When it comes to pairing both your CPU and GPU you have to take some serious considerations and choices to make them perform well. Otherwise, it may “bottleneck” which refers to limiting the capacity of your computer system by a single component which can be either your CPU or GPU in this case. Nvidia’s GTX 1650 and 1660 may seem a bad choice in this day and age but they are still the best low-range GPUs that are available in the market. If it may so happen that you are building a budget gaming pc or an editing pc and are thinking of getting a GTX 1650 or a GTX 1660 and don’t know which CPU to pair it with, do not fear cause we are here. We have prepared a guide for you to see and choose the best CPU to pair with your GTX 1650 or 1660 also known as the best GPUs under the $300 to 400 dollar dollar range, depending on how you are going to use your desktop.
These are the best CPUs for GTX 1650 and 1660
GTX 1650
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
When you are going to talk about the CPUs for a gaming build there is no way that you can leave out AMD Ryzen series CPUs. The most compatible AMD Ryzen Cpu with the GTX 1650 is AMD Ryzen 5 2600X. It may be an older generation CPU but it still is a beastly 6-core processor with 12 threads capable of giving the older generation Intel Core i5s a run for their money. The AMD Ryzen 5 2600X is an unlocked CPU like the rest of the CPUs in the series and is capable of overclocking giving it a max clock boost of 4.2 GHz from a base clock of 3.6 GHz. To use it at its full potential you should use a B450 chipset motherboard or an X470 chipset motherboard and as the AMD Ryzen 5 2600X uses an AM4 socket upgrading in the future will be very easy. It also comes with a cooler like all of the other CPUs in the Ryzen series.
- Core Count – 6
- Thread Count – 12
- Unlocked – Yes
- Base Clock Speed – 3.6 GHz
- Max Boost Clock Speed – 4.2 GHz
- Socket – AM4
- Recommended Motherboard Chipset – B450 or X470
- Bundled Cooler – Yes
Intel Core i3 8100
When it comes to single-threaded performance Intel still has AMD beat and with AMD’s latest generation CPUs, they have closed that gap somewhat. This single-threaded performance has led the Intel Core i3 8100 to be mentioned on our list. The better the single-threaded performance the better it is for editing and content creation. At the time of its release, it was a beastly CPU with 4 cores and 4 threads. It was a true quad-core processor just like the previous-gen i5’s. It is one of the best budget editing processors with a cache memory of 6 MB making it blazing fast. Sadly this variant is locked and is incapable of overclocking coming with a base clock of 3.6 GHz. This processor uses an LGA1151 socket and it is locked so we recommend that you get a cheap H310 chipset motherboard dropping your overall cost and allowing you to invest more on the other components such as RAM, PSU, etc if you are going to upgrade the CPU at a later stage you will have to change the motherboard as well being one of the drawbacks of Intel CPUs.
- Core Count – 4
- Thread Count – 4
- Unlocked – No
- Base Clock Speed – 3.6 GHz
- Max Boost Clock Speed – Locked CPU
- Socket – LGA1151
- Recommended Motherboard Chipset – H310
- Bundled Cooler – No
GTX 1660
AMD Ryzen 3600
Anyone who is even a little bit interested in pc building and gaming will agree hands down that AMD’s Ryzen 3600 is the top choice for a budget gamer anywhere in the world. And it so happens that the Ryzen 5 3600 is the most compatible CPU with Nvidia’s GTX 1660 when it comes down to gaming performance. It is a 6-core processor with 12 threads and is based on AMD’s “Zen 2” architecture. And like the rest of the Ryzen series CPU, it is an unlocked CPU capable of reaching a max boost clock speed of 4.2 GHz while it has a base clock of 3.6 GHz and it uses the AM4 socket too. The combo of AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600 and Nvidia’s GTX 1660 is the perfect 1080p budget gaming setup in 2021.
- Core Count – 6
- Thread Count – 12
- Unlocked – Yes
- Base Clock Speed – 3.6 GHz
- Max Boost Clock Speed – 4.2 GHz
- Socket – AM4
- Recommended Motherboard Chipset – B450
- Bundled Cooler – Yes
Intel Core i5 10400F
Team Blue this time has an equal fighting chance with the Ryzen 3600 this time but still loses to a multi-threaded performance contest. The Intel Core i5 10400F is a 6-core CPU with 12 threads with a base clock speed of 2.9 GHz and a max boost clock speed of 4.3 GHz. This variant of Core i5 is an unlocked version and comes with a bundled cooler so we recommend you pair it with a Z490 chipset motherboard as it is based on Intel’s Comet Lake Architecture and uses an LGA 1200 socket.
- Core Count – 6
- Thread Count – 12
- Unlocked – Yes
- Base Clock Speed – 2.9 GHz
- Max Boost Clock Speed – 4.3 GHz
- Socket – LGA 1200
- Recommended Motherboard Chipset – Z490
- Bundled Cooler – Yes
And thus we are ending the guide here as the above-mentioned CPUs are the best ones to pair with your GTX 1650 or 1660. The AMD Ryzen series processors can perform very well when put under gaming stress while the Intel Core series processors showed impressive results when put to editing and rendering tests. We hope we have helped you in picking the perfect CPU to pair with GTX 1650 or 1660 catering to your needs and as always don’t forget to comment if you think we missed something or if anything needs to be changed.
