NVIDIA launches GeForce GTX 950 card for MOBA gamers

NVIDIA has announced the GeForce GTX 950 graphics card aimed at players of popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like Dota 2, League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm.

With the recent Dota 2 competition The International 5 boasting a US$18 million prize pool and over 20 million viewers, NVIDIA has rightly singled out MOBA games as a key driver of growth in the global PC gaming market. The GeForce GTX 950 has thus been designed to deliver performance in this highly competitive genre, where every millisecond literally counts.

The new card will feature a cutdown version of the GM206 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 960. Here’s a look at the specifications of both cards for easier comparison (NVIDIA doesn’t appear to be releasing a reference board, so we’ve used an ASUS card as a representative sample):

GeForce GTX 950 and GeForce GTX 960 compared ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 950 DirectCU II NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Launch SRP From S$319 — Core Code GM206 GM206 GPU Transistor Count 2.94 billion 2.94 billion Manufacturing Process 28nm 28nm Core Clock OC mode: 1165MHz (Boost: 1355MHz)

Gaming mode: 1140MHz (Boost: 1329MHz) 1126MHz (Boost: 1178MHz) Stream Processors 768 1024 Stream Processor Clock 1024MHz 1126MHz Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 48 64 Raster Operator units (ROP) 32 32 Memory Clock (DDR) 6612MHz 7010MHz Memory Bus width 128-bit 128-bit Memory Bandwidth 105.8 GB/s 112.16 GB/s PCI Express Interface PCI Express 3.0 PCI Express 3.0 Power Connectors 1 x 6-pin 1 x 6-pin Multi GPU Technology SLI SLI DVI Outputs 2 1 HDMI Outputs 1 1 DisplayPort Outputs 1 3 HDCP Output Support Yes Yes

According to NVIDIA, the new graphics card will deliver superior visual quality, high frame rates and reduced latency, crucial areas for performance in MOBA games.

In fact, we find NVIDIA’s emphasis on latency particularly promising. When you’re playing online against other players, performance is predicated on more than just high frame rates and smooth gameplay. It claims to have reduced input lag from 80ms on the GeForce GTX 650 to just 45ms on the GeForce GTX 950, when measuring the time taken for a mouse click to translate into an action on screen.

Part of the reductions in input latency is brought about by reducing the number of pre-rendered frames, but NVIDIA has also tweaked other settings to further bring latencies down. What’s more, it’s made it easy to apply these settings via GeForce Experience, which can now automatically optimize settings for specific games with a single click. This is different from the existing optimization feature, which doesn’t tweak settings like pre-rendered frames or the refresh rate.

For instance, optimizing Dota 2 for low latency will now turn MFAA off, enable VSync, and set the refresh rate to 100Hz (you still need a compatible monitor). But if you’d rather have better graphics, you’ll also have the option to optimize the settings for the best possible visual quality.

As of now, GeForce Experience only supports optimization for Dota 2, League of Legends, and Heroes of the Storm on the GeForce GTX 950, but it plans to add support for more games and cards soon.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 will retail for US$159, with immediate availability from add-in card partners.