Introduction

GeForce GTX 950 Market Segment Analysis GeForce

GTX 750 Ti Radeon

R7 370 Radeon

R9 270X GeForce

GTX 950 ASUS

GTX 950 GeForce

GTX 760 GeForce

GTX 960 Radeon

R9 285 Radeon

R9 380 Radeon

R9 280X Shader Units 640 1024 1280 768 768 1152 1024 1792 1792 2048 ROPs 16 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 Graphics Processor GM107 Pitcairn Pitcairn GM206 GM206 GK104 GM206 Tonga Tonga Tahiti Transistors 1870M 2800M 2800M 2940M 2940M 3500M 2940M unknown unknown 4310M Memory Size 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB Memory Bus Width 128 bit 256 bit 256 bit 128 bit 128 bit 256 bit 128 bit 256 bit 256 bit 384 bit Core Clock 1020 MHz+ 975 MHz 1050 MHz 1024 MHz+ 1024 MHz+ 980 MHz+ 1127 MHz+ 918 MHz 970 MHz 1000 MHz Memory Clock 1350 MHz 1400 MHz 1400 MHz 1653 MHz 1653 MHz 1502 MHz 1753 MHz 1375 MHz 1375 MHz 1500 MHz Price $105 $135 $180 $140 $155 $150 $180 $180 $170 $190

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 950 was released in August last year. It is built on the 28 nm GM206 silicon on which the GTX 960 is based. This is a tiny chip, and compared to the R7 370, it has a narrower 128-bit memory bus for just four memory chips on the card. NVIDIA makes up for some of the deficit with lossless texture compression tech, which improves effective bandwidth by around 20%. The sheer pixel-crunching muscle of the Maxwell architecture takes care of the rest, which creates a lot of room for future cost-cutting measures.Today, we are reviewing the ASUS GeForce GTX 950 "unplugged", the first GTX 950 that does not require an additional PCI-Express power connector. This promises to make the card a great choice for lower-end systems that are being upgraded if you don't want to upgrade the power supply as well. I could also see this card do well in a media PC because of its low power consumption (if you have enough space for it).ASUS achieved this design feat by lowering the NVIDIA power limit of the card to 75 watts, while keeping GPU and memory default clocks at reference design levels. So, what's gonna happen is that NVIDIA Boost clocks will be limited by power draw, which will result in less performance to satisfy those power consumption constraints. How low? That's what we're here to find out.Price-wise, the card comes at a slight price increase, which is probably a small premium for its ability to operate without a power connector. The cheapest GTX 950 I could find on Newegg costs $140, and ASUS is asking $155 for their white GTX 950.