MSI Gaming X GTX 1650 Graphics Card Review

MSI Gaming X GTX 1650 The GTX 1650 series of cards from Nvidia may be out to storm the budget gaming market. However, that doesn't mean we can't still have premium looking (and performing) cards in that class. The Gaming X from MSI features one of their more premium cooler designs. Of course, bigger cooling often translates to bigger performance. Either through higher clock speeds or by lower GPU temperatures, a better cooler is always a big benefit. This does make it slightly more expensive, but if it also performs better, that's hardly a big issue. Let's dive in and see what their latest card has to offer! 16xx Reviews We've already tested the MSI GTX 1660 6GB Gaming X, which proved to be a great card for both 1080p and 1440p gaming. At a reduced cost, I'm expecting the GTX 1650 to perform at 1080p, but not so well 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 Pretty much all of the GTX 1650 cards are about the same. The fine details come down to the cooler, and any factory overclocks. The bigger the cooler, the higher the card can be clocked for more performance. The Phoenix is a fairly mid-range model, with a modest cooler, so I'm expecting it to sit in the middle of the range of GTX 1650 cards. 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 Everything is as we would expect for an MSI product. We've got their typical design with a huge image of the product on the front. There's also a badge showing it has their fantastic (pun intended) Twin Frozr 7 cooler. If I'm honest, that seems like total overkill for this GPU, but it's still a great cooler, so... Meh! Around the back, there's plenty of technical information to be found. However, it's not much (if any) different from other GPUs with the Twin Frozr 7 design. You get the TORX Fans 3.0, their improved heat pipe and radiator design, and even a tiny bit of RGB customisation on the side panel. In the box you get far more than is needed in this price range. There's some coasters, leaflets, product registration code, quick guide and a completely useless CD. I'd rather they kept this out, it's just more recycling in my opinion. A URL to all the required information would do nicely. A Closer Look This may be a budget graphics card, but it sure as hell doesn't look like it. This is every bit as sexy as some of their flagship RTX models. Sure, that doesn't come free and there's no a chance this card is going to match the Nvidia MSRP. However, the old adage that you get what you pay for may apply. OK, so the cards more expensive, but that does get you a lot of GPU cooling real estate. This means a larger surface area, and also room for much larger fans to cool the radiator. TORX These huge TORX Fans 3.0 can cool at much lower RPM, which means better efficiency and lower noise (we hope). Not only that, but extra cooling often translates to bigger overclocking potential. The longer and wider cooler design allows them to keep everything within a two slot design though, so it should fit in a wide range of chassis' easily enough. More Power! Towards the back, there's a single 6-pin header. Now, the GTX 1650 doesn't need this to operate as it's a lower power part. However, adding more power overhead and stability is no bad thing, and will certainly help with overclocking. No back plate, but the card is light and fairly compact. It honestly doesn't need one. However, I must commend MSI for doing something you don't often see, and giving us a card with a really clean looking rear PCB, as well as a dragon graphic on it. It may not have a back plate for aesthetics, but it's pretty close. Down the side, there's a simple MSI logo with RGB back lighting. Nothing complicated, but a little extra customisation certainly never hurt. Display Outputs Around the back, you'll find dual DisplayPort outputs, and a single HDMI. That's pretty decent for such a cheap card, and certainly more than most will need or use. 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 Interestingly, the most expensive card of the three is the MSI, but it fell just behind the Gigabyte card in this test. It's pretty close though, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it since all three did quite poorly due to this being a 4K benchmark; hardly ideal on 4GB of VRAM. 3DMark TimeSpy The tables turned here, with MSI just nipping a small lead overall. However, it's really not a huge lead, and still falling behind the RX570 too. Unigine Superposition Things flip around yet again between MSI and Gigabyte here. Again, it's extremely close between the two, although they are quite similarly spec'd. Shadow of the Tomb Raider This is where the MSI card shines. It has a much more advanced cooler compared to the Gigabyte model. It pushed 54 FPS, which is nicely ahead of the 50 FPS of the ASUS card. Not too shabby, and certainly good enough for any gamer. 36 FPS at 1440p isn't ideal, but it's unlikely many gamers would use this card at that resolution. It's also why we didn't perform 4K testing on this card, it's really not worth going down that route with this GPU. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided This is more demanding to run than Tomb Raider, but the results aren't too bad overall. For most people though, I think dropping down to medium settings would be ideal to keep those FPS nice and high. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Still trading places with Gigabyte, the MSI card delivered up 58.34 FPS in Ghost Recon, which is obviously a decent and very playable figure. Just over 39 FPS at 1440p is great too, and dropping to medium should have that resolution into playable frame rates easily enough. Battlefield V The gap between the GTX 1650 and the RX570 isn't that big, and with minor tweaks, the GTX could close the gap without too much trouble. I'm hoping driver updates will bring things up to speed, it usually does a few weeks after a launch. Metro Exodus If you're actually considering playing this game on high settings, you need a darn fast GPU. The GTX 1650 is beaten to a pulp here and you'll likely need to drop to low settings. However, low on Metro still looks better than many games high! Far Cry New Dawn Once again, strong figures, but that Gigabyte card is really keeping MSI on their toes, despite being a little bit cheaper. Even at 1440p, each card scored 40 FPS and with medium settings, that will be a lot closer to 60. The Division 2 Just like Far Cry New Dawn, The Division 2 is a pretty forgiving game and scored very close to 60 FPS. Those AMD cards are flying here though. Power Consumption Shock and awe seems to be the name of the game here. The MSI Gaming X uses the most power of the GTX 1650's. However, at 148.7 watts, it's still using LESS than half the power of the RX570's 312 watts. That just shows the gains of a more modern chipset right there. Temperatures The big cooler delivered good results too, hitting just 65c, however, through magic or luck, the Gigabyte card is still much cooler. Acoustics The big fans on this card do bring some obvious benefits to the table though. At just 38.4c, the low RPM of the fans is unlikely to ever be a bother. Even if it did, the temperatures are good enough to slow them down further if you wanted. How Much Does It Cost? This MSI GTX 1650 is available now for £179.99 in the UK or $184.99 in the US. That's not cheap and around £50 over the MSRP for "stock" cards. However, you are paying partly for the name, but also a lot materials. That cooler is huge and doesn't come cheap. However, it's a great looking card and very well made, if you don't mind paying for overall quality. Overview This card puts me in a tough spot, as it's just a bit too expensive for the market, at least at launch. If MSI can get that price down even £10, it'll have a lot more appeal and be price just below the MSI RX 570 OC models. The performance is good though, and the attention to build quality and design is certainly worthy of merit. Then again, we wouldn't expect anything less than that from MSI these days. Performance The GTX 1650 cards trade blows with each other quite nicely. It's obvious that the MSI card with its extra power connector and bigger cooler gets a boost over the cheaper PCIe power only stock cards too. While we benchmarked at High, just dialling that down a tiny bit would get you over 60 FPS in almost anything. It's a great affordable gamers GPU for under £200 though. What's most impressive is that it uses less than half the power of its nearest AMD rival. That's going to make a noticeable difference on your power bill. Should I Buy One? If you're in the market for a GTX 1650 class card, this is certainly one of the best of the bunch. It's competitive with the cheaper Gigabyte card. However, MSI's card does look a lot nicer (sorry Gigabyte), and the build quality is without a doubt, superb. Get that price down £10-15 MSI and I'll put an editors choice award on this. MSI Gaming X GTX 1650 Graphics Card Review