Nvidia’s delayed GTX 1630 budget graphics card could be out in a few days

RTX 3050 graphics card next to the 3080 and 3090
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia’s purportedly incoming GeForce GTX 1630, a graphics card aimed at the entry-level market, is now set to debut on June 28 according to the latest from the rumor mill.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a release date for the GTX 1630, of course, and in fact this represents the third date put forward via the GPU grapevine. To begin with, this budget graphics card was supposed to be launching on May 31, before the on-sale date was said to slip to June 15.

Obviously, mid-June came and went with no sight of the GTX 1630, and now the latest word is that it’ll finally show up on June 28, in just a few days, as VideoCardz reports. The source for this is IT Home, with the tech site pulling the info from the Chinese Board Channels forum, where Colorful GTX 1630 models are mentioned as shipping in readiness for a June 28 on-sale date – meaning the cards will actually be on shelves to buy then (and not just unveiled).

Naturally, take all this with a great deal of caution, as the past two rumored release dates clearly illustrate – indeed given what’s happened, we’re feeling particularly skeptical about whether third time lucky will come to fruition with the speculation here.


Analysis: Release it already, Nvidia (if indeed this GPU is inbound)

If nothing else, hopefully this is an indication that the GTX 1630 is still incoming, because we’re keen to see what Nvidia might do with this low-end model. Even if past rumors around it have been rather lukewarm in terms of the purported spec, and how hobbled it might be.

From what we’ve heard thus far, synthetic benchmark performance shows the 1630 as lagging behind the GTX 1050 Ti, and there’s been plenty of doubt cast on how compelling a product this might be – unless Nvidia pitches the price really low. And maybe those expectations have something to do with these delays.

Alternatively, the 1630 might simply not be a high priority project for Team Green, and is being shuffled around as a result. Could the GTX 1630 be another rumored graphics card that ends up being canceled? Well, these apparent multiple slippages – and the general reception to the theorized specs – could point to that. Or the rumor mill might just be completely off base with this card full-stop (though that feels unlikely, seeing as it keeps popping up on the release radar).

Hopefully next week, we’ll finally see the GTX 1630, if nothing else so we can find out the real specs, and whether they match up with that ‘GTX’ branding – which has always been linked to gaming, as opposed to something very cheap that’s more likely to be installed in the likes of a home theater PC.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).