MSI GTX 1050 Ti & 1050 Review – Benchmarks vs. RX 460, 470, More P2: GPU Test Methodology P3: GTX 1050 & 1050 Ti Temperatures & Power P4: Battlefield 1, DOOM, & Gears of War 4 P5: Overwatch, DOTA2, GTA V, More P6: Overclocking the GTX 1050 Ti P7: GTX 1050 vs. 1050 Ti Conclusion

MSI GTX 1050 OC & GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X Review [Video]

Continue on for the full review article, as always. The video is above.

GTX 1050 Ti vs. GTX 1050 Specs, & 1060, 1070, & 1080

NVIDIA Pascal Specs Comparison GTX 1050 GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1060 3GB GTX 1060 6GB GTX 1070 GTX 1080 GPU GP107-300 GP107-400 GP106 Pascal GP106 Pascal GP104-200 Pascal GP104-400 Pascal Transistor Count 3.3B 3.3B 4.4B 4.4B 7.2B 7.2B Fab Process 14nm 14nm 16nm FinFET 16nm FinFET 16nm FinFET 16nm FinFET CUDA Cores 640 768 1152 1280 1920 2560 GPCs 2 2 2 2 3 4 SMs 5 6 9 10 15 20 TPCs 5 6 9 10 15 20 TMUs 40 48 72 80 120 160 ROPs 32 32 48 (?) 48 64 64 Core Clock 1354MHz 1290MHz 1506MHz 1506MHz 1506MHz 1607MHz Boost Clock 1455MHz 1392MHz 1708MHz 1708MHz 1683MHz 1733MHz FP32 TFLOPs 1.86TFLOPs 2.14TFLOPs 3.85TFLOPs 4.4FLOPs 6.5TFLOPs 9TFLOPs Memory Type GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5X Memory Capacity 2GB 4GB 3GB 6GB 8GB 8GB Memory Clock 7Gbps 7Gbps 8Gbps 8Gbps 8Gbps 10Gbps GDDR5X Memory Interface 128-bit 128-bit 192-bit 192-bit 256-bit 256-bit Memory Bandwidth 112GB/s 112GB/s 192GB/s 192GB/s 256GB/s 320.32GB/s TDP 75W 75W 120W 120W 150W 180W Power Connectors None None 1x 6-pin 1x 6-pin 1x 8-pin 1x 8-pin Release Date November, 2016 10/25/2016 August, 2016 7/19/2016 6/10/2016 5/27/2016 Release Price $110 $140 MSRP: $200 Reference: $300

MSRP: $250 Reference: $450

MSRP: $380 Reference: $700

MSRP: $600

GTX 1050 & GTX 1050 Ti GP107-400 & GP107-300 Architecture

The GTX 1050 Ti we're working with is an MSI 1050 Ti Gaming X, with a price-point a bit higher than the $140 MSRP of the GTX 1050 Ti. The Gaming X should land at $165 – or about where the RX 470 is supposed to be – and the GTX 1050 base model we're using is priced at $110. The GTX 1050 Ti begins availability today, October 25, and the GTX 1050 non-Ti will become available “on or before November 8.” MSRP is $110 for the GTX 1050, $140 for the GTX 1050 Ti, and AIB partners will offer cards priced above MSRP to fill various markets.

Recapping the architecture before getting further, the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti cards are both operating on a small, 132mm^2 die size. This is among the smallest of the current-gen GPUs we've looked at to-date. Thermal dissipation potential across such a small surface is reduced, but the GPU is also a low-power chip and requires only 75W of cooling power. Most GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti units will draw their power through the PCI-e bus, with a few overclocking models (like the Gaming X that we received) working with an additional 6-pin input for more juice availability.

The GP107 GPU comes in two flavors, just like the GP104 GPU used in the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. GP107-400 is the GTX 1050 Ti's GPU, while GP107-300 is the GTX 1050's GPU. The two GPUs are separated by 1SM (6 simultaneous multiprocessors on the GTX 1050 Ti, 5 on the GTX 1050), naturally indicating a difference of 128 CUDA cores and 8 TMUs. The graphics card SKUs are further differentiated by VRAM capacity, with the GTX 1050 at 2GB (and only 2GB), and the GTX 1050 Ti at 4GB (and only 4GB).

Pascal's architecture remains the same on GP107 as it did with GP106, GP104, and GP102, though is different from the GP100 Pascal unit that uses different SM layout and has greater focus on FP16 & FP64 CUDA cores. One noteworthy point is that nVidia is building the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti cards on 14nm fabrication process rather than the 16nm TSMC process most heavily distributed in the higher-end devices, though this is less significant than it sounds. NVidia switches supply based on availability to ensure the chain can keep up with demand. This is also why some GTX 1070s shipped with Samsung memory initially, but made a switch-over to Micron memory.

GP107 is a small chip. It's running two GPCs, just like the GTX 1060. The memory subsystem is built on a 128-bit wide bus and uses memory with speeds minimally at 7Gbps. This is true for both the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, each of which has a base memory bandwidth of 112GB/s.

Clock-rates are advertised as overclocking upwards of 1900MHz, something we'll test later, with the boosted core clock-rate at 1354MHz for the GTX 1050 and 1392MHz for the GTX 1050 Ti. GP107 uses the same clock-gating, heuristics, and memory compression techniques for per-bit power savings as the rest of Pascal. We more heavily defined Pascal architecture in our GTX 1080 (here) and GTX 1070 reviews, if interested to learn more.

Continue to Page 2 for testing methodology.