Nvidia today quietly launched the GeForce GTX 1630, an entry-level graphics card set to compete against the AMD Radeon RX 6400 and Intel Arc 380M as a basic upgrade to integrated graphics. The GTX 1630 is based on a Turing TU117-150 graphics processor and sports 512 CUDA cores. For comparison, the new card lags behind the GTX 1650 model with its 896 cores, and even fails to keep up with the six-year-old GTX 1050 Ti (768 cores).
Positioned at the bottom of the stack, the GTX 1630 has 4GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit memory bus that is capable of reaching a theoretical bandwidth of only 96 GB/s, half that of the GTX 1650. The new graphics card requires 75W of power and has a base clock of 1740MHz and boosts up to 1785MHz, matching the clock speeds on the GTX 1660.
Zooming out, the GTX 1630 is similar to the GTX 1650 in that it uses the same architecture and has similar TDP, memory amounts, and cooling designs. It also inherits some of its faults, including a 6-pin power connector and a lack of ray tracing support (to be fair, ray tracing shouldn’t be a concern at this price). Display support is also limited to 7680 x 4320 at 60Hz instead of the 120Hz supported by the other Nvidia GPUs.
For now, the only official review of the GTX 1630 comes by way of TechPowerUp, which was critical of the card, stating that it is “severely lacking in performance,” with the Radeon RX 6400 and GTX 1650 clocking in 60% faster. Rather than being a replacement for the GTX 1050 Ti, TechPowerUp believes the GTX 1630’s purpose is to make the GeForce GT 1030 obsolete.
How is it for gaming? Not great. The card struggled across every gaming benchmark, failing to reach 30 frames per second on most tests and averaging just 24 fps at 1080p settings across the wide range of titles.
What’s the purpose of this card, then? It is best as a low-cost option for a productivity desktop that lacks integrated graphics. The GTX 1630 will provide a significant boost over any integrated solutions and has enough oomph to play less demanding games at 1080p on lower settings.
We’re still awaiting pricing details, but these specs should make this a sub-$US150 ($208) graphics card. Anything at or above that mark will be hard to justify. We’ve reached out to Nvidia for pricing details and will update this article as soon as we know more.