Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX Review - The Fastest Passively Cooled Graphics Card

Name: Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX
Brand: Palit

W1zzard

on Mar 26th, 2020,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: Palit

(21 Comments) »

Introduction

NVIDIA announced the GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card almost a year ago, on April 23rd 2019. It is the smallest and most affordable implementation of the "Turing" architecture. Much like other GeForce GTX 16-series graphics cards, the GTX 1650 lacks dedicated RTX real-time ray tracing hardware and tensor cores even though it is based on "Turing."

The GeForce GTX 1650 uses the tiny TU117 silicon from NVIDIA, which is configured with 896 CUDA cores, 56 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 4 GB of memory that ticks at 8 Gbps for 128 GB/s bandwidth. Not long ago, such specifications were considered quasi-premium for this price segment. With a rated power draw of just 75 watts—half that of the RX 570—most GeForce GTX 1650 graphics cards do not need an additional PCIe power connector and can make do with slot power only.

That's exactly why Palit chose the GTX 1650 for their KalmX—a lineup that has been around for many years, offering a completely passive, fanless operation. The first KalmX was the Palit GTX 750 Ti KalmX in 2014, followed by the GTX 1050 Ti KalmX in 2017.

Building a completely passive card is not easy because the heatsink needs to be able to absorb and dissipate all the heat output from GPU and memory—a highly efficient GPU architecture is needed. Even with Turing's leading efficiency, this puts serious constraints on how powerful the card can be. I'm sure Palit would have loved to use a GTX 1650 Super as the base for their KalmX, but that's simply not feasible with 100 W of heat output. The GTX 1650 on the other hand is around 70 W, the perfect candidate from among currently available GPUs.

On the regular graphics card market, the GTX 1650 has been superseded by the GTX 1650 Super, which offers considerably higher performance at only a small price increase.

As expected, the Palit GTX 1650 KalmX does not come with a factory overclock and also uses the NVIDIA default power limit of 75 W, which not only limits heat output, but ensures it doesn't need an additional power connector—something that's important for some small-form-factor systems. The Palit GTX 1650 KalmX is currently retailing at around $160, which is a $10 premium over the NVIDIA MSRP and definitely reasonable.

GeForce GTX 1650 Market Segment Analysis
	Price	Shader Units	ROPs	Core Clock	Boost Clock	Memory Clock	GPU	Transistors	Memory
GTX 1050	$135	640	32	1354 MHz	1455 MHz	1752 MHz	GP107	3300M	2 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
GTX 1050 Ti	$150	768	32	1290 MHz	1392 MHz	1752 MHz	GP107	3300M	4 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
GTX 1650	$150	896	32	1485 MHz	1665 MHz	2000 MHz	TU117	4700M	4 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
Palit GTX 1650 KalmX	$160	896	32	1485 MHz	1665 MHz	2000 MHz	TU117	4700M	4 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
RX 570	$120	2048	32	1168 MHz	1244 MHz	1750 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	4 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX 5500 XT	$170	1408	32	1717 MHz	1845 MHz	1750 MHz	Navi 14	6400M	4 GB, GDDR6, 128-bit
GTX 1650 Super	$160	1280	32	1530 MHz	1725 MHz	1500 MHz	TU116	6600M	4 GB, GDDR6, 128-bit
RX 580	$160	2304	32	1257 MHz	1340 MHz	2000 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
GTX 1060 3 GB	$170	1152	48	1506 MHz	1708 MHz	2002 MHz	GP106	4400M	3 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit
GTX 1060	$210	1280	48	1506 MHz	1708 MHz	2002 MHz	GP106	4400M	6 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit
RX 590	$200	2304	32	1469 MHz	1545 MHz	2000 MHz	Polaris 30	5700M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
GTX 1660	$200	1408	48	1530 MHz	1785 MHz	2000 MHz	TU116	6600M	6 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit
GTX 1070	$300	1920	64	1506 MHz	1683 MHz	2002 MHz	GP104	7200M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX Vega 56	$260	3584	64	1156 MHz	1471 MHz	800 MHz	Vega 10	12500M	8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit
GTX 1660 Super	$230	1408	48	1530 MHz	1785 MHz	1750 MHz	TU116	6600M	6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit

Packaging

The Card

Palit's card is dominated by the large passive heatsink. A backplate is not included, and not a requirement in this price segment, I'd say.

Dimensions of the card are 18.0 x 14.0 cm.

Installation requires two slots in your system. The first photo is a little bit misleading as the heatsink ends flush with the PCIe slot cover, but is actually 2 mm below it.

Display connectivity options include two standard DisplayPort 1.4a and an HDMI 2.0b.

The board does not use any additional power connector. This input configuration is specified for up to 75 watts of power draw.

GeForce GTX 1650 does not support SLI.

Disassembly

Palit is using two heatpipes on their thermal solution, which wrap around the cooler. This heatsink is nearly identical to that of earlier KalmX cards. Thermal pads were added to provide cooling for the memory chips and VRM circuitry, though.

High-resolution PCB Pictures

These pictures are for the convenience of volt modders and people who would like to see all the finer details on the PCB. Feel free to link back to us and use these in your articles or forum posts.