After the March triumph of the GeForce RTX 3060, in April the GeForce GTX 1650 model regained the first place in the popularity list among gamers who use the Steam service.

It is GeForce GTX 1650 that has been leading the specified rating for a long time, which is formed based on the collection of information about the system configurations of users who agreed to appropriate data processing. Coincidentally, in March, the GeForce RTX 3060 managed to make a breakthrough, achieving a phenomenal result of 10.7% and becoming the undisputed leader. The second place with 8.05% went to GeForce RTX 2060, and the “bronze” with 7.85% went to GeForce GTX 1060.

According to the results of April, the situation changed and became again close to the one that could be observed in the last few months: the leader is GeForce GTX 1650 with a result of 6.19%, the second place is GeForce GTX 1060 (4.99%) and only the third step is GeForce RTX 3060, which immediately lost as much as 6%, remaining with an indicator of 4.66%.

Such anomalous changes in a short period of time generally cast some doubt on the reliability of the obtained data and their practical usefulness. However, given the previous duration of GeForce GTX 1650 positions, let’s recall the features of this model.

The GeForce GTX 1650 4GB was introduced in April 2019. The TU117 graphics processor with Turing architecture is used for the video card. The chip is still manufactured according to the standards of 12-nanometer technology at the production facilities of TSMC. The GPU includes 896 CUDA cores. Video cards are equipped with 4 GB of memory and use a 128-bit bus. The GeForce GTX 1650 thermal package is 75W, so the base models do without additional power, and the accelerated versions are usually equipped with a 6-pin 12V connector. MSRP is $149.

Almost a year after the release of the first versions of the GeForce GTX 1650, the developers made a modification, equipping the video cards with GDDR6 (12,000 MHz) memory chips instead of the original GDDR5 (8,000 MHz). This increased the bandwidth from 128 to 192 GB/s and generally improved the performance of the model.

After the announcement, it was the GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB that was in our recommendations for basic gaming systems for quite a long time. However, after the capabilities of the video card obviously became insufficient for heavy projects, more powerful adapters appeared. But during the mining fever, the GeForce GTX 1650 was forced to return to the recommended configurations. In that difficult period for average players, the retail value of these models rose to ~$450 at their peak.

Although GeForce GTX 1650 has not appeared in PC of the month for a long time, as we can see, video cards of the series are still very popular. Even after four years since its announcement, the GeForce GTX 1650 is still quite actively offered on the market. What’s more, in large numbers with a wide range of models. Starting price tags – from UAH 6,800–7,200 ($180–190), top modifications reach UAH 9,000. If for some reason you are interested in adapters of this class, it is better to focus on versions with GDDR6, which are usually 10-20% more productive.

Among the more modern alternatives to the GeForce GTX 1650 models, we can mention the Radeon RX 6400 4 GB. Similar cost and performance, especially when connected via PCI-E 4.0. At the same time, the model from AMD is somewhat more economical.