Out of nowhere, rumors have emerged that Nvidia is reportedly planning to put together a GeForce GTX 1630 GPU to compete in the entry-level market, as reported by VideoCardz. Specifications are unknown. Still, the name does suggest it will leverage Nvidia’s older Turing architecture rather than Ampere. If this information is accurate, the GTX 1630’s sole purpose is probably to compete against AMD’s Radeon RX 6400.
VideoCardz admitted that all its data surrounding the GTX 1630 is nothing but rumors; however, the news outlet has double-confirmed with its sources that Nvidia is planning to make this GPU. Apparently, that part of the story is genuine. Still, we have to take all this data with a grain of salt since we don’t have direct access to the source material.
Nvidia’s decision to make a GTX 1630 is surprising and unusual at the same time. If this is true, it will mark the first time Nvidia has cracked its decade-long running GTX nomenclature by making an xx30-series GPU a GTX product. In the past, the 10, 20, 30, and 40 series products were under Nvidia’s entry-level “GT” branding, with the 50 series serving as the barrier to entry for the GTX lineup.
According to Videocardz’s source material, the GTX 1630 supposedly replaces the aging GTX 1050 Ti with a lower price point than the GTX 1650. It is bizarre, considering the GTX 1650’s mission was to do that and achieve that goal years ago. There’s a minimal point to making a GTX 1630 unless Nvidia wants a redundant GPU in its 16 series lineup.
We don’t have any leaked data on GPU specifications, but it’s not hard to guess what it could be. Nvidia’s current GTX 1650 is equipped with its smallest Turing die known as TU117 and cut down to 864 cores and 14 SMs. A potential GTX 1630 would presumably have a further reduced SM count of just 12 or even 10 SMs, cutting TU117’s maximum SM count of 16 by almost half.
Memory will come either in GDDR5 or GDDR6 flavors and top out at 4GB. Nvidia is already using GDDR5 and GDDR6 in the GTX 1650 and its four different variants (not including the Super counterparts), so it’s easy to guess Nvidia will use either of the two on a GTX 1630.
If Nvidia decides to keep using GDDR5 and only cuts the SM counts, this theoretical GTX 1630 will potentially have 80% or 90% of the performance of a GTX 1650.
Pricing will probably be similar to an AMD’s RX 6400 since the current GTX 1650 and RX 6500 XT shares the same price bracket of $200. A price reduction by $20-$30 or more for a GTX 1630 would certainly make sense.
However, a GPU like this makes little sense in a market where GPU prices plummet every month. If we saw this GPU when AMD made its RX 6500 XT, it would make sense as a desperate attempt to get GPUs to gamers. But, that situation is quickly dying now that many modern GPUs are available at MSRP.
Super aggressive pricing will be the only hope for a viable GTX 1630 solution in the current marketplace. The last standing price bracket that lacks any modern GPU is the sub $150 market, where the most modern GPUs you’ll find are the GT 1030 and RX 550. If it can beat the price of its GT 1030 right now with a faster, more modern GPU, the GTX 1630 could become a massive success as a sub $150 gaming card.