Gtx 950 oc review: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 OC 2 GB Review

Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 review

On paper, the GTX 950 doesn’t look like a hugely enticing proposition — it’s a cut-down version of an existing product and it’s clearly aimed at the more value-conscious gamer, with performance to match. Indeed, it seems to exist mostly to nullify a tiny niche occupied by AMD’s new R7 370. And yet, we rather like assessing the budget cards like this. Reviewing the latest and greatest is all about seeing how fast they are, but at the lower end of the spectrum, it’s all about experimenting, tweaking settings, seeing just how much you can get away with in pursuit of great visuals and decent performance. In this respect, the GTX 950 doesn’t disappoint.

That said, the cutbacks do look significant. Nvidia’s existing GTX 960 was a good product, but not a great one — the GTX 950 uses the same GM206 processor, with a 25 per cent reduction in CUDA core count, dropping down from the maximum 1024 shaders to just 768. Mitigating matters are tweaks to the core and boost clocks, meaning higher frequencies are in play. On top of that, while there is a reference spec, most of the GTX 950s on the market receive custom designs and factory overclocks.

To get an idea of how this plays out in the real world, we acquired three MSI Gaming cards — the GTX 950, the GTX 960 and the Radeon R7 370 — each with their own factory overclocks in play. We also brought in two additional budget cards from the lower price-tier, both of those running at reference speeds: the Radeon R7 360 and the classic GTX 750 Ti. As things stand, the new GTX 950 replaces the 750 Ti (though it does see a price bump) while the older card drops below £100 to take on the R7 360 — something it does pretty well.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 specs

A cut-down version of the GM206 chip found in the GTX 960 powers Nvidia’s latest graphics card. CUDA core count is significantly reduced, though clocks are more aggressive. All of GM206’s media features — such as hardware accelerated h.264 and next-gen HEVC encode/decode are included in the card, and there’s HDMI 2. 0/HDCP 2.2 support too. The MSI model we’re reviewing has a significant factory overclock, but it’ll be hard to find any GTX 950 that can’t be clocked to match, even with less capable cooling — GM206 is fast and cool and even reference-level examples should boost to 1500MHz.

CUDA Cores: 768
Texture Units: 48
ROPs: 32
Base Clock: 1024MHz (1127MHz MSI Factory OC)
Boost Clock: 1188MHz (1317MHz MSI Factory OC)
Memory Clock: 3300MHz (6.6gbps effective)
L2 Cache: 1024K
Video RAM: 2GB GDDR5
Memory Interface: 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth: 105.6GB/s
Texture Rate (bilinear): 49.2 GigaTexels/sec
Fabrication Process: 28nm
Transister Count: 2.94 billion
Power Connectors: 1x 6-pin
TDP: 90W
Thermal Threshold: 95 degrees Celsius

Suggested retail price for the GTX 950 is £129/$159. In a world where the GTX 960 costs just £20 more, that’s a little high in our opinion, but fingers crossed that prices will drop a little in the short to medium term.

While the GTX 950 may lose some of the power of its more expensive stablemate, its feature-set remains intact. GM206 is potentially a superb GPU for a media centre, featuring full h.264 and HEVC encode/decode and support for HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 on its HDMI port. It also retains a wealth of outputs — there are three DisplayPorts on the MSI model and DVI too. The GTX 960’s power efficiency sees TDP drop to just 90W, with extra juice supplied via a single six-pin power input on the top of the card. GM206’s overclocking prowess is undiminished too — this accounts for the highly generous factory overclock MSI has added here, and just like the GTX 960, we could improve performance still further with further tweaking, hitting 1500MHz on the boost clock with ease, the GPU remaining cool at just 62 degrees Celsius on an open test bed. Bearing in mind the card’s 95 degree thermal limit, cards with less capable coolers installed in tight cases should still be able to achieve very close to that level of peak performance.

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Buy the GeForce GTX 950 from Amazon with free shipping.

So what can the GTX 950 achieve in a real-world gaming scenario? Crysis 3 remains a solid workout for any GPU, a known quantity, and a game where its more expensive sibling performed rather well at 1080p on high settings in the intensive Welcome to the Jungle stage. We ran through the same gameplay on the GTX 950/960 and the Radeon R7 370, and our objective here is to match resolution and refresh rate with the most popular gaming displays on the market today — and according to the Steam hardware survey, that’s the standard 1080p at 60Hz.

Not surprisingly, it’s the most expensive card in the test line-up that gets closest to a locked 60fps: the GTX 960 offers the kind of ‘perceptual’ 60fps you see in many console games — it’s not a complete lock, but the dropped frames are rarely intrusive enough to impact on the experience. Following up fairly closely we have the GTX 950 — there are sustained areas of gameplay where the drops are noticeable enough to impact on fluidity, but equally, the majority of the run through the stage does occur at 60fps.

Meanwhile, the R7 370 offers a noticeably lower performance level, to the point where the majority of the run occurs at a sub-60fps frame-rate. If Nvidia set out with the objective of beating the Radeon card, it has succeeded — but we feel that the factory overclock emphasises the differential. MSI has added 103MHz to the base clock here (and a similar amount to its GTX 960 too), and just 55MHz to the Radeon — but then again, this does emphasis that the Maxwell architecture clocks much higher than the vintage 2012 Pitcairn design found in the R7 370 — which is essentially a more highly clocked Radeon HD 7850.

In our Crysis 3 gameplay tests, the idea isn’t to run at the absolute fastest frame-rates possible, but rather to synchronise as closely as possible with the display in terms of resolution and refresh — in this case, we’re testing at 1080p resolution, the aim being to hit 60fps. We’re using game’s high preset, with very high textures, SMAA T2x anti-aliasing and v-sync.

Crysis 3 V-Sync Gameplay	R7 370	GTX 950	GTX 960
Lowest Frame-Rate	33.0fps	35.0fps	40.0fps
Dropped Frames (from 18650 total)	3456 (18.5%)	1431 (7.7%)	452 (2.4%)

Order the graphics cards tested against the GTX 950 from Amazon, with free shipping:

Radeon R7 360 2GB
Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Radeon R7 370 2GB
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB

So what can this tier of hardware achieve in our benchmark suite? Both the R7 370 and the GTX 950 straddle two price tiers — entry-level enthusiast and 1080p sweet spot — making the choice of benchmarks to embark upon worthy of some consideration. We opted to go with our budget suite, typically either high settings (one notch down from the max) or where we had them to hand, console-equivalent settings. Our thinking here is pretty straightforward — the £150 level graphics cards can make a fairly good fist of ultra settings at 1080p, but anything beneath that really requires the introduction of realism into quality level choices. And that’s not a bad thing actually, the reduction is noticeable in some places (Crysis 3, especially) but not much in others (Call of Duty/Battlefield 4) but regardless, the increase in performance more than makes up for it.

Initial results are impressive. The GTX 950 replaces the older 750 Ti in the same approximate price bracket, bringing with it a mammoth 44 per cent performance uplift. Doubtless a good degree of this comes from the factory overclock (and remember, the 750 Ti itself has a large amount of OC headroom — even our reference card barely breaks a sweat with a 200MHz core boost), but regardless, even if you factor out the in-built overclock, that’s still a sizeable increase in performance per pound bearing in mind that the 750 Ti is just 18 months old.

Comparisons with the R7 370 see anything from level pegging on Shadow of Mordor to a huge 20 per cent boost on Crysis 3. The R7 370 holds its own in Call of Duty (we seem to be butting into CPU limits here as the game is running so fast on console equivalent settings) and Ryse, but generally speaking, on aggregate, we see a 10 per cent boost to performance across all nine games. At reference clocks we would assume that this may diminish somewhat. Meanwhile, the GTX 960 seems to be around 15 per cent faster than Nvidia’s new card in titles where we are not CPU-bound.

Performance on the GTX 950 compared with the card it was designed to out-perform — the R7 370, along with the next step-up in the GeForce stable, the GTX 960. We’ve also included overclocking performance.

1920×1080 (Avg FPS)	R7 360	GTX 750 Ti	R7 370	GTX 950	GTX 950 OC	GTX 960
The Witcher 3, Console Settings, HairWorks Off, Custom AA	30. 5	31.7	38.4	45.1	48.9	52.1
Assassin’s Creed Unity, High, FXAA	26.1	26.1	34.1	38.9	42.6	41.8
Battlefield 4, High, Post-AA	41.2	46.0	57.7	67.0	73.5	77.6
Crysis 3, High, SMAA	36.9	45.0	54.0	65.2	71.2	74.0
COD Advanced Warfare, Console Settings, FXAA	70.7	69.0	92.3	96.0	102.9	99.9
Grand Theft Auto 5, Console Settings, FXAA	38.7	43.9	54.8	62.3	68.1	72.2
Far Cry 4, High, SMAA	41.7	40.0	54.6	58.1	63.0	67.5
Shadow of Mordor, High, FXAA	44.7	43.2	61.7	61.3	66.7	69. 9
Ryse: Son of Rome, Normal, SMAA	30.5	29.7	44.8	45.3	49.4	52.8

Analysis: Radeon R7 360 and R7 370

AMD has taken plenty of criticism for its 300 series GPUs — all of which are derived from existing 200 series parts, with the Radeon R7 370 actually hailing from 2012 (it’s basically an overclocked Radeon HD 7850). In our view, performance takes priority over the age of the silicon and much of the 300 series line-up has plenty to be positive about. The Radeon R9 390 is faster than both R9 290X and GTX 970 — and it has 8GB of RAM, while the R9 380 finally offers the 4GB of GDDR5 its predecessor (the R9 285) really needed.

However, the two lower-end parts in the Radeon line-up — benchmarked in this piece — do deserve criticism. AMD told us that the R7 360 (the model we tested is the XFX version, above) was faster than the outgoing 260X, despite losing two of its 14 compute units. In our tests, the older card remains marginally faster, despite the data coming from older drivers. From a purely academic perspective, the R7 360 does have some interest though — with its 12 CUs, it is now effectively an overclocked version of the Xbox One GPU core.

Meanwhile, the R7 370 (pictured above) with its 16 compute units is significantly slower than the outgoing R9 270X and indeed the R9 270, both of which featuring 20 CUs. We overclocked last year’s Radeon R7 265 to the same speed as our MSI R7 370 and found performance to be entirely like-for-like — not surprising as it to has the same 16 CUs. The irony here is that if the R7 370 was an upclocked 270 rather than a 265, the GTX 950 would most likely lose its performance leadership in this segment.

All hardware vendors rebrand their products and we have no problem with that, and as we say, much of the 300 series line-up offers tangible benefits over their 200 series brethren, but in the case of the R7 360 and R7 360, replacing good parts with less capable ones comes across as a bad idea — especially bearing in mind that the value market is AMD’s traditional heartland.

Now, the problem with benchmarking cards aimed at the budget market is that virtually all tests are carried out using a Core i7 processor — and that makes sense as you are eliminating CPU as a bottleneck and highlighting hardware performance. On top of that, there’s usually little difference between i5 and i7 results anyway when you are more frequently limited by GPU performance. However, on a card aimed at the budget segment, we are far more likely to see the GPU paired with a less capable processor — meaning that driver overhead becomes much more important.

Historically, AMD has had issues here. Watch the video above, and we’ll see more stutter on several titles on AMD than we do on Nvidia (The Witcher 3 a particular case in point). So what happens when we re-bench the R7 370 and the GTX 950 on a Core i3? Stutter increases on AMD, but Nvidia is clearly impacted too. It’s not entirely uniform across every game though — Crysis 3 hammers CPU, yet the R7 370 holds onto its performance just as well as the GTX 950. Also note the frame-time dips seen in Assassin’s Creed Unity whether you are running on an i3 or an i7 — this isn’t down to driver overhead, but rather the 2GB VRAM limit on both cards. But again note that the latency spikes are more pronounced on the AMD side.

Visualising this kind of information in a bar chart or a table isn’t easy — it’s something we’re working on behind the scenes, but we can tell you the lowest and average frame-rates on both Core i3 and i7 with both cards. Lowest frame-rate is almost as blunt a metric as the average, but it does demonstrate that Nvidia is ahead and holds more of its performance — but again, the videos and the frame-time graphs are much more illuminating in terms of the actual experience. Our takeaway here is that AMD’s driver overhead is still higher than Nvidia’s, but it looks like improvements made on the 300 series launch driver do produce more stability when slower cards are paired with the Core i3.

Cards like the GTX 950 and R7 370 are offered at a price point that could see them paired with less capable processors. Here we compare top-end performance on an i7 with the more realistic results you’d get from a dual-core chip — in this case, the Core i3 4130.

1920×1080 (Low/Avg FPS)	R7 370 i3 4130	R7 370 i7 4790K	GTX 950 i3 4130	GTX 950 i7 4790K
The Witcher 3, Console Settings, HairWorks Off, Custom AA	17.0/37.8	26.0/38.4	25.0/44.6	35.0/45.1
Assassin’s Creed Unity, High, FXAA	27.0/34.2	28.0/34.1	33.0/38.7	33.0/38.9
Battlefield 4, High, Post-AA	50.0/57.5	50.0/57.7	55.0/65.8	57.0/67.0
Crysis 3, High, SMAA	30.0/53.0	39.0/54.0	32.0/62.2	44.0/65.2
COD Advanced Warfare, Console Settings, FXAA	55.0/81.3	75.0/92.3	58.0/91.7	70.0/96.0
Grand Theft Auto 5, Console Settings, FXAA	30. 0/50.0	42.0/54.8	38.0/58.7	46.0/62.3
Far Cry 4, High, SMAA	29.0/52.1	31.0/54.6	39.0/56.2	53.0/58.1
Shadow of Mordor, High, FXAA	47.0/62.1	47.0/61.7	47.0/61.2	47.0/61.3
Ryse: Son of Rome, Normal, SMAA	26.0/42.5	32.0/44.8	36.0/44.4	37.0/45.3

Finally, let’s talk power consumption, acoustics and overclocking. In this respect, Nvidia’s Maxwell technology is lauded for its efficiency but at load, the GTX 950 drains only 10-12W less power than the R7 370. We should remember though that in addition to consuming less power, we are getting higher performance. It’s certainly a big step-up over the frugal GTX 750 Ti, but it may well be the case that the factory overclocks on the more capable cards are biting into their efficiency.

The GTX 950 is certainly cool though — and that translates into an exceptionally quiet level of performance on the MSI Twin Frozr cooler. But again, it would be remiss of us not to point out that the GTX 960 and the R7 370 — both using the same heat sink and fan set-up — provide very, very similar levels of acoustic performance.

In terms of overclocking, MSI add 103MHz to the GTX 950’s core out of the box, and we could squeeze an additional 120MHz out of the card in combination with 400MHz (800MHz effective) to the GDDR5 RAM, taking that up to 7.5gbps. This produced an uplift of around 9 per cent — not enough to match MSI’s GTX 960 overall, but probably enough to match a less aggressively clocked example. However, you will note from the top table that our GTX 950 overclock did manage to match the GTX 960 in Assassin’s Creed Unity and Advanced Warfare — not bad, considering that our GTX 960 is the faster-than-stock MSI Gaming model.

This scene from the tail-end of Welcome to the Jungle in Crysis 3 ramps up GPU load and power consumption higher than anything we have seen in any other game. It’s a good repeatable test for ascertaining peak power draw in gaming conditions along with overclock stability.

	R7 360	R7 370	GTX 750 Ti	GTX 950	GTX 950 OC	GTX 960
Peak System Power Draw	173W	228W	158W	215W	221W	228W

Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 — the Digital Foundry verdict

Overall, Nvidia has set out to achieve what it wanted — it has a competitive product to the R7 370, offering improved performance and all the advantages of the GeForce drivers and chipset, plus a much more modern multimedia feature-set — good for those looking to build an HTPC with decent gaming performance. In a world where the cheaper GTX 750 Ti has an uncanny ability to mimic PlayStation 4 GPU performance in multi-platform games, the noticeably higher frame-rates you’re getting from both AMD and Nvidia products at this price-point represent good value. It’s just a bit of a shame that 4GB is off the table with the GTX 950 — Amazon will sell you a 4GB version of the R7 370 for just £12 more than a base price 2GB GTX 950.

The price also feels a little high compared to other GeForce products too: the GTX 960 has gravitated downwards to the £150 price-point and the new GTX 950 launches at £129 upwards. Bearing in mind that the more expensive card is also a great overclocker, it makes sense to spend a little more — or else wait for GTX 950s to naturally gravitate downwards to the £120 mark we suspect it’ll end up at. With more aggressive pricing, the GTX 950 would be hard not to recommend, but at £129, the R7 370 is cheaper, while other compelling options aren’t that much more expensive.

Overall then, the GTX 950 is a strong enough contender, capable of handing in solid performance on any game you care to throw at it as long as you’re prepared to make entirely reasonable compromises on quality settings. Think of it as the modern day equivalent to the stalwart GTX 660, but with all the advantages of the second-gen Nvidia Maxwell architecture. It’s a solid, if unspectacular buy — just don’t be afraid to overclock to get the absolute best out of it.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 review: Bringing more oomph to budget gaming PCs

Updated

Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 950 delivers a better-than-consoles gaming experience for just $150.

By Brad Chacos

PCWorld Aug 20, 2015 6:00 am PDT

When Nvidia launched the $150 GeForce GTX 750 Ti way back in the beginning of 2014, it served as the grand unveiling for the company’s new, supremely energy-efficient Maxwell graphics processor architecture. The insanely tiny card delivered a huge gaming boost over integrated graphics, and since it sipped a mere 60 watts of power, you didn’t even need to connect the card to your power supply—it could run off the juice from your motherboard’s PCI-E slot alone.

The radically small, radically power-efficient GTX 750 Ti, released in February 2014.

That radically changed the potential audience for the entry-level graphics market; you could even slap the GTX 750 Ti in a prebuilt PC (from Dell, HP, etc. ) that had no free power supply connections. Maxwell was off to a roaring start.

Flash forward a year and a half: The GTX 750 Ti’s form factor is just as enabling as ever, but when it comes to sheer performance, AMD’s Radeon R9 270X kicks it in the teeth—so much so that we’ve long recommended the 270X over the 750 Ti unless space constraints dictate otherwise. And the older GTX 650—one of the most popular graphics cards among Steam users—is starting to get long in the tooth.

In the wake of the newly-released $150 AMD Radeon R7 370 (essentially a slightly tweaked, slightly faster version of the older R9 270, which is also still available) Nvidia had to do something to even the score in the crucial, high-volume sub-$200 graphics card market.

Meet that something: The $160 Nvidia GeForce GTX 950. This new addition brings some much-needed additional firepower to the sub-$200 GeForce lineup, complementing—but not replacing—the GTX 750 Ti, which will still be sticking around.

Will the GTX 950 appeal to people looking to game respectably at 1080p resolution without breaking the bank? Let’s dig in.

Inside the Nvidia GeForce GTX 950

The first thing you’ll notice upon peering at the GTX 950 is that it positively dwarfs the GTX 750 Ti. This is a full-size, dual-slot graphics card that requires supplemental power via a 6-pin power connector, unlike its predecessor (though some partner models will feature shortened board lengths).

That’s because the GeForce GTX 950’s beating heart is a cut-down version of the 28nm GM206 GPU found in Nvidia’s $200 GTX 960. Whereas the GTX 960 has 1024 CUDA cores, 8 streaming multiprocessors, and 64 texture units, the lower-cost GTX 950 packs 768 CUDA cores, 6 streaming multiprocessors, and 48 texture units—about a third reduction overall. Clock speeds have also been drastically reduced in the GTX 950, down to 1024MHz base/1188MHz boost.

For memory, you’ll find 2GB of GDDR5, clocked at a 6600MHz effective rate and chatting with the GPU over a 128-bit bus. That sounds paltry, but don’t sweat it; it’s more than enough for playing games at 1080p with normal- to ultra-level graphics detail settings, which this card aims for.

The card supports DirectX 12’s 12.1 feature level, and Nvidia’s also spent time optimizing the GTX 950 specifically for competitive MOBA games like Dota 2 or League of Legends, reducing the number of frames it buffers in the rendering pipeline to improve latency. Using the auto-optimize options in Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software will enable that and other latency-improving tricks (like running in borderless mode rather than fullscreen) with your having to manually tinker with various settings. Those optimizations will initially only be available to GTX 950 users, but Nvidia says to look for them to expand to other GeForce graphics cards in the future.

Speaking of GeForce Experience, Nvidia’s slick software is receiving an overhaul of its own in September, via a new beta version that adds a new in-game overlay menu that features direct-to-YouTube video sharing, and—more interestingly—GameStream Co-op, which lets you beam your games over the Internet so your pals can play along with you in the Chrome browser. Read all about it here.

Wrapping things up, the GeForce GTX 950 rocks a trio of DisplayPort 1.2 connections, a single HDMI 2.0 port, and a single DVI-I hook-up. Nvidia recommends using a 350-watt or higher power supply with the card, which rocks a TDP of a mere 90W. That’s 30W more than the GTX 750 Ti, but 30W less than the GTX 960’s 120W TDP.

EVGA’s GeForce GTX 950 SSC

The GTX 950’s release is a hard launch, meaning that Nvidia’s various board partners will have cards available immediately. Our review board is EVGA’s customized, GeForce GTX 950 SSC ($170 on Amazon), the second most powerful graphics card in EVGA’s GTX 950 blitz, which consists of four separate models.

This “Super Superclocked” card packs a hefty overclock out of the box, jacking the GPU’s base clock speed to 1190MHz—faster than the stock 950’s boost speed—and the boost clock speed all the way to 1393MHz. The memory clock speed remains untouched, though you can use EVGA’s superb PrecisionX overclocking software to give the card’s GPU and memory even more pep in their steps. (PCWorld’s guide to graphics card overclocking can help.) There is a tradeoff for those high out-of-the-box overclock speeds, however: The EVGA GTX 950 SSC requires an 8-pin power connection, rather than the stock GTX 950’s 6-pin connector.

The GTX 950 SSC boasts EVGA’s ACX 2.0 cooling system, which we’ve seen used to great effect before with the GTX 960 and various other GPUs. The dual fans on the card don’t even activate when GPU temps are hovering under 60C. Rather than diving into nitty-gritty details about ACX 2.0’s triple 8mm straight heat pipes and double ball bearings again, here’s a high-level look at the system.

Finally, the EVGA GeForce GTX 950 also offers a dual-BIOS selector: With the flip of a switch, you can change between two profiles with different fans curves. One pushes fan RPMs as low as they can go when the card is idle, to reduce noise levels, while the “SSC Performance BIOS” keeps the pedal to the metal.

Whew! Now that all that’s done, let’s dig into the fun stuff—gaming benchmarks.

Next page: Gaming benchmarks and testbed configuration details.

As usual, we’re reviewing the Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 using PCWorld’s dedicated graphics card testbed. For deep insight into the system, check out our DIY build guide for the machine, but here’s a high-level overview of the most relevant parts:

Intel’s Core i7-5960X with a Corsair Hydro Series h200i closed-loop water cooler, to eliminate any potential for CPU bottlenecks affecting graphical benchmarks
An Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard
Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory, Obsidian 750D full tower case, and 1200-watt AX1200i power supply
A 480GB Intel 730 series SSD
Windows 8.1 Pro. Yes, Windows 10 is out now, but we haven’t converted over our testbed yet.

To get a feel for the GTX 950’s place in the world, we compared it against several other graphics cards, including the GTX 950 Ti and an older EVGA GTX 650 Ti Boost, as Nvidia’ press materials extensively compare the GTX 950 to the GTX 650. AMD and Nvidia’s step-up $200 graphics cards—the R9 380 and GTX 960, respectively—we also tested. For a more direct Team Red vs. Team Green matchup, we’ve included results from Visiontek’s R9 270X. Ideally, we’d test the GTX 950 against the newer R7 370, but AMD never sent us one as part of the bizarre Radeon R300-series launch. You still find ample R9 270X graphics cards in stock at retailers.

We tested the EVGA GTX 950 SSC two ways: With its native hefty overclock, and then by underclocking its base clock speed to 1024MHz to match the stock GTX 950’s speeds. After that, the boost speed still clocked in at 1227MHz, higher than the stock 1188MHz boost clock—but hey, you do what you can.

Update: A Nvidia representative contacted me after this review was published to stress that due to the way GPU Boost works, downclocking the EVGA GTX 950 SSC to stock speeds isn’t a direct simulation of the stock GTX 950’s behavior. That’s true, but given the GTX 950 SSC’s massive overclock, we still feel the effort is worthwhile so there’s some frame of reference as to how a stock GTX 950 might behave. Nvidia’s representative also pointed out that all initially available GTX 950 graphics cards are overclocked to some degree.

Every title was tested using its in-game benchmark, using the default graphics settings stated unless noted otherwise, with V-Sync and any vendor-specific features disabled. The Radeon cards were tested using AMD’s newest Catalyst 15.7 drivers, while the GeForce cards were powered by Nvidia’s 355.65 drivers.

First up: Grand Theft Auto V. This game’s memory requirements can murder higher-end cards at super-high resolutions, but to Rockstar’s credit, the title scales well all the way down to the GTX 950’s level. We tested the game at 1080p with FXAA enabled, all sliders in the Graphics menu cranked to the name, and all configurable detail settings placed to “normal.” This results in fairly high framerates across the board, but you can always work your way up from this baseline to add more visual oomph (which lowers framerates). I’d suggest boosting Texture Quality to “High” first, because man are GTAV‘s street textures ugly on Normal.

Nvidia’s drivers are clearly better optimized for GTAV than AMD’s, and the superiority of the modern hardware over the older 750 Ti and 650 Ti Boost immediately becomes obvious.

That situation flips in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which must hurt Team Green because Nvidia’s logo gets its own splash page when the game loads. You’ll need to drop down to the “High” graphic level preset to hit that buttery-smooth 60fps barrier—an unrealistic frame rate goal in most games with these $150 cards—but you’ll still hit totally playable frame rates of 40 to 45 fps on the 270X and GTX 950, even with the settings cranked to the max at 1080p.

Dragon Age Inquisition was one of the best PC games of 2014, and one of the most gorgeous. Despite the abundant eye-candy, AMD and Nvidia’s dueling $150 graphics cards can handle DAI just fine at 1080p if you knock the graphics down to High—though again, you won’t crack that 60fps barrier. AMD’s cards hit slightly higher frame rates than their Nvidia counterparts here, too.

Alien Isolation is one of the most terrifying games ever, but it’s not quite so scary when it comes to graphical requirements. This game scales well across all hardware types, hitting north of 60fps with every single card tested despite using the highest graphics settings available.

Next page: Gaming benchmarks continued; 3DMark Fire Strike, heat, and power use results.

Bioshock Infinite is our obligatory Unreal Engine 3 title, and both AMD and Nvidia have had plenty of time to optimize their drivers for the game. As with Alien, frame rates are great across the board here even with the visuals cranked and diffusion depth of field enabled.

Finally, let’s wrap up our real-world tests with recent HD remakes of two gorgeous, wonderful games. First up, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition. The game’s borderline unplayable at the Extreme graphics preset, hovering around 30fps or fewer, but it’s far more smooth—and still beautiful—at the High graphics preset.

We test Metro: Last Light Redux without SSAO enabled, since that drops frame rates in half and doesn’t add much to the final visual product. PhysX is also disabled in our testing. Every card runs the game well enough, though the pricier R9 380 and GTX 960 obviously have a leg up over the $150-ish options (as expected), and the EVGA GTX 950 SSC’s overclock pushes it ahead of the R9 270X.

In 3DMark’s Fire Strike test, a popular and widely used synthetic benchmark, the Radeon R9 290X’s overall score falls firmly between the results for the “stock” GTX 950 and EVGA’s GTX 950 SSC—something we saw in several of our gaming benchmarks.

As far as power usage goes, the sublimely energy-efficient GTX 750 Ti is still the head-and-shoulders winner here, consuming a full 100W less than the GTX 950. Power is measured by plugging the entire system into a Watts Up meter.

Nvidia’s pint-sized 750 Ti is also the clear winner in heat output, putting out a mere 53W under load. That’s still crazy. Heat is measured by running the worst-case-scenario Furmark benchmark for 15 minutes, then taking the GPU temperature at the end using Furmark’s built-in tool as well as the SpeedFan utility.

Final page: Conclusion

So where does all that leave us?

Tossing out Shadow of Mordor (a clear AMD win) and GTAV (a clear Nvidia win), the GeForce GTX 950 and Visiontek’s Radeon R9 270X pretty much go toe-to-toe. Testing on other sites show the “new,” rebadged R7 370 delivering roughly the same results as the 270X—usually a few fps worse, which makes sense since the R7 370 has fewer cores running at lower speeds than the R9 270X. While I don’t have a R7 370 on hand for testing—a darn shame—its relationship with the 270X seems to indicate that it would wind up slightly slower than the GTX 950 in most games.

EVGA’s slick GTX 950 SSC delivers anywhere from 3 to 10 fps higher results than the simulated “stock” GTX 950. It’s definitely worth picking up the GTX 950 SSC’s guaranteed overclock and enhanced cooling over a stock GTX 950 for a mere $10 premium.

It’s nice to see Nvidia bring the fight to AMD in the $150 to $175 price range once again, after the older GTX 750 Ti leaned heavily towards power efficiency at the cost of performance. Competition’s a great thing! Now, no matter which side you choose, you’ll get a card that delivers a solid, 45fps-plus 1080p experience at high graphics detail settings in all but the most punishing new games, and 60fps-plus in less demanding games. That’s nuts compared to where we were just a few years back.

By comparison, many games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 struggle to hit 30fps at 1080p—and that’s typically with lower graphics fidelity than the High settings in PC titles! You’ll need to step up to a $200 GTX 960 or R9 380 if you want to consistently enable Ultra graphics or hit 60fps in most games at 1080p, however.

Bottom line: The Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 delivers a nice 1080p gaming experience at a price that won’t break your budget. Nvidia has a clear winner here.

Performance aside, there are other reasons to give the GeForce card the nod over the R7 370/R9 270X—most notably, Nvidia’s constant onslaught of Game Ready drivers and slick software ecosystem. Also, since the R7 370 is built around an ancient Pitcairn GPU from early 2012, it doesn’t support more recent technologies like HDMI 2.0 (for delivering 60Hz signals to a 4K monitor) or AMD’s stutter-killing FreeSync displays. The GTX 950 supports both HDMI 2.0—this thing would rock in a home theater PC—and Nvidia’s G-Sync display technology. It also supports a higher DirectX 12 feature level than the R7 370.

If you don’t mind missing out on those modern capabilities, however, you can save some real dough with no major performance loss by looking for a R9 270X fire sale. They’re going for as cheap as $130 after rebates on the big retail sites right now as everyone clears out stock for the newer R7 370—though non-fire sale models are selling for $160 and up. At that price, you’ll want to go for the GTX 950’s newer architecture instead.

Size comp: @TEAMEVGA GTX 950 SSC (top) vs GTX 750 Ti. Extra size = extra oomph http://t.co/GK3WHmSaGm @EVGA_JacobF pic.twitter.com/HJIk5Dcove

— Brad Chacos (@BradChacos) August 20, 2015

Finally, the launch of the GTX 950 doesn’t automatically render the older GTX 750 Ti obsolete—that’s why Nvidia’s keeping it around. Its small design and freedom from supplementary power cables means it can fit into cases where the GTX 950 and R7 370 simply can’t, and while it doesn’t provide as much visual firepower as either of those cards, the GTX 750 Ti still provides a huge boost over integrated graphics. Even better, you can find one for prices hovering around $100 if you look around, despite its new official MSRP of $120.

There’s never been a better time to be a gamer on a budget.

Editor’s note: The conclusion of this article has been updated to clarify the performance relationship between the R9 270X and R7 370. Verbiage related to the 270X’s fire sale pricing was also tweaked.

Review and testing of the video card ASUS GeForce GTX 950 (GTX950-OC-2GD5) GECID.com. Page 1

::>Video cards
>2016
> ASUS GTX950-OC-2GD5

17-05-2016

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Choosing a graphics accelerator for building a gaming system focused on comfortable performance at Full HD resolution is a rather difficult task. There are many models on the market that do a good job with such a load, ranging from more affordable versions of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti to solutions for more affluent users, such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960. Also, do not forget about AMD, which is fighting for this segment with the help of AMD Radeon R7 370.

OC-2GD5) , which, with an average cost of about $175, took the so-called «golden mean» among the above-mentioned video cards. Let’s take a look at what benefits you get from buying this model.

ASUS GTX9 graphics card specification50-OC-2GD5:

Model		ASUS GeForce GTX 950 (GTX950-OC-2GD5)
Graphics core		NVIDIA GM206-250 (Maxwell)
Number of CUDA cores		768
Rated / dynamic frequency of the graphics core, MHz	«OC»	1102 / 1279
	«Gaming»	1076 / 1253
Memory frequency (effective), MHz		1653 (6610)
Memory size, GB		2
Memory type		GDDR5
Memory bus width, bit		128
Memory bandwidth, GB/s		105. 8
Tire type		PCI Express 3.0 x16
Image output interfaces		1 x DVI-I 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort
Minimum power supply unit, W		350
Dimensions from the official website (according to measurements in our test laboratory), mm		211 x 113 x 40 (223 x 118)
Drivers		Latest drivers can be downloaded from the ASUS website or the GPU manufacturer’s website
Manufacturer website		ASUS

Packaging and contents

The video card is supplied in a fairly large cardboard box designed in the style of the World of Warships game. This is not by chance, because with it you will receive an invite code (only for new players) to activate the armored cruiser «Diana» and 15 days of premium access.

The list of system requirements for the computer in which the video accelerator is planned to be installed is located on one of the sides of the box. Based on the recommendations, the power supply in such a system must have a power of at least 350 W, provide at least 24 A on the + 12V line, and support a 6-pin PCIe power cable.

ASUS GTX950-OC-2GD5 comes with only a quick start guide and a CD with drivers and utilities.

The following set of interfaces is used to display an image on the tested model:

1 x DVI-I;
1 x HDMI;
1 x DisplayPort.

Recall that the reference version includes three DisplayPort video outputs, one HDMI and one DVI-I. So ASUS GTX9The 50-OC-2GD5 lost two DisplayPorts, which is quite logical for an inexpensive model that will not be able to provide comfortable gaming performance on a multi-monitor configuration. If you want to connect an analog monitor, then you will have to take care of having the appropriate adapter yourself.

Appearance

One of the indisputable advantages of ASUS GTX950-OC-2GD5 is its original design of the cooler casing in white, which will definitely please owners of white system units and some ASUS motherboards, for example, ASUS Z170-A .

The core power subsystem is implemented on a uPI Semiconductor uP1608TK digital PWM controller, which, depending on the modification, supports control of a maximum of four phases, and also has protection against overvoltage.

As for the element base, it corresponds to the proprietary concept of Super Alloy Power II. It includes solid-state and tantalum-polymer capacitors, as well as chokes with a ferrite core. As a result, the manufacturer notes a decrease in operating temperatures, an increase in energy efficiency and an increase in service life.

The tested graphics adapter is powered by a PCI Express 3. 0 x16 slot and one 6-pin PCIe connector. Thanks to its convenient location, the cooler does not make it difficult to disconnect the PCIe cable.

NVIDIA SLI technology uses one connector to connect the corresponding bridge. It allows you to combine a pair of video accelerators for joint calculation of graphic effects.

The reverse side of the PCB is notable for two video memory chips, some electrical components, including the tantalum-polymer capacitors mentioned above, and cooling system mounting screws. One of the screws is covered by a warranty sticker, so you won’t be able to remove the heatsink without voiding the warranty, although the fan shroud detaches without any problems.

The novelty is based on the NVIDIA GM206-250 graphics chip, which is manufactured using a 28-nm process technology. It consists of 768 CUDA cores, 48 texture units and 32 raster units. By default, the ASUS GTX950-OC-2GD5 has the «Gaming» mode active, in which the base frequency of the GPU is increased from the nominal 1024 to 1076 MHz, and the dynamic one — from 1188 to 1253 MHz.

In the ASUS GPU Tweak II with XSplit Gamecaster utility, you can also enable the “OC” profile with speeds of 1102 and 1279MHz respectively. Note that testing was carried out in the «Gaming» mode.

The ASUS GeForce GTX 950 (GTX950-OC-2GD5) has a total of 2 GB of memory built using four Samsung K4G41325FC-HC28 chips with a capacity of 4 Gb each. According to the documentation, their nominal effective frequency is 7000 MHz, but in our case it was lowered to 6610 MHz, which allows us to hope for their good overclocking potential. Data exchange between the graphics core and memory is carried out through a 128-bit bus, which is capable of passing 105.8 GB of information per second.

Cooling system

ASUS GeForce GTX 950 (GTX950-OC-2GD5) graphics card with installed cooling system occupies two expansion slots and has a total length of 211 mm according to the official website (223 mm according to our test lab).

The design of the cooler is quite simple and compact, although the TDP level of the GPU is 90W. It consists of an all-metal heatsink with fins (90 x 85 x 14 mm) that increase the efficiency of heat dissipation, and two 74 mm axial fans mounted on a plastic shroud.

The turntables themselves are manufactured by Everflow and are marked «T128010SH», which indicates the use of plain bearings. The nominal voltage of their operation is 12 V, and the current strength is 0.25 A, which gives a total power of 3 watts.

With automatic regulation of the fan blades rotation speed, in the maximum load mode, the graphics core heated up to 67°C, and the cooler, judging by the monitoring readings, worked at 62% of its maximum power. The noise level at the same time was quiet and absolutely comfortable.

For comparison, let’s recall the ASUS STRIX-GTX950-DC2OC-2GD5-GAMING model with the DirectCU II cooling system, which uses two similar fans and two copper 8mm heat pipes. And although the temperature indicator in this mode is also at around 67 ° C, however, the GPU frequency was 1266 MHz, and the rotation speed of the blades was 43% of the maximum.

In the maximum fan speed mode, the temperature of the GPU dropped to 59°C. The noise it produced was slightly above average, but still quite usable. In the same mode, the DirectCU II cooler was able to keep the faster GPU at 56°C.

In the absence of load, the frequencies of the graphics core and memory are automatically reduced, which leads to a decrease in their power consumption and heat dissipation. In this mode, the GPU temperature does not exceed 28°C. In turn, the 0dB FAN technology in the ASUS STRIX-GTX950-DC2OC-2GD5-GAMING video card switched the DirectCU II cooler to a passive mode of operation to minimize the emitted noise.

On the whole, the cooler of the tested model proved to be extremely positive, demonstrating not only high cooling efficiency, but also a quite comfortable noise level both with automatic fan speed control and in maximum performance mode.

Review and testing of MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC

Introduction
MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5OC

Packaging and delivery
Appearance and dimensions
Cooling system
PCB

Test bench
Test Instruments and Methods
Standard frequencies and overclocking
Cooling System Potential Study
Electricity consumption level
Conclusion

Introduction

The laboratory continues the cycle of materials devoted to video cards of the GeForce GTX 950 series. Earlier we reviewed several versions from different manufacturers:

ASUS GeForce GTX 950 OC;
ASUS GeForce GTX 950 Strix OC
;
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950OC;
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 WindForce 2X;
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 Xtreme Gaming;
Inno3D GeForce GTX 950 2GB Gaming OC;
KFA2 GeForce GTX 950 Black OC Sniper Edition;
KFA2 GeForce GTX 950 EXOC White;
MSI GeForce GTX 950 Gaming 2G;
Palit GeForce GTX 950 StormX;
Palit GeForce GTX 950 StormX Dual.

Following the Gaming 2G version, MSI introduced several modifications of the GeForce GTX 950, which are distinguished by simplified cooling systems and a lower price. Such actions force users to study new items more carefully, since the saying “both wants and pricks” works. But what if the developers managed to strike a balance between performance and cost? Looking ahead, let’s say that this time we were pleasantly surprised.

Thanks to our partner — the company Regard, you will get acquainted with another novelty of MSI, which is able to attract attention with an interesting appearance and factory overclocking.

recommendations

Review MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC

Full name: GeForce GTX950 MSI PCI-E 2048Mb (GTX 950 2GD5 OC), manufacturer code: GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC.

Packaging and scope of supply

In this case, we won’t find the branded dragon so familiar to the company on the packaging — it was replaced by fighter nozzles. You can feel the notes of the Hawk line, in which there were enough good models; It’s a pity that the developers put it on the back burner.

The box contains a standard description of the MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC and its main features, including factory overclocking and compact dimensions (length does not exceed 170 mm). And on the flap of the plane, the inscription “AfterBurner” modestly hid.

Unusual white design emphasizes a lot of information. In 30 different languages, the developers provide a brief description of the model, but we are interested in other features:

Use of high-quality element base, in particular, Solid Cap capacitors with an aluminum core and increased service life;
The use of Hi-c Cap capacitors with increased energy efficiency up to 93%;
Full support for MSI’s proprietary AfterBurner utility.

Below are the minimum requirements. For the hero of the review, a power supply unit with a capacity of at least 350 W is suitable, which indicates low power consumption. There is support for Windows 10 if that matters to you.

Inside the box everything is standard. The video card itself is packed in an antistatic package and carefully placed in polyurethane foam, which protects it from any external adversity.

The price reduction affected the delivery set, which now consists only of a user manual and a driver disk.

Appearance and dimensions

Against the background of other competing solutions, MSI’s graphics card stands out with its design, in which the snow-white casing plays an important role. Yes, it is beautiful, but only until you try to take photos. The bright red protective caps of the interfaces are the new product from the Gaming series. The antipode to light colors is the black fan of the cooler.

The diameter of the turntable is an impressive 90 mm for this class of device. In other words, it covers a good half of the MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC. And the slots in the case, apparently, emphasize the gaming positioning of the model.

At the same time, as already mentioned, it is distinguished by its modest size. In length, the video card fits into the Mini-ITX form factor (170 mm), in width — 111 mm. Being installed in the case, the novelty will cover two expansion slots.

The reverse side is open and lacks any reinforcement or mounting plate.

The rear interface panel has the following set of video outputs:

One DVI-D;
One DVI-I;
One HDMI 2.0;
One DisplayPort 1.2.

The following resolutions are supported:

Digital — up to 4096 x 2160;
Analog — up to 2048 x 1536.

The nominal power consumption of the graphics card is 90W, which allows the MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5 OC to get by with a single six-pin connector on the edge of the PCB.

By the way, there are comments about its placement, since it is turned with the latch up and rests against the casing of the cooling system. The latter can make it difficult to remove the cable.