Why the GTX 1630 is not worth buying this Holiday Sale

The Geforce GTX 1630 was launched earlier this year as a basic video adapter to help with the content consumption and browsing experience on media PCs. It is a spiritual successor to the Pascal-based GT 1030, which has since been discontinued. The card is based on a PCIe Gen 3 x8 bus interface, which makes it a low-end budget-friendly device.

Last month, Nvidia discontinued the manufacturing of multiple Turing cards, including the GTX 1660 and the RTX 2060 lineups. However, the GTX 1630 will not be phased out anytime soon, as it was introduced a few months back.

The card costs around $140. Since it is the cheapest Team Green GPU currently available, many budget gamers might be drawn toward buying it for their rig. However, one should consider a few more points, including the trade-offs with this card and other offerings from the competition, before purchasing it.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer

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The GTX 1630 is not built for gamers

The Asus TUF Gaming Nvidia 1630 video card (Image via Asus)

Before gamers are inclined towards buying the GTX 1630 for their gaming build, they should remember that it is not built for PC gaming. Let us take a look at the on-paper specs of the card and its relative performance.

The GTX 1630 is built on the Turing architecture that uses the 12nm TSMC process node. It was introduced back in the summer of 2022.

Its TU117 GPU packs a meager 512 CUDA cores, 32 Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), 16 Render Output Units (ROPs), eight Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory that is based on a very narrow 64-bit memory bus. The memory has a bandwidth of just 96 GB/s.

The card is based on a compact, low-profile, single-slot design. It is, however, rated for a total board power (TBP) of 75 W, which is 10 W more than the GTX 1650.

	GTX 1650	GTX 1630
Nvidia CUDA Cores	896	512
Base Clock	1410 GHz	1740 GHz
Boost Clock	1590 GHz	1785 GHz
Memory	4GB GDDR6	4GB GDDR6
Memory Interface Width	128-bit	64-bit
TDP	75 watts	75 watts

According to TechPowerUp's GPU performance aggregate, the card is around 22% slower than the five-year-old GTX 1050 Ti, which was not very powerful even when it was launched. It is only marginally faster than the GTX 660 Ti, a Kepler-based mid-range performance-focused card introduced in 2012.

Thus, it is evident that the GTX 1630 is not built for 2022 gaming. It cannot handle 1080p in most video games. However, where the card falls apart is its high pricing.

At around $140, AMD's Radeon RX 6400 offers about 50% more performance. Although it is still a sub-par pixel pusher, according to the 2022 standards, gamers can still enjoy games at 1080p with some compromises in visual fidelity at playable framerates.

However, budget gamers should spend a few more bucks and bet on the Radeon RX 6500 XT. The cheapest models begin at around $160, with the Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 6500 XT currently costing $161.99 on Newegg. Most models, however, are priced at $169.99.

This card is far more powerful than the GTX 1630 and the RX 6400. It can run most modern AAA games at 1080p resolution without significantly lowering the settings.

The MSI GTX 1630 Ventus graphics card (Image via MSI)

Overall, the GTX 1630 is not built for gaming. It is a great card for content consumption and basic computing purposes. Nvidia has bundled it with HDMI and DisplayPort 1.4a ports to make it further contemporary with modern display standards.

The card's biggest selling point is the longer driver support as pitched against the baseline cards from last-gen. Thus, users building a media PC can opt for this GPU.