Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 & 1050 Ti Review: Entry-level PC gaming FTW

[Steve]

Pascal is one of Nvidia's greatest achievements in the past decade. The company's latest GPU architecture took gaming performance to the next level with the GTX 1080 in May and then again with the Titan X only a few months later, though you'll need $600+ to get your Pascal party started with one of these flagships.

Gamers prepared to spend between $200 and $250 on a graphics card essentially have the GTX 1060 or its rival RX 480 to choose between (and both are fine options), while those with less cash have even fewer options, until now that is.

AMD's RX 460 2GB presented itself as the best choice for around $110 and not long ago you wouldn't have expected to find a Pascal card at this price point. With Nvidia's announcement of the GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti last week, you can tell things are about to be shaken up when AMD anticipates its rival's launch with immediate pricing adjustments.

Read the complete review.

 

[fps4ever]

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

 

[Puiu]

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

a 10% difference isn't exactly what you would call smacking down, but it does indeed give a few more fps.

in general it should make no difference since people generally lower the settings to get 60 fps or more. a few tests here to see what settings it takes to get to 60 fps in the more graphically intense games would have been nice.

 

[fps4ever]

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

a 10% difference isn't exactly what you would call smacking down, but it does indeed give a few more fps.

in general it should make no difference since people generally lower the settings to get 60 fps or more. a few tests here to see what settings it takes to get to 60 fps in the more graphically intense games would have been nice.

Keep telling yourself that. I was like you once. When you're on the edge of playable at 1080P or not that makes a difference.

 

[OcelotRex]

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

a 10% difference isn't exactly what you would call smacking down, but it does indeed give a few more fps.

in general it should make no difference since people generally lower the settings to get 60 fps or more. a few tests here to see what settings it takes to get to 60 fps in the more graphically intense games would have been nice.

It's not only 10% more performance it's also at the same price with better efficiency. That's a solid win.

 

[Nero7]

Would someone explain to me WTF is going on with DX12 and Vulcan on Nvidia cards? All shown benchmarks are seriously disturbing.

 

[Puiu]

It's not only 10% more performance it's also at the same price with better efficiency. That's a solid win.

I doubt anyone would care about 10W and that's just the delta for peak values. in general the power consumption average is lower for both.

 

[Puiu]

Would someone explain to me WTF is going on with DX12 and Vulcan on Nvidia cards? All shown benchmarks are seriously disturbing.

It was the same with DX11 when the first games came out. Early on it's just added in for marketing reasons and it uses a horribly optimised and buggy implementation (especially since devs have to do a lot more fine tuning than normal).
It will take another year or so until games and devs get the hang of things. And Vulkan really needs more dev support, there are too few games using it.

 

[fps4ever]

I doubt anyone would care about 10W and that's just the delta for peak values. in general the power consumption average is lower for both.

It matters in htpc configurations and small form factors. Not as much as that efficiency also lowers the heat as well. At these price points people are looking for best value/performance for their dollars so everything counts.

 

[CaptainTom]

So indeed there is nothing inherently wrong with GCN's efficiency or overclocking. Pascal has barely any more efficiency and practically can't overclock at all when using the same cheap 14nm.

 

[fps4ever]

So indeed there is nothing inherently wrong with GCN's efficiency or overclocking. Pascal has barely any more efficiency and practically can't overclock at all when using the same cheap 14nm.

I'm a big AMD fan but Nvidia can clock higher within the same power envelope. AMD makes pretty good use of what they have with gcn 1.x and the lower clocks. Seems like the software engineer (driver) side is where they are lacking. It's almost impossible to compare since they are so different architect wise. And I'm not sure where you get NV can't overclock? In this instance OC's are tied to the PCIE bus which only allows a max of 75 watts. They have no external power.

 

[lipe123]

Ah comonnnnn, where is the SLI bridge port on the Ti version. Now THAT would have been something pretty awesome.

 

[GreenNova343]

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

a 10% difference isn't exactly what you would call smacking down, but it does indeed give a few more fps.

in general it should make no difference since people generally lower the settings to get 60 fps or more. a few tests here to see what settings it takes to get to 60 fps in the more graphically intense games would have been nice.

It's not only 10% more performance it's also at the same price with better efficiency. That's a solid win.

if you mean the chart on page 9... you do realize the big winner was the RX 470, right? Better price-per-frame than the GTX 1050, much better price-per-frame than the 1050Ti (in fact, the spread between the RX 470 & the 1050Ti is the same as the spread between the 1050Ti & the RX 460).

 

[fps4ever]

if you mean the chart on page 9... you do realize the big winner was the RX 470, right? Better price-per-frame than the GTX 1050, much better price-per-frame than the 1050Ti (in fact, the spread between the RX 470 & the 1050Ti is the same as the spread between the 1050Ti & the RX 460).

That is in a different price bracket so of course its going to be faster. Nobody is arguing that. If you can afford a $200 card then this review isn't for you. They added that for a frame of reference. This card is meant to go against the 460, 960, etc....come on man.

OOps....checked out the 470 prices just now. They are slowly going to eat away at these lower priced cards so you are somewhat correct!

 

[DJMIKE25]

Impressed with the performance. I could easily see throwing 1 or 2 of these in an entry level build for someone.

 

[crocography]

I also agree with GreenNova 343, it looks to me like I should spend the few extra bucks and just buy an AMD RX470, why would I ever bother with anything else here???

 

[fps4ever]

I also agree with GreenNova 343, it looks to me like I should spend the few extra bucks and just buy an AMD RX470, why would I ever bother with anything else here???

I'd wait until BF at this point. You might be able to snag an even better card during that sale.

 

[FLEETWOOD]

Would someone explain to me WTF is going on with DX12 and Vulcan on Nvidia cards? All shown benchmarks are seriously disturbing.

It was the same with DX11 when the first games came out. Early on it's just added in for marketing reasons and it uses a horribly optimised and buggy implementation (especially since devs have to do a lot more fine tuning than normal).
It will take another year or so until games and devs get the hang of things. And Vulkan really needs more dev support, there are too few games using it.

Wish I could agree with you here, but unfortunately Nvidia cards doesn't have the same hardware support as AMD cards have for Vulkan/DX12. Pascal isn't much different from Maxwell, Nvidia should be able to change this with "Volta."

I'm still waiting for Nvidia to release their "infamous" Async driver that they claim they can enable back about 1 1/2 years ago, for their Maxwell cards.

 

[GyratingIndy]

Excellent. I was looking to build a cheap as hell HTPC anyway so a 1050 looks enticing. In fact, if there's going to be a 1040 for less price then I'm even more tempted to get that one.

 

[FLEETWOOD]

So indeed there is nothing inherently wrong with GCN's efficiency or overclocking. Pascal has barely any more efficiency and practically can't overclock at all when using the same cheap 14nm.

I'm a big AMD fan but Nvidia can clock higher within the same power envelope. AMD makes pretty good use of what they have with gcn 1.x and the lower clocks. Seems like the software engineer (driver) side is where they are lacking. It's almost impossible to compare since they are so different architect wise. And I'm not sure where you get NV can't overclock? In this instance OC's are tied to the PCIE bus which only allows a max of 75 watts. They have no external power.

The higher clocks was more of a result of the silicon that they are built on. I generally don't like reading these mainstream sites, but the silicon provided by TSMC for Nvidia is better then GloFlo's or Samsung that AMD has been using. I really hope GloFlo doesn't mess this up for Zen, we need the competition.

 

[Nima V]

Why you believe 2GB (RX 460) cards are not a great deal slower despite your own benchmark shows 2GB Vram on GTX 1050 is severely damaging performance in several games?

 

[OcelotRex]

if you mean the chart on page 9... you do realize the big winner was the RX 470, right? Better price-per-frame than the GTX 1050, much better price-per-frame than the 1050Ti (in fact, the spread between the RX 470 & the 1050Ti is the same as the spread between the 1050Ti & the RX 460).

The 1050 Ti is priced the same as the 460 was. Stepping up to the 470 represents a 30% price increase for 11% better "price-per-frame" using the 2 month old MSRP, not the recently discounted price. Since the 460/470 are so young I'd prefer to compare their launch prices (which consequently would put the 470 at $2.32 on the graph on page 9).

 

[Evernessince]

Awesome, a bit faster than the 460 makes this a pretty good buy. For a little bit more I think you get a bit more than you paid for with the 1050.

Wow, the 1050 puts the smack down on AMD again. This is getting old. No wonder they lowered their prices recently.

a 10% difference isn't exactly what you would call smacking down, but it does indeed give a few more fps.

in general it should make no difference since people generally lower the settings to get 60 fps or more. a few tests here to see what settings it takes to get to 60 fps in the more graphically intense games would have been nice.

It's not only 10% more performance it's also at the same price with better efficiency. That's a solid win.

Actually AMD lowered their prices just the other day so it's exactly more expensive. You're talking about 10w on the efficiency side, which isn't much of a point.

 

[OcelotRex]

Actually AMD lowered their prices just the other day so it's exactly more expensive. You're talking about 10w on the efficiency side, which isn't much of a point.

The point is that a product that was launched less than 3 months ago is already being discounted due to its lower performance against competition. Unless I am reading the charts wrong the 1050 outperforms the 460 4GB for $109 launch price versus a $139 launch price. Even the $10 difference ($129) doesn't mean much. Combine that with better thermals and power consumption I still think that's an overall win.

 

[fps4ever]

Honestly the waters are so muddy now between the $100-$200 price range with these fluctuating prices. That and the more 1050/Ti reviews I read the more inconsistent performance is with both camps. Performance highly depends coded for DX11 or DX12 or game engine and or all of the above. That doesn't make it any easier.