Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti
Pay a little extra and receive a lot more
The performance increase between the GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti when measured as a percentage is almost identical to the price difference. That calculation is slightly different for this card though, as Gigabyte has gone for a $20 price premium over the competition with its version of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Let’s take a look to see where that extra money went.
Compared to the GeForce GTX 1050, the TI series gets double the memory, with this card shipping with 4GB of memory. That fact alone might be enough to persuade many gamers to spend a little extra, especially with the ultra-high resolution textures that we’re now starting to see more often in today’s triple A titles. Gigabyte has left it clocked at the standard speed of 7008MHz as the reference design, though it has fiddled a little with the GPU clock speeds.
To do so it has implemented its Windforce 2X cooling system, which is simply twin 90mm fans residing over copper-composite heatpipes. This has been covered in a plastic shroud with some basic RGB lighting. One of these is actually helpful, a glowing “Fan Stop” logo that informs the user when the fans aren’t spinning, such as in 2D mode or when the CPU is under a certain temperature.
We’re rather surprised to see Gigabyte’s GPU Gauntlet sorting stamp on this card, which refers to the binning process where they reserve the most overclockable GPUs for their quality products. This has been paired with a 4+1 phase power system fed with an extra 6-pin power input, which should allow for better overclocks.
Speaking of which, Gigabyte supplies its own Xtreme engine utility to deliver one click performance adjustment, switching between overclocked, gaming and eco mode. The card comes from the factory with a small overclock already in place though.
In OC mode, the base clock increases from Nvidia’s 1290MHz to 1392MHz, while the boost clock increases from a default speed of 1392MHz to 1506MHz. However, the card does get a little rowdy at these speeds, so there’s also game mode – here the Boost clock is cranked to 1480MHz, which is still a nice increase over the default speeds.
Where the card really shines, though, are the extra outputs. Put simply, there are a lot of them. An abundance, even. Gigabyte has crammed three HDMI
Helpfully, Gigabyte supplies its own Xtreme engine utility to deliver one click performance adjustment
2.0b outputs, as well as DVI-D and a single DisplayPort 1.4. This will be a huge boon for users of multimonitors and VR.
Gigabyte has more than justified the price increase on this product – a binned GPU ready for extensive overclocking, excellent factory overclocks, easy-to-use software, pretty and functional LEDs, better power phasing, and plenty of outputs. Put simply, this card has it all and them some. And that’s probably why it’s our new GeForce GTX 1050 Ti of choice.
BENNETT RING