NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Review: Affordable Maxwell For The Masses

Name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Review: Affordable Maxwell For The Masses
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, August 20, 2015, 09:00 AM EDT

How We Configured Our Test Systems: We tested the graphics cards in this article on an ASUS X99 Deluxe motherboard powered by an Intel Core i7-5960X octal-core processor and 16GB of Corsair DDR4 RAM. The first thing we did when configuring the test system was enter the system UEFI and set all values to their "high performance" default settings and disable any integrated peripherals that wouldn't be put to use. The memory's X.M.P. profile was enabled to ensure optimal memory performance and the solid state drive was then formatted and Windows 10 Professional x64 was installed. When the installation was complete, we fully updated the OS and installed all of the drivers, games, and benchmark tools necessary to complete our tests.

HotHardware's Test System

Intel Core i7 Powered

Hardware Used:
Intel Core i7-5960X
(3GHz, Octa-Core)
Asus X99 Deluxe
(Intel X99 Chipset)

Radeon R7 270
Radeon R9 285
GeForce GTX 760
GeForce GTX 960
GeForce GTX 950 (Asus and EVGA)

16GB Corsair DDR4-2133
OCZ Vertex 4
Integrated Audio
Integrated Network

Relevant Software:
Windows 10 Pro x64
AMD Catalyst v15.17.1 Beta
NVIDIA GeForce Drivers v355.65

Benchmarks Used:
Unigine Heaven v4
3DMark "Fire Strike"
Thief
MIddle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor
Metro Last Light Redux
FRAPS

Unigine Heaven v4.0 Benchmark

Pseudo-DirectX 11 Gaming

Unigine's Heaven Benchmark v4.0 is built around the Unigine game engine. Unigine is a cross-platform, real-time 3D engine, with support for DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11 and OpenGL. The Heaven benchmark--when run in DX11 mode--also makes comprehensive use of tessellation technology and advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion). It also features volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm and a dynamic sky with light scattering.

Unigine Heaven

The new GeForce GTX 950 cards from ASUS and EVGA have no trouble dispatching the Radeon R9 270X (which will perform similarly to the Radeon R9 370) and GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost. The GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon R9 285 finish well ahead, however.

Tags: Nvidia, Asus, Gaming, graphics, evga, FTW, strix, geforce gtx 950

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com