Introduction

GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Market Segment Analysis GeForce

GTX 950 Radeon

RX 460 GeForce

GTX 1050 GeForce

GTX 960 Radeon

R9 380 GeForce

GTX 1050 Ti MSI GTX 1050

Ti Gaming X Radeon

RX 470 Radeon

R9 390 GeForce

GTX 970 Radeon

RX 480 GeForce GTX

1060 3 GB Shader Units 768 896 640 1024 1792 768 768 2048 2560 1664 2304 1152 ROPs 32 16 32 32 32 32 32 32 64 56 32 48 Graphics Processor GM206 Baffin GP107 GM206 Tonga GP107 GP107 Ellesmere Hawaii GM204 Ellesmere GP106 Transistors 2940M 3000M 3300M 2940M unknown 3300M 3300M 5700M 6200M 5200M 5700M 4400M Memory Size 2 GB 4 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 8 GB 4 GB 8 GB 3 GB Memory Type GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 Memory Bus Width 128 bit 128 bit 128 bit 128 bit 256 bit 128 bit 128 bit 256 bit 512 bit 256 bit 256 bit 192 bit Core Clock 1024 MHz+ 1200 MHz 1354 MHz+ 1127 MHz+ 970 MHz 1290 MHz+ 1354 MHz+ 1206 MHz 1000 MHz 1051 MHz+ 1266 MHz 1506 MHz+ Memory Clock 1653 MHz 1750 MHz 1752 MHz 1753 MHz 1375 MHz 1752 MHz 1752 MHz 1650 MHz 1500 MHz 1750 MHz 2000 MHz 2002 MHz Price $120 $120 $110 $175 $175 $140 $165 $170 $290 $235 $250 $210

The sub-$200 market-segment has been NVIDIA's problem area in terms of price-performance competitiveness with AMD, even though the company has had higher volumes. AMD's recent architecture launches focused heavily on this general market-segment with $250, $210, $180, and $110 products. AMD has a smaller war chest than NVIDIA and is hence focusing on the biggest segment within PC gaming - competitive e-Sports. Most games released for the competitive gaming crowd run great on sub-$300 graphics cards, and it's only blockbuster AAA titles with cutting-edge production designs that prompt people to invest in faster graphics solutions, where NVIDIA has established an unbeatable lead.NVIDIA is getting hawkish and wants itself a bigger slice of the sub-$200 market-segment targeting e-Sports players. The company launched the $139.99 GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and $109.99 GTX 1050 earlier this month with market availability and performance reviews set for today. The two SKUs are based on NVIDIA's smallest implementation of its "Pascal" GPU architecture, the GP107 silicon. This tiny chip packs up to 768 CUDA cores, 48 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory on the GTX 1050 Ti.These are still "Pascal" CUDA cores that tick at 1.35-1.45 GHz. NVIDIA's decision to go with a 128-bit wide memory bus shows that the GTX 1050 Ti has been built to a cost (with no more than four memory chips), which prepares NVIDIA for a price war with better-endowed (costlier to make) AMD offerings. NVIDIA managed to get the power consumption of the GTX 1050 Ti below the 75W mark, which makes it capable of sustaining itself on slot power alone. Its nearest rival from AMD, the Radeon RX 470 4GB, needs an additional 6-pin PCIe power connector to feed its 120W TDP setup.In this review, we are testing the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X, a premium custom-design graphics card by MSI that combines a factory-overclocked GTX 1050 Ti implementation with the company's signature Twin Frozr cooling solution, which turns its fans off when the GPU is idling, and a custom-design PCB that features an additional 6-pin PCIe power connector to help bolster the card's overclocking headroom.