NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 And GTX 1050 Ti Review: Low Power, Low Price Pascal

Although rumors had been circulating for a while, NVIDIA went ahead and made the GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti official last week with an announcement featuring a number of details about the cards. In the announcement, NVIDIA covered some of the speeds and feeds, revealed a number of partner board designs, and revealed expected pricing. Performance, however, was not discussed.

Today we’re able to tell all, with a trio of GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti cards from MSI and EVGA. We’ve got two cards from MSI – in both plain vanilla and Ti flavors – along with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SuperClocked Edition.

Before we dive in, here are the GPUs’ reference specifications, as outlined by NVIDIA. Keep in mind, however, that all of NVIDIA’s partners are offering custom GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti cards, so these specs are more of a guideline than the rule...

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 & 1050 Ti Specifications & Features

	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050		NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
GPCs	2		2
Streaming Multiprocessors	5		6
CUDA Cores (SP)	640		768
Texture Units	40		48
ROP Units	32		32
Base Clock	1354MHz		1290MHz
Boost Clock	1455MHz		1392MHz
Memory Clock (Data rate)	3504MHz (Effective Speed - ~8Gbps)		3504MHz (Effective Speed - ~8Gbps)
L2 Cache Size	1024KB		1024KB
Total Video Memory	2048 MB GDDR5		4096 MB GDDR5
Memory Interface	128-Bit		128-Bit
Total Memory Bandwidth	112 GB/s		112 GB/s
Text. Filtering Rate (Bilinear)	54.2 GigaTexels/sec		61.9 GigaTexels/sec
Fabrication Process	14 nm		14 nm
Transistor Count	3.3 Billion		3.3 Billion
Connectors	1 x Display Port 1 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI		1 x Display Port 1 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI
Form Factor	Dual Slot		Dual Slot
Power Connectors	NONE		NONE
Recommended PSU	300 Watts		300 Watts
TDP	75 Watts		75 Watts
Thermal Threshold	97°C		97°C
Price	$109 MSRP - Find Them At Amazon		$139 MSRP - Find Them At Amazon

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The GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti are built around a new NVIDIA Pascal-based GPU, that’s somewhat smaller than previous offerings. The GPU is codenamed the GP107, and it is essentially a scaled-down version of the GP106 featured on the GTX 1060, but targeted at a more mainstream audience. Like its big brothers though, the GP107 supports all of the main features of Pascal, like Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), Ansel, Fast Sync, and enhanced memory compression. If you'd like more detailed explanations of these features, please see our coverage of the GeForce GTX 1080.
The GP107 is manufactured on Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process node. The GPU is comprised of roughly 3.3 billion transistors and has a die size measuring only 135mm². That’s somewhat smaller than the 148mm² area of the Maxwell-based GM107, but what’s more interesting is that the GPU is manufactured at a different foundry. Unlike all of the other Pascal-based GPUs in NVIDIA’s line-up, which are produced at TSMC, NVIDIA tapped Samsung for the GP107.
In its full implementation, as found on the GTX 1050 Ti, the GP107 features 6 streaming multiprocessors (SM) with a total of 768, single-precision CUDA cores, arranged in 2 graphics processing clusters (GPC). Each GPC includes a dedicated raster engine and three SMs with 128 CUDA cores, eight texture units, a shared memory unit, and some L1 cache. There is 1024KB of L2 cache on the chip, and a total of 48 texture units. Each SM is also outfitted with a PolyMorph Engine that handles vertex fetch, tessellation, viewport transformation, vertex attribute setup, and perspective correction. It's also in the PolyMorph Engine that a new unit enables Simultaneous Multi-Projection. Note, however, that on the GeForce GTX 1050, one SM has been disabled, so there are only 640 total CUDA cores.
The GP107 also features four 32-bit memory controllers, for 128-bits in total. Linked to each 32-bit memory controller are eight ROPs, for a total of 32, and 128 KB of that aforementioned L2 cache. GeForce GTX 1050 Ti cards will be outfitted with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, while the standard GTX 1050 will have only 2GB. The memory clock is the same on both cards (7Gbps, effective), however.

Another notable change versus other Pascal-based cards is that NVIDIA won’t be making a Founder’s Edition GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti. Instead, NVIDIA’s partners will be bringing custom boards to market, like the MSI and EVGA cards we’ve shown you here. Speaking of MSI and EVGA, each company’s cards actually feature somewhat different PCBs, but all of them are relatively small. The coolers are also different, but are fundamentally similar. Since these cards do NOT require additional power feeds and come in under the 75W limit of a x16 PCI Express slot, heat output is not a major consideration. As such, the cards feature basic aluminum heatsinks and single cooling fans. There will be higher-clocked models on the market at some point, however, with additional power connectors, which should allow for more overclocking headroom.

The MSI and EVGA cards featured here are factory overclocked, but still come in under the 75W mark. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti has base / boost GPU clocks of 1354MHz / 1468MHz. The MSI GTX 1050 Ti OC comes in every so slightly lower at 1341MHz / 1455MHz. And the 2GB MSI GeForce GTX 1050 OC arrives with a 1404MHz base clock and a 1518MHz boost clock.
The outputs on the GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti are identical, but are somewhat scaled down versus higher-end Pascal-based GPUs. The cards’ outputs consist of a one DisplayPort, an HDMI 2.0b port, and a dual-link DVI port. The DisplayPorts are 1.2 certified and all three display outputs can be used simultaneously for multi-monitor setups.


The MSI and EVGA cards we received for testing both shipped with similar bundles as well. Both cards included a basic lit pack, registration information, and a driver / utility disc. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SuperClocked Edition also included an EVGA case badge.