2016's $170 GPU vs. 2022's $170 GPUs

Today we're going to review the sub-$200 graphics bill of fare marketplace and encounter how it compares to what we were offered just a few years ago. We recently did this for the $400 price range and it was super interesting, pitting the GTX 1070 of yesteryear against today'due south RTX 2060 Super and the Radeon 5700 XT. We found that AMD offers a solid upgrade over by $400 products with the 5700 XT, which beat out the GTX 1070 by ~l% on average. Meanwhile, the RTX 2060 Super was less impressive, offering a 35% performance bump.

We're definitely hoping to see some value added at the sub-$200 level. The nigh recent addition to this segment is the AMD Radeon 5500 XT. We reviewed it nearly a calendar month agone, and in spite of offering solid performance relative to Nvidia'southward GTX 1650 Super, the 5500 XT pricing is a massive let down.

AMD is attempting to charge a small premium for this GPU that does nothing to better the segment, significant the 5500 XT isn't worth buying at the $170-200 MSRP. Worse still, the 5500 XT is limited to PCIe x8 operation which means y'all but get PCIe 3.0 x16 bandwidth when using a PCIe 4.0 enabled system and for that you demand a high-end X570 motherboard.

After the disappointing 5500 XT release, we thought we could have a look at how the sub $200 market has progressed over the by 4 years or so. Our comparison includes the likes of the Radeon R9 370X and GeForce GTX 950, along with the Radeon RX 470 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

Sub-$200 AMD Radeon GPUs

The Radeon R9 370X was released in mid-2015 for $180 as a 3rd generation refresh. Previously known equally the R9 270 and 270X in late 2022, and sold for $180 and $200, respectively. These first-gen GCN parts all originated from the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, released way dorsum in 2022 for $350.

The Radeon RX 470 was launched in mid-2016 for $180 and was later refreshed, known as the RX 570 in mid-2017 for $170.

Sub-$200 Nvidia GeForce GPUs

As for the dark-green squad, the GeForce GTX 950 was released in late 2022 for $160. This GPU wasn't a refresh and information technology didn't become refreshed either. Post-obit on in late 2022 was the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for $140. 3 years would pass before a replacement was issued for this bill of fare. The GTX 1650 saw the light in 2022 for $150, and was effectively replaced past the 1650 Super at $160 belatedly final year.

That's the history, at present let'south get into the testing.

All graphics cards were benchmarked in our Core i9-9900K exam organisation using the latest drivers and game versions available at the time of testing. Out of marvel we've as well included the 2022 Tomb Raider reboot in today's benchmark suite to run into how the GPUs compare in an older championship.

Game Benchmarks

The first game in our lineup is Battlefield V and here the Radeon R9 370X and GTX 950 are our baseline, both averaging 35fps. The 1050 Ti which wasn't the most heady product offered a 37% performance boost, which is much more than the 22% boost the 1650 offers over the 1050 Ti. Yous tin come across why nosotros were so downward on the original GTX 1650. Within the same year the 1650 Super was released and it'southward 67% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti. This is obviously what the 1650 should accept been.

Every bit for AMD, we see that they managed a massive 103% performance heave from the 370X to the RX 470 and the 470's MSRP was lowered past $10. The 570 refresh though was a lot less exciting, here we're looking at a mere half-dozen% functioning boost. So from the 570 to the 5500 XT a further 11%, not exactly inspiring stuff from the red team. Basically they overachieved with the 470 and information technology'southward come dorsum to bite them.

This fourth dimension when testing with Call of Duty Modern Warfare we see a solid 36% heave for the 1050 Ti over the 950 and so a rather massive 43% spring up to the GTX 1650. That said, the GTX 1650 Super was still almost 50% faster than the vanilla 1650 and that meant it was a whopping 113% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti.

Comparing the 1650 Super to the GTX 1050 Ti tin can exist a chip misleading though, as the Pascal GPU was e'er terrible value. Realistically we're looking at a RX 470 for 2022 performance and doing so meant the GTX 1650 Super is just 36% faster, so not as great.

Worse yet, in this title the 5500 XT was a mere sixteen% faster than the RX 470.

The GTX 950 is the all-time of the 2022 GPUs in F1 2022, but withal the RX 470 was a whopping 106% faster.

But from the RX 470 we're looking at simply 16% increment with the 5500 XT, a pretty miserable bump after all these years. Remember the RX 470 was released at just $180, the 4GB 5500 XT costs $170.

The Far Cry New Dawn results are interesting, hither the GTX 1050 Ti was 14% faster than the GTX 950 while the GTX 1650 was 23% faster than the 1050 Ti. The ~70% jump from the GTX 1050 Ti to the 1650 Super is very impressive, only again it'southward really the RX 470 that we should be using for comparison here and the 1650 Super is near 21% faster and the 5500 XT isn't much better.

Testing with Gears v shows a 76% functioning boost from the GTX 950 to the RX 470. That's plainly a significant functioning uplift. But from the 470 to the 5500 XT we're looking at less than 30% increase.

We see a 76% boost going from the GTX 950 to the RX 470, this time when testing with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. A milder 28% boost from the 470 to the 1650 Super is seen. These results as well show how terrible the GTX 1650 is, putting numbers just fifteen% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti.

Unlike the other titles tested, Metro Exodus was benchmarked using the ultra quality settings and this seems to cripple the newer GeForce GPUs in the GTX 1050 Ti, 1650 and 1650 Super. The 1650 Super is only able to friction match the RX 470, but even then the 5500 XT was merely 17% faster than the RX 470.

The Rainbow Six Siege results look much like many of the other titles already tested. Hither the GTX 1650 does well thanks to the improvements made by the Turing architecture, but it's even so behind the onetime RX 470. The GTX 1650 Super and 5500 XT were betwixt 20-xxx% faster than the 470.

Earth of Tanks isn't heavy on VRAM usage so it's a skilful title for comparison the older 2GB models. Here the GTX 1050 Ti was 29% faster than the GTX 950, while the original GTX 1650 was but 11% faster than the 1050 Ti.

While the RX 470 was 70% faster than the R9 370X, the 5500 XT was 33% faster on top of that.

Using the high quality preset in Assassin'south Creed Odyssey is hard on 2GB graphics cards and equally a result the GTX 1050 Ti was 46% faster than the 370X and 64% faster than the GTX 950.

The GTX 1650 was just 27% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti and matched the much older RX 470. Meanwhile, the 5500 XT was 31% faster than the RX 470.

Nosotros decided to re-test Assassin'due south Creed Odyssey using the depression quality preset, which is the everyman graphics preset the game has to offer. This fourth dimension the 1050 Ti was 29% faster than the GTX 950. The margin from the 1050 Ti to the 1650 was similar, but this time the Turing GPU offered a 24% performance boost.

The new Radeon 5500 XT was simply 31% faster than the RX 470, but interestingly the GTX 1650 Super does much better and is now 52% faster.

The last game we tested is 2022's Tomb Raider reboot using the ultra quality preset. Here the GTX 1050 Ti was 28% faster than the tardily-2015 GPUs, while the RX 470 was 84% faster.

The (vanilla) GTX 1650 again proved it'south a forgettable production and why we criticized information technology so heavily upon release. We likewise see that the 5500 XT is 24% faster than the RX 470, while the GTX 1650 Super was much ameliorate (46% faster).

We're not too concerned with power consumption for this comparison, but we know some of you will capeesh the data, and then hither you lot have information technology.

Performance Summary

For those looking to spend less than $200 on your next graphics bill of fare, or are hoping to upgrade from a previous GPU at this price point like the Radeon RX 470, the latest offerings don't offer a large enough bound unfortunately. Of course, this will all depend on the GPU you already ain, the RX 470 simply happens to be the best of the older graphics cards.

Let's take a look at an xi game boilerplate looking at all the mod games tested.

On average, the Radeon RX 470 was 90% faster when compared to the 2022 competition, namely the GTX 950 and RX 370X. That ways that at the time, in ane year the ~$170 GPU segment received an incredible ninety% performance boost. If we ignore the RX 470 and await at the GTX 1050 Ti, we come across a more balmy 33% boost over the GTX 950, but in the 1050 Ti's defense it did come up in at the lowest MSRP of all these products.

Still nosotros'd say the jump from the GTX 950 to the 1050 Ti was pretty weak. Then the leap from the 1050 Ti to the original 1650 was even weaker. The Turing-based GPU was 25% faster than its predecessor but shockingly 12% slower than the RX 470.

The GTX 1650 Super helped to betoken things in the correct direction, with a 23% boost over the RX 470. The same goes for the more than recently released Radeon RX 5500 XT. Over again, if we ignore the RX 470, the 5500 XT and 1650 Super are 75% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti, which is a huge performance proceeds if you're coming from that GPU.

Beneath is a look at cost per frame comparing the release MSRP, meaning not current market value.
This graph is really telling though...

Look at the lighter blue 'toll per frame' bars. The GTX 950 which was the better value choice of belatedly 2022 comes in at a cost of $4.x per frame based on upward to date data. The GTX 1050 Ti offered a pretty substantial 34% reduction in cost per frame, while the RX 470 was very confusing at a 41% discount.

Then years later the GTX 1650 comes in offering simply a 5% discount over the 470, which is irrelevant because past and so we already had the Radeon RX 570 which was a much better value.

The Radeon 5500 XT is 23% cheaper than the RX 470 per frame and just 14% cheaper than the RX 570, again when comparing the 570 at the MSRP, not the current market price. Betoken is, when comparison the launch prices the 5500 XT is at all-time offering a 23% discount over the RX 470, 3 years later, and the GTX 1650 Super is not much improve.

Fifty-fifty if we ignore the amazingly good value RX 470 and look at the 1050 Ti, the story for modern GPUs is not keen. The 1050 Ti was 34% cheaper than the 950 per frame, while the 1650 Super is only 35% better than the 1050 Ti per frame. The GTX 1050 Ti was released merely a year after the 950, while the GTX 1650 Super was released three years after the 1050 Ti.

Lastly something that always comes up is the driver nerfing statement... so we decided to compare the 2022 Tomb Raider results to what we saw in the modern titles. Scaling between the sometime and newer games looks fairly consequent. The only standout hither is the GTX 1650 Super which did improve relative to the 5500 XT in Tomb Raider, but this is just a unmarried title, so it's not surprising to see a result like this. In fact, we're actually surprised how like the scaling is for the most office.

The R9 370X and GTX 950, for instance, were evenly matched in the modernistic and older games. Same goes for the GTX 1050 Ti and 1650, so nosotros can't see whatever driver nerfing going on here.

What Nosotros Learned

Stagnation in the sub-$200 GPU segment is existent. There'southward no fifty% functioning gains to be seen here and the RX 470 really does brand a mockery of the GTX 1650 Super and RX 5500 XT. Even in terms of power consumption they're not overly superior: y'all're looking at a ~20% increase in performance for the same level of power usage afterwards 3 years.

Ultimately what gamers really care about are frames and if you lot bought an RX 470 for $180 three years agone, you lot'll nonetheless be sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for a worthwhile upgrade at the same cost point. Brusque of spending $350 on a Radeon RX 5700, you might as well keep making do with the 470 until something else comes along.