Nvidia GTX 1650 VS RX 580 2048 SP: Best Budget Gaming GPU

While Tech enthusiasts are hyping the upcoming RTX 5090, many of us can’t afford these latest-generation flagship GPUs as they are so expensive and require to sell kidneys for many gamers! The upcoming RTX 5090 will cost no less than $2000, a nightmare budget for those who build their entire PC for less than $300. 

An expensive flagship GPU is useless if you’re still rocking your old 60HZ budget monitor with an outdated CPU and PCIe 3.0 interface motherboard. Most of these gamers don’t even have a dedicated graphics card, struggling with integrated iGPU, but need a better gaming experience with a dedicated GPU without destroying their wallet. Many budget gamers consider the RX 580 2048SP or Nvidia GTX 1650 in this tight situation. 

These GPUs are less expensive and deliver playable frame rates even in demanding titles. No, they can’t smoothly run some unoptimized AAA titles such as Last of Us: Part 1 or Alan Wake 2 without upscaling. But that’s not a big deal for many who won’t mind lowering the graphics settings from medium to low. A friend of mine still plays games on his 4th-generation Intel 4690K CPU, released about a decade ago, but a very capable CPU even by today’s standards.  

Yes, RX 580 and Nvidia GTX 1650 both GPUs are officially discontinued now but still available in brand-new condition. The RX 580 we are taking here is the Chinese 580 2048 SP- a cutdown version of the original RX 580 that costs less than $100. On the other hand, GTX 1650 costs around $130-$150( depending on the model). Many gamers hesitate when choosing the best budget GPU between RX 580 2048SP and GTX 1650. We will figure out the best GPU among them through this article.

Nvidia GTX 1650 VS RX 580 2048 SP: Technical Differences

The RX 580 2048 SP is slightly different from the original RX 580. The original RX 580 features 2304 shading units, but we have only 2048 cores available on this SP variant, which is equivalent to an RX 570 spec-wise and provides a similar performance level under a different name. AMD launches this special edition in China, now available worldwide. 

Once, there was a high demand for these Polarish cards due to crypto mining. It was impossible to get an RX 580 somewhere close to MSRP. Miners grabbed all of them as AMD’s card provides a superior hash rate. How many Polaris cards AMD had produced became a mystery, as thousands of these RX 580 2048 SP cards are now available for sale after the end of the mining era.

Many of these RX 580 came from crypto mining after Ethereum switched to the POS mechanism. The GPU mining is almost dead now, and Chinese manufacturers grab these mining chips, assemble them on new boards, and update the default 4GB memory to 8GB DDR5 capacity. No, Mining cards aren’t that bad if taken carefully. Moreover, most Chinese RX 580 2048 SP covers a 2-year full warranty and costs $50 less than the Nvidia GTX 1650. 

Some manufacturers even paired 16GB VRAM with these 2048SP, but 16GB memory doesn’t make sense as RX 580’s can’t fuel 4K gamings to utilize this massive VRAM. However, paring large capacity VRAM on RX 580 isn’t difficult as the chip has a 256-bit memory interface, and the DDR5 memory chip has become very cheap.   

Now, the Nvidia GTX 1650 also has some memory parts upgrades over the official launch. We have much faster DDR6 memory on these cards and require a 6-pin power connector, while the original one was a PCIe-powered card. This GTX 1650 is a brand-new chip, also available from renowned Nvidia AIB card partners such as MSI, PNY, and more.  

Built on Nvidia’s Turing architecture, the GTX 1650 uses a narrow 128-bit memory architecture compared to the 256-bit memory interface found on the RX 580. It also has fewer VRAM 4GB capacity against the 8GB RX 580 2048SP. As a newer card, the GTX 1650 supports DirectX 12_ 1 feature sets, while the RX 580 supports DirectX 12_0 feature level. 

Again, the Nvidia GXT 1650 is $50 more expensive than the RX580 2048 SP, but it’s a brand-new product. Sadly, the GTX 1650’s market availability is also uncertain as Nvidia recently halted the entire GTX series chips production.

Test system: CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600, Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M, RAM: G.SKILL Neo 32GB (2x16GB), SSD: SAMSUNG 980 PRO Cooler: DeepCool AK620 Digital

Nvidia GTX 1650 VS RX 580 2048 SP 8GB: Synthetics Benchmark

With the superior process node(12nm) and faster DDR6 memory, the GTX 1650 4GB smashes the RX 580 2048 SP on the Geekbeck 6 Open CL test- a great tool to measure the GPU’s caliber. 

But, RX 580 has extra 4GB VRAM advantages and took the lead on the Novabench 3D graphics test. Here, the Chinese RX 580 achieves 249 scores, whereas the GTX 1650 manages to hit 169.

With 3591 points on the 3D Mark Wildlife Time Spy, RX 580 2048SP is close to the Nvidia GTX 1650’s 3625 scores.  

Unigine Heaven is an excellent tool for measuring DX11 performance. Here, the result is almost tied, though the RX 580 2048SP has a slight advantage by scoring the 2090 mark, and the GTX 1650 isn’t far away from the 2063 mark on Unigine Heaven.

Moving to the MSI Kombustor 1080P extreme preset, the GTX 1650 humiliated the RX 580 2048SP on this benchmark. We were surprised to see how a 4GB FTX 1650 outperforms an 8GB RX 580 by a massive margin.

Here concludes our synthetic benchmark of RX 580 2048SP and GTX 1650. Thanks to the faster DDR6 memory, the GTX 1650 beats the RX 580 2048SP in most synthetic tests with half of the RX 580’s VRAM capacity. 

GTX 1650 VS RX 580 2048SP: Gaming Benchmarks

A Plague Tale Requiem is a visually demanding game that indicates the GTX 1650 and RX 580 2048SP’s performance in upcoming AAA games. We’ve turned off the RT settings as none of these cards have a dedicated RT core. At low graphics settings with resolution optimizer to performance mode, the RX 580 2048SP’s 8GB VRAM became handy in this resource-hungry title and delivered a much higher average (55) frame rate with a 41FPS  1% low compared to GTX 1650s 46 FPS and 34 FPS.

The Dying Light 2: Stay Human is a victory for the Nvidia GTX 1650 over the RX 580 2048SP. At medium settings, the 4GB GTX 1650 achieves a modest 62 FPS mark with a respectable 1% low(53 FPS), while the RX 580 2048SP has an average of 55 FPS and 48 FPS at 1% low.

Playstation exclusive Returnal was released on PC in February 2023. We used the Returnal’s built-in benchmarks, and the results are very close. The cheaper RX 580 2048SP has a better 1% low of 33 FPS against the 31 FPS of GTX 1650. However, the GTX 1650 has a 2 FPS lead on average FPS count. 

The next title is Watch Dogs: Legion and the result is almost equal as there is just a minor 1FPS difference on both graphics cards. 

Starfield is a very demanding title for any GPU. Even some high-end GPUs struggle to drive Starfield on max settings. We turned on FSR 2 and set the graphics settings to medium. RX 580 2048SP’s 8GB VRAM makes a huge difference against 4GB GTX 1650.   

The classic Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a highly optimized game, and we have a playable frame rate on both graphics cards. At 1080P high settings, GTX 1650 gets 64FPS compared to RX 580 2048SP’s  58FPS.

The action-adventure fantasy game Hogwarts Legacy needs a hefty VRAM capacity, and RX 580 2048SP rocks on this title against GTX 1650. The GTX 1650 can’t keep up with RX 580’s memory capacity in Hogwarts Legacy, the difference is almost 10 FPS.    

Nvidia GTX 1650 VS RX 580 2048 SP 8GB: Conclusion 

We have a mixed result while testing the GTX 1650 and RX 580 2048SP. The GTX 1650 wins most of the synthetics benchmark due to its superior fabrication process and faster DDR6 memory. However, the 4GB VRAM is the GTX 1650’s Ahelis Hill, as we have seen that it struggles to keep up with RX 580 2048SP in graphic-intensive games like Hogwarts Legacy and A Plage Tale Requiem.  

Considering the Price vs performance ratio the RX 580 2048 is the clear winner. However, many gamers hesitate to buy these Chinese RX 580 2048SP as they don’t come from reliable AIB vendors like ASUS or PNY. you could go with the Nvidia GTX 1650 for an extra $50 premium over the RX 580 2048SP. 

As far as a two-year manufacturer warranty covers this Chinese RX 580 2048SP, you could get the best budget graphics card without worrying too much about reliability.