PC World - USA (2020-03)

MARCH 2020 PCWorld 89

1660 Ti, as
evidenced by our
3DMark testing.
Is the GTX 1660
Ti worth the extra
$270 HP charges?
That’s a steep price,
but I think so. The
GTX 1650 works,
but barely. With new
consoles coming
next year, the GTX
1660 Ti is a slightly
more future-
proofed option. It’s
still going to
struggle to run
newer games with
all the bells and
whistles, but it
should remain
viable an extra two
or three years
longer than the GTX
1650—and by then
we’ll be well into
the next hardware
cycle, and upgrading won’t feel as volatile.
The gap in performance is even more
evident in real-world testing, where the GTX
1650 struggles to run Shadow of Mordor at
Ultra—a six-year-old game—while the GTX
1660 Ti breezes past the 100-frames-per-
second mark. Rise of the Tomb Raider is less

impressive as that game is more CPU-

constrained, but there’s still a jump between

the GTX 1650 and the GTX 1660 Ti.

Per usual, we end on battery. Based on

our chart, the Pavilion 15 handily beats the

Omen—and several other gaming laptops as

well. Lasting well over five hours, battery life is

HP Om(Core i7-9750H) en 17

M(Core i7-9750H)SI GS65 Stealth 9SD

Dell G7(Core i7-9750H)

HP Pavilion 15 Gaming Laptop

(Core i7-9750H)

Acer Nitro 7

(Core i7-9750H)

Acer Nitro 5 15

(Core i5-9300H)

Rise of the Tomb Raider

(Frames per second)

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

98.83

59.9

82.34

89.43

55.56

69.94

HP Om(Core i7-9750H) en 17

Dell G7

(Core i7-9750H)

MSI GS65 Stealth 9SD

(Core i7-9750H)

HP Pavilion 15 Gaming Laptop

(Core i7-9750H)

Acer Nitro 5 15(Core i5-9300H)

Acer Nitro 7 (Core i7-9750H)

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

(Frames per second)

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

134.92

69.8

109.45

116.63

69.2

105.8