NVIDIA just launched its new entry-level graphics card in the form of the GeForce GTX 1630. Featuring 512 FP32 cores and 4GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit bus, it slots in between the GT 1030 and the GTX 1650. It’s essentially a trimmed variant of the latter leveraging a cut-down TU117 die, making it a healthy upgrade over the GT 1030. But, how does it fare against the competition?
Not very good it would seem. AMD’s Radeon RX 6400 is nearly 60% faster while costing just $10 more. Furthermore, its MSRP of $149 is rather redundant in today’s market as the GTX 1650 is already going for that much over at Newegg and its peers. The GTX 1630 draws roughly the same amount of power as the RX 6400 under load but ends up being one of the least efficient GPUs on the market. The 6400, on the other hand, lies on the other end of the spectrum:
The same goes for the performance per dollar metric. The GTX 1630 offers the least performance per dollar, much like its predecessor. It manages to be much worse than the Radeon RX 6400. To level with its rival, the 1630 would have to cost $50 less which is simply not happening. Intel’s Arc A300 series graphics cards could really shake things up in this segment. Considering that both Green and Red Teams largely ignore the sub-$150 market, the Arc lineup shouldn’t have much trouble establishing itself here (even if they arrive a year later).
Benchmark credits go to TechPowerUp.
