Opinion | Gigabyte releases the most pointless graphics cards of 2020; other AIBs likely to follow its lead
Last month, we reported on the unlikely possibility of GDDR6 versions of the GeForce GTX 1650 coming to market. The speculation arose following MSI registering several "GTX 1650 D6" cards with the EEC, the Eurasian Economic Commission. While an EEC registration is no guarantee that such a product will make it to market, GDDR6 versions of the GTX 1650 have now gone on sale.
However, MSI is not the first AIB to release a GTX 1650 with GDDR6 VRAM. Instead, Gigabyte has listed the OC (GV-N1656OC-4GD) and WindForce OC (GV-N1656WF2OC-4GD). Brought to our attention by @momomo_us, the two cards feature 4 GB of VRAM running at 12 Gbps. However, the OC can clock up to 1,635 MHz, whereas the WindForce OC maxes out at 1,710 MHz. Both are expected to be based on the TU117, but that remains unconfirmed until someone gets their hands on one.
Seeing as MSI has registered trademarks for GDDR6 versions of the GTX 1650 too, we expect other AIBs to soon follow Gigabyte's lead. Nonetheless, we are struggling to see what a GDDR6 version of the GTX 1650 offers over any of the other GTX 16 series GPUs that NVIDIA and AIBs currently offer. Both Gigabyte GPUs feature 896 CUDA cores, so neither are using the full potential of the TU117 anyway.
Source(s)
@momomo_us via Cnews.cz via Videocardz