GALAX announces GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra: TU106 GPU, 4GB GDDR6, 90W TDP

GALAX has just unveiled a new graphics card, with the reveal of their new GALAX GTX 1650 Ultra graphics card that is based on the TU106 GPU.

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The TU106 GPU is the chip that powers NVIDIA's higher-end GeForce RTX 2070, but the company has cut 61.1% of the CUDA cores away from it. GALAX's new GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra uses the TU106-125 variant, which has 896 cores while the TU106-400 inside of the RTX 2070 has 2304 cores.

GALAX's new GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra is a sub-variant of the GTX 1650 GDDR6 model, which virtually identical specifications. NVIDIA doesn't actively advertise these cards, btu they can be found in drivers where Device IDs identify different GPUs.

It's a strange release when you consider the GTX 1650 GDDR6 model has identical specs outside of the GPU used. The normal GTX 1650 GDDR6 uses the TU117-300 GPU -- identical specs to this new GTX 1650 Ultra card -- yet a 75W TDP compared to the new GTX 1650 Ultra and its larger 90W TDP.

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There is one part of this that I love: seeing a GeForce card with the ULTRA moniker again. I really want NVIDIA to bring back the ULTRA branding to compete again with AMD's upcoming next-gen RDNA 2-based Radeon graphics cards, with the purported GeForce RTX 3090 actually being the GeForce RTX 3090 ULTRA.

Awww yeah.