Rumours indicate that Nvidia plans to stop making GTX 1600 graphics cards, marking the end of older non-ray tracing GPUs. Starting Q1 2024, the company will reportedly put the last two GTX models to rest.
According to Board Channels, Team Green plans to discontinue its GeForce GTX series by the start of next year. Since the GTX 1660 series already met the chopping block last year alongside the RTX 2060, this specifically refers to GTX 1650 and GTX 1630.
You’ll still see these graphics cards circulating for a while yet. Discontinuation means Nvidia won’t accept new orders once January 1 rolls around. Nvidia will keep the doors open until at least the end of the month, then fulfil the remainder.
This marks the end of the GTX nomenclature after years of loyal service, leaving the ray tracing-capable RTX series to rein free. It also goes some way to explain why Nvidia would offer a newer version of its RTX 3050 packing only 6GB of VRAM.
Contrary to what naming may lead you to believe, the GTX 1600 didn’t use the same GPU as GTX 1000. Instead, it used the same Turing architecture as RTX 2000 cards, but without ray tracing and DLSS upscaling. These features weren’t that common in games back in 2019 when the GTX 1660 first launched, and were less enticing for gamers.
Following this, the cheapest GeForce card you’ll be able to buy will be the RTX 3050 8GB at £217. Assuming all stock sells out, AMD will be alone in the under £200 segment. For the time being, you can still grab an MSI GTX 1650 Ventus XS OC for as little as £150
As a reminder, the GTX 1600 series includes:
- GTX 1630 with 4GB of GDDR6
- GTX 1650 with 4GB of GDDR5
- GTX 1650 with 4GB of GDDR6
- GTX 1650 Super with 4GB of GDDR6
- GTX 1660 with 6GB of GDDR5
- GTX 1660 Super with 6GB of GDDR6
- GTX 1660 Ti with 6GB of GDDR6
“According to reports, starting from the first quarter (Q1), NVIDIA will completely cease the full-scale production of the GTX16 series GPUs. This means that from Q1 onward, NV GTX16 series GPUs may no longer be supplied to AIC brand manufacturers. If NV indeed discontinues the entire production line of the GTX16 series, it will not only involve the already discontinued GTX1660S but also include the two lower-end logistics models, GTX1650 and GTX1630. At that point, there won’t be any product models to temporarily fill the gap in this price range.” — Board Channels (translation).
The GTX 1650 was so popular, it just recently lost its top spot on the Steam hardware survey. It’s regained some ranks since, now sitting in second place. Maybe it can climb back to the first spot before fading back for good.
