-button simplicity: in theory, you get Proton, you select a Windows game, and you start playing. Doesn't reach that level on everything yet, but thousands of games are functional right now. Even those that don't immediately work can still be prodded into working with a few settings; I'm starting in to a new run through Skyrim SE, and only needed to set a pair of command-line settings to get it to run flawlessly.
 
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CottonTexas

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Oct 14, 2019
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Yeah, Proton is Valve's latest effort to emphasize multi-platform capability. It is based on top of Wine (similar to Crossover), and designed to integrate with Steam (so is very hard to use with non-steam games, so far as I know), but emphasizes push-button simplicity: ...

I've heard that where Proton falls short, Lutris is supposed to have the similar aim of simplicity, but more towards non-Steam games (ie: oldies like The Sims 2, GTA: San Andreas, & I think some Simulator games). I've got Skyrim Legendary, but I'm too afraid to get the free SE "upgrade" because I'm positive I'll never get back all the mods I've got now :) What settings are you running on SE with your new card & at what FPS (if that info is handy)? Please keep us posted on how well your new 1650 does with your setup. ?

EDIT: I did a pretty poor & inaccurate job of describing Lutris, so HERE'S A LINK, so y'all can check it out for yourself.
 
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Copernicus

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 21, 2019
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I've heard that where Proton falls short, Lutris is supposed to have the similar aim of simplicity, but more towards non-Steam games

Yes! I get most of my games on Steam these days, so I'm most familiar with Proton, but I've heard that we are entering an age of useful front-ends to Wine. I should probably check out Lutris. :)

What settings are you running on SE with your new card & at what FPS (if that info is handy)?

I will have to do some analysis. :) It's been forever since I did anything Skyrim-oriented, so I'm running vanilla SE right now. I don't think I'm pushing my 1650 hard enough; I've started out on medium settings, and everything is butter-smooth (and the card isn't ramping up its fans very much). I'll try some more aggressive settings tonight...
 
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Copernicus

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 21, 2019
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Ok, it turns out that Skyrim SE is capped at 60 FPS. And, the GTX 1650 laughs at all graphics settings below "ultra" -- at anything less, it hits 60 FPS without the GPU utilization even getting close to 100% (this is at 1080p resolution). At "ultra" settings, it will hover around 57-59 FPS most of the time (60 FPS when you are talking to NPCs); at worst, it will go down to about 50 FPS during battle scenes.

I'm kinda surprised; I didn't think this card was quite this powerful. :) Ultra is actually quite playable. I still haven't been able to get the card to run the fans at 100%, either; even with GPU utilization maxed out, I guess the card just didn't get warm enough. I'll probably have to wait until summertime again to find out how loud that is. The fans do produce an audible whine running at 80%, but it isn't so bad to me to reposition the case below my desk just yet...

EDIT: At 79% fan speed, I'm reading 43-44 decibels at my seat. The computer sits on the desk in front of me, below my monitor (maybe two feet away).
 
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vlad1966

Average Stuffer
Sep 21, 2017
58
31
I just placed an order for the Zotac LP 1650 on NewEgg. Crossing my fingers. Plan on using in Realan E-I7 case. Still trying to decide on CPU & RAM.
 
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