In a Nutshell
While the GeForce GTX 1650 Super is a solid mid-range 1080P graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super is able to deliver ultimate 1080P gaming experience. Featuring more VRAM, higher boost clock speeds, wider bus interface, and higher core count, the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is an obvious winner. If casual gaming is your thing, then choosing the GeForce GTX 1650 Super will prove to be a good choice, however, if you want to play the latest PC titles at 1080P on ultra settings, then GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is a way to go.
GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
- Good performance at 1080P
- Great performance in eSports titles
- Low power consumption
- Great pricing
- Only 4GB of VRAM
- Narrow memory bus
- Performance on par with GTX 1060 6GB
GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
- Excellent performance at 1080P
- Great performance at 1440P
- 6GB of VRAM
- Amazing price-to-performance ratio
- No ray-tracing features
In the second half of 2019, Nvidia launched multiple mid-range and entry-level graphics card to the market, among which the GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super are the most notable ones. As it can be seen from their names, both cards belong to the SUPER lineup of Nvidia’s graphics card, which feature moderate improvements compared to their initial non-SUPER versions. Both GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super are based on Turing microarchitecture, and were built upon 12 nm manufacturing process. Both cards have great price to performance ratios, thus choosing one of them might prove to be a difficult task. The GTX 1650 Super offers solid performance for 1080P gaming without being too expensive, while the GTX 1660 Super enables you to fully experience Full HD gaming with 60 FPS on average, and with all settings set to the maximum. In this article we will examine the performance of both cards, and provide you with advice which card to choose depending on your budget.
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According to Nvidia, the GTX 1650 Super is up to 2 times faster than the previous-generation GTX 1050, while the GTX 1660 Super is 1.5 times faster than the GTX 1060 6GB. The GTX 1650 Super is thus able to deliver up to 80 FPS in eSports gaming titles, while the GTX 1660 Super is able to deliver more than 60 FPS on average in AAA titles. In terms of raw performance, the GTX 1650 Super is almost on par with the AMD RX 580, while the GTX 1660 Super offers similar performance to GTX 1070. Both cards are perfect for 1080P gaming, but the GTX 1660 Super is a much better choice if you like to push your frame rates and image quality to the maximum.
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super |
|---|---|---|
| Microarchitecture | Turing (TU116) | Turing (TU116) |
| Fab Process | 12 nm | 12 nm |
| Transistor count (million) | 6600 | 6600 |
| Cores/TMUs/ROPs | 1280/80/32 | 1408/88/48 |
| Memory Size & Type | 4GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR6 |
| Base/Boost Clock (MHz) | 1530/1725 | 1530/1785 |
| Memory Bus/Interface | 128 bits/PCIe 3.0 x16 | 192 bits/PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192 GB/s | 336 GB/s |
| Compute | 4.41 TFLOPs | 5.02 TFLOPs |
| TDP | 100 W | 125 W |
| Launch Period | Q4 2019 | Q4 2019 |
Since both GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super offer great performance at 1080P resolution, in this article we’ll examine which one is a better choice, depending on its price. It is worth to note that this is a somewhat weird situation, as both cards are made from the same company and are direct competitors in terms of their price and performance. If you take a look at our specs sheet above, both cards feature the same number of transistors, however, the GTX 1660 Super comes with 128 more shading units and with extra 2GB of VRAM. The GTX 1650 Super has only 60 MHz slower boost clock, but it has almost two times smaller memory bandwidth. Due to the smaller bandwidth, the GTX 1660 Super has more than 1 TFLOPs of extra compute power compared to the GTX 1650 Super, since it can process more data in a smaller amount of time. Nonetheless, both cards are extremely energy efficient, with GTX 1650 Super consuming only 100 W of power under full load.
The somewhat disappointing thing about GTX 1650 Super is that the card features only 4GB of VRAM, which is a bare minimum in 2020. The GTX 1660 Super could also make better use of 8GB of VRAM, instead of 6GB, however, due to its wide memory bandwidth and high-speed GDDR6 memory, the card is still fast enough for providing an enjoyable 1080P gaming experience. Unlike their latest counterparts from AMD, such as the RX 5500 XT, both GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super don’t support newer PCIe 4.0 serial bus.
With all things said, now is the time to inspect the performance of GTX 1650 Super vs its more powerful brother GTX 1660 Super. Based upon 11 different sources and more than 150 data entries, we have conducted a meta-analysis of various GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super benchmarks available online, and calculated total averages in order to compare performance of these two graphics cards. All benchmark data was based on PC systems with Intel Core i7-8700K or i9-9900K processors, which featured at least 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, and a Windows 10 operating system running on an SSD drive. Results are shown below.
Performance at Full HD (1920×1080) Resolution
From the chart above, we can see that GTX 1660 Super performs significantly better compared to GTX 1650 Super at 1080P resolution. In most games, the card is able to render more than 80 FPS on average with all graphics settings set to maximum. In eSports titles, such as the Rainbow Six Siege, or Fortnite, and Vulkan API titles, such as the Wolfenstein II, the GTX 1660 Super outperforms the GTX 1650 Super by a large margin. In newer titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, and Control, the card does struggle to deliver 60 FPS, however, its performance is pretty solid.
Although the GTX 1660 Super outperforms GTX 1650 Super, the latter isn’t all that bad. In fact, it is a quite capable 1080P graphics card, as it’s able to deliver stable 60 FPS with medium to high settings on. In many popular titles, such as Battlefield V, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto V, the GTX 1650 Super easily manages to render more than 60 FPS on average with all settings set to ultra. In graphically more demanding titles, however, the performance is clearly unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, if you are really on a tight budget, and are looking for a decent graphics card for 1080P gaming, then GTX 1650 Super will be a solid choice. The card performs similar to AMD’s RX 580 and Nvidia’s GTX 1060, which is enough for playing games in 2020. However, due to its low amount of VRAM (only 4GB), this card is not very future proof. In that sense, the GTX 1660 Super is a much better choice, as it performs a lot better, and has enough powerful hardware for running upcoming PC titles.
Performance at Quad HD (2560×1440) Resolution
At 1440P resolution, benchmark results for both cards differ a lot. Clearly, the GTX 1650 Super wasn’t never meant to be used as a 1440P card, so its performance at this resolution doesn’t surprise a lot. In most games, the card barely manages to produce more than 40 FPS on average with all settings set to ultra. Performance in extremely demanding titles, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Metro Exodus and Red Dead Redemption 2 is quite bad. However, the card’s performance in games like Forza Horizon 4 and Battlefield V does surprise a lot, as the card is clearly able to hit 60 FPS mark at 1440P resolution in these games. The GTX 1650 Super also seems to be very suitable for playing eSports titles at Quad HD resolution, as it is able to deliver more than 85 FPS on average in Rainbow Six Siege.
The GTX 1660 Super clearly outperforms GTX 1650 Super, even at the 1440P resolution, however, performance gap here is a bit smaller. Nonetheless, the GTX 1660 Super proves to be a very capable card, as it allows you to play a number of first-person shooter and racing titles in 1440P resolution with maximum settings at more than 60 FPS on average. The GTX 1660 Super’s performance in 1440P provides a lot of satisfaction. Newer titles like Metro Exodus, Control and Divison 2 don’t perform very well, however, most of other games run at a very stable frame rate. Lowering the settings from ultra to high, or medium, will increase average FPS even more, so GTX 1660 Super proves to be a very solid graphics card, and a worthwhile investment for building a gaming PC. However, in our opinion, if you plan to play your games in 1440P resolution, then buying a RTX 2060 graphics card might be a better choice.
Conclusion
The Turing-based GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super both prove to be great graphics cards for 1080P gaming. However, choosing between one of them heavily depends on your personal needs and financial capabilities.
The GTX 1650 Super is a very solid graphics card for 1080P gaming with medium to high settings. In most cases, the card is able to deliver up to 60 FPS on average, which is very pleasing, considering its low price. In this comparison, however, the GTX 1660 Super is a clear winner, as the card manages to provide rock-solid framerate, with minimum amount of instability, and with great image quality. The GTX 1660 Super also prove to be more future proof, as the card comes with 6GB of VRAM, so it shows itself as a better investment compared to GTX 1650 Super. At 1440P, the GTX 1650 Super struggles a lot to provide satisfactory results, while the GTX 1660 Super again impresses with its great performance.
Overall, if you are on a tight budget, and plan to play eSports titles, or play games at 1080P resolution with medium settings on, then GTX 1650 Super is a great choice. If, however, you want to push your framerates to the maximum, and enjoy beautiful graphics, then the GTX 1660 Super is an obvious choice. Both cards supports latest computer graphics technologies such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs, OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 1.2, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Nvidia Ansel and Nvidia G-Sync. Pairing each card with a FreeSync or G-Sync capable monitor will further put their capabilities to good use, so don’t hesitate to get one.
Great thing about both cards is that they consume a low amount of power, which will certainly be great for your electricity bills. In terms of price and availability, non-reference GTX 1650 Super cards with custom coolers are now retailing at only $199, which is great price for a brand new 1080P graphics card. Considering how cheap it is, there is no point buying a second hand GTX 1060, nor the new RX 5500 XT which costs a lot more. The new GTX 1660 Super’s, on the other hand, are retailing for around $220-$250, which isn’t much more expensive to GTX 1650 Super, and they provide a lot better performance.
If you already own an Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD RX 580 graphics card, then upgrading to GTX 1650 Super or GTX 1660 Super will be quite useless. However, if you are building a new gaming PC, then both of these card prove to be valid choices. If playing older games and eSports titles is your only preference, then GTX 1650 Super will be more than enough. If, however, you would like to experience newest PC titles in all of their graphical beauty at 1080P resolution, then buying a GTX 1660 Super is a way to go. Both cards offer great price to performance ratios, so you won’t make a mistake with buying any of them. However, for playing games in 1440P resolution, you will want something much more powerful, so be sure to check out our GPU tier list which will show you what kind of card you might want to buy.
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