Another Maxwell Iteration
NVIDIA’s latest GPU release is the budget bomb known as the GTX 950. This card offers a great 1080p gaming experience for users on a budget.
The mainstream end of the graphics card market is about to get a bit more complicated with today’s introduction of the GeForce GTX 950. Based on a slightly cut down GM206 chip, the same used in the GeForce GTX 960 that was released almost 8 months ago, the new GTX 950 will fill a gap in the product stack for NVIDIA, resting right at $160-170 MSRP. Until today that next-down spot from the GTX 960 was filled by the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, the very first iteration of Maxwell (we usually call it Maxwell 1) that came out in February of 2014!
Even though that is a long time to go without refreshing the GTX x50 part of the lineup, NVIDIA was likely hesitant to do so based on the overwhelming success of the GM107 for mainstream gaming. It was low cost, incredibly efficient and didn’t require any external power to run. That led us down the path of upgrading OEM PCs with GTX 750 Ti, an article and video that still gets hundreds of views and dozens of comments a week.
The GTX 950 has some pretty big shoes to fill. I can tell you right now that it uses more power than the GTX 750 Ti, and it requires a 6-pin power connector, but it does so while increasing gaming performance dramatically. The primary competition from AMD is the Radeon R7 370, a Pitcairn GPU that is long in the tooth and missing many of the features that Maxwell provides.
And NVIDIA is taking a secondary angle with the GTX 950 launch –targeting the MOBA players (DOTA 2 in particular) directly and aggressively. With the success of this style of game over the last several years, and the impressive $18M+ purse for the largest DOTA 2 tournament just behind us, there isn’t a better area of PC gaming to be going after today. But are the tweaks and changes to the card and software really going to make a difference for MOBA gamers or is it just marketing fluff?
Let’s dive into everything GeForce GTX 950!
GM206 Makes Another Appearance
As I mentioned above, the GeForce GTX 950 is based on the existing GM206 GPU found in the GTX 960 but with a slight reduction in compute hardware. Let’s take a look at the specifications table.
GTX 950 | GTX 960 | GTX 970 | GTX 980 | GTX 760 | GTX 770 | GTX 780 | GTX 660 | GTX 670 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GPU | GM206 | GM206 | GM204 | GM204 | GK104 | GK104 | GK110 | GK106 | GK104 |
GPU Cores | 768 | 1024 | 1664 | 2048 | 1152 | 1536 | 2304 | 960 | 1344 |
Rated Clock | 1024 MHz | 1126 MHz | 1050 MHz | 1126 MHz | 980 MHz | 1046 MHz | 863 MHz | 980 MHz | 915 MHz |
Texture Units | 48 | 64 | 104 | 128 | 96 | 128 | 192 | 80 | 112 |
ROP Units | 32 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 32 | 32 | 48 | 24 | 32 |
Memory | 2GB | 2GB | 4GB | 4GB | 2GB | 2GB | 3GB | 2GB | 2GB |
Memory Clock | 6600 MHz | 7000 MHz | 7000 MHz | 7000 MHz | 6000 MHz | 7000 MHz | 6000 MHz | 6000 MHz | 6000 MHz |
Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit |
Memory Bandwidth | 105.6 GB/s | 112 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 192 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 288 GB/s | 144 GB/s | 192 GB/s |
TDP | 90 watts | 120 watts | 145 watts | 165 watts | 170 watts | 230 watts | 250 watts | 140 watts | 170 watts |
Peak Compute | 1.57 TFLOPS | 2.30 TFLOPS | 3.49 TFLOPS | 4.61 TFLOPS | 2.25 TFLOPS | 3.21 TFLOPS | 3.97 TFLOPS | 1.81 TFLOPS | 2.46 TFLOPS |
Transistor Count | 2.94B | 2.94B | 5.2B | 5.2B | 3.54B | 3.54B | 7.08B | 2.54B | 3.54B |
Process Tech | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
MSRP | $159 | $199 | $329 | $549 | $249 | $399 | $649 | $230 | $399 |
The GTX 950 drops the GM206 from 1024 CUDA cores to 768, a decrease of 33%, along with the texture unit count. The memory configuration remains unchanged with a 128-bit memory bus, 32 ROPs and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. That memory does run a bit slower, 6.6 GHz rather than 7.0 GHz, and thus the memory bandwidth is lower as well hitting 105.6 GB/s compared to the GTX 960 reaching 112 GB/s.
Base clock speed is set at 1024 MHz with a typical boost clock of 1188 MHz. In reality we saw much higher than that in our gaming tests and we have cards from ASUS, EVGA and Zotac that come with further overclocks straight out of the box.
That decrease in core count and clock speed help NVIDIA keep the TDP at just 90 watts for the GTX 950, a fantastic number for a mainstream product but that still requires the use of a 6-pin power connector. The GTX 750 Ti used the lack of external power requirements as a huge selling feature but the GTX 950 won’t offer that – the good news for NVIDIA and GeForce fans is that the GTX 750 Ti will continue as part of the overall product portfolio. The GTX 950 is not replacing the GTX 750 Ti.
With an MSRP of $159, the GTX 950 finds itself directly between the updated GTX 750 Ti pricing (now as low as $99 before rebates) and the GTX 960 (selling for $180-190). That price will adjust as stock starts to enter the market and from what we are hearing this is going to be a hard launch with plenty of stock available starting today. NVIDIA believes that the GTX 950 is really a replacement for the GTX 650, even going so far as including one in the box with our GTX 950 sample as a comparison point. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to compare it to it directly but it’s likely something we will get to with further testing in the coming days.
From the AMD side of things the “new” Radeon R7 370 is the best option to combat this new NVIDIA product. With a price tag of ~$175 but based on the aging Pitcairn GPU, the R7 370 also requires just a single power connector.
$160 for a non-Ti? LOL
$160 for a non-Ti? LOL
I notice you didn’t include
I notice you didn’t include the average FPS comparisons like you did with the Fury and 980 ti reviews. I liked those tables showing the percent differences and think it would be nice to see % difference between 750 ti, 950, and 960 even for only game.
Yeah where is the avg fps?
Yeah where is the avg fps?
So, like… for a dual 970
So, like… for a dual 970 owner, how much longer am I going to have to wait before there’s something worth upgrading to?
probably the rebrands of
probably the rebrands of pascal in 2 years, unless VRAM becomes an issue.
970 is less than 1 year old,
970 is less than 1 year old, calm down!
a 7950 for example, still a decent card an all (better than the 960) is well past 3 years old…
I think you will be looking at mid or late 2016 for some new exciting stuff, but realistically, if you just want to upgrade, a 980 ti or Fury X is a lot faster than the 970, so go for it!
I would rather have a single
I would rather have a single 980 Ti than have two 970s.
Agreed. I had two 970 ftw’s
Agreed. I had two 970 ftw’s and I sold them both for the same price i got them and bought a 980 ti which is much better, the extra vram lets me run gta v and other games on 4k.
Well for one thing! You do
Well for one thing! You do not need to upgrade each year or each release! Another thing is: Even GTX 670 users do not need to upgrade yet! So it should be a while! That is the whole point in buying a high end GPU like the 970! So you do not have to worry for a long time!
Ease back. Branhthog just
Ease back. Branhthog just wanted to let us all know that s/he has two 970s in SLI. It’s very impressive, Branhthog – yay you! Meanwhile, I’m still running an HD 6850 :/
this 950 is a very nice card,
this 950 is a very nice card, specially if the price drops a little, which is normally the case with products launched at this range,
decent performance lead over the 370 (and there is no 370X for now!), support for the GM206 stuff (HEVC, HDMI 2.0), I want one!
when the 370 and 370x came
when the 370 and 370x came out they where obsolete no dx12 or freesync it smarter to get and r9 380,gtx 960 gtx 950,or if you want something cheap the r7 360
Actually the R7 370 can run
Actually the R7 370 can run full DX12 features, So can the R7 265/7850!
Why compare the price of a
Why compare the price of a 4GB 370? Clearly, nobody gets their money’s worth buying that version. And why no overclocking ?
I agree. Even comparing it to
I agree. Even comparing it to the 2GB card, the 950 is better. BUT comparing it the 4GB variant is disingenuous at best Ryan…
i wonder if the 950 will take
i wonder if the 950 will take a bite of the 960 sales, by the looks of this i can just do some overclocking and might get around the same performance as a 960 stock with the 950
Your math at the beginning is
Your math at the beginning is bad. It’s a 25% decrease in shader processors, not 33%. The 960 has 33% more than the 950. Relative numbers are hard.
Full size cards with such low
Full size cards with such low performance. Is it 2005?
Full size low end cards with
Full size low end cards with such low performance. Is it 2005?
Huh. Looks like another
Huh. Looks like another product in a surprisingly crowded market concidering how few players there are. It’s just a little to pricy to fill the 750ti space, for now, for me.
For quite a while it’s been the same question and the same answer, over and over again “I dont plan on gaming BUT I would like that option if I change my mind, what should I get?” I fucking hate that question, and the answer has been “750ti, done”
Perhaps with a 10-20$ rebate, or a bundled game this would be a no-brain-er.
OOOOOOOOO on the spot idea, if they wana make this the go-to MOBA card then they should bundle it with some IN GAME currency , just a thought.
Huh. Looks like another
Huh. Looks like another product in a surprisingly crowded market concidering how few players there are. It’s just a little to pricy to fill the 750ti space, for now, for me.
For quite a while it’s been the same question and the same answer, over and over again “I dont plan on gaming BUT I would like that option if I change my mind, what should I get?” I fucking hate that question, and the answer has been “750ti, done”
Perhaps with a 10-20$ rebate, or a bundled game this would be a no-brain-er.
OOOOOOOOO on the spot idea, if they wana make this the go-to MOBA card then they should bundle it with some IN GAME currency , just a thought.
Seem nvidia snatched the moba
Seem nvidia snatched the moba card concept from amd, way to lead nvidia.
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Having recently bought a MSI
Having recently bought a MSI 980ti Gaming 6g I’d like to make a suggestion..
Save your pennies until you can pay for a 980 or 980ti.
I couldn’t afford the 980ti until my tax refund came through, and I decided to buy because of the free game offer (Metal Gear Solid V) that was available right now. My monitor is still a 1680×900 (I think), I’ll upgrade that when 1440p gsyncs are more plentiful and affordable.
In my mind it’s not wise to buy without considering future needs. This 980ti replaced a 560ti which had been there for a few years… I’ll be right for a few more now. Even the i7 2600k will keep serving me well for years as well..
IMHO there will be a few 950/960 buyers regretting their purchase in 12-18 months..
I think they should start
I think they should start benchmarking these cards according to how long they last to provide a good gaming experience. They could for example take a console’s lifecycle and compare it against that.
The sentence comparing card
The sentence comparing card performance directly above the BF4 fps plot has a typo, 950 instead of 960.
I just wish they could have
I just wish they could have made a LP version without an additional power connector. Otherwise it would a great upgrade to a 750Ti used in a SFF/Slim case.
is that a typo GTX 970 with
is that a typo GTX 970 with 64 ROPs?
No, it has 64 ROPs but some
No, it has 64 ROPs but some of them aren’t being fed very well.
http://techreport.com/blog/27143/here-another-reason-the-geforce-gtx-970-is-slower-than-the-gtx-980
How to these mid-range cards
How to these mid-range cards do in the new DX12 benchmark compared to one another ?
750 Ti
950
960
270X
370
PC Perspective….
a few
PC Perspective….
a few estimates but should be close for BF4
300 560ti 1/11 20fps for 1gb unknown fps 2gb version – safe to guess 33?
250 560 5/11 22fps for 1gb unknown fps 2gb version – safe to guess 30?
230 660 8/12 37fps
250 760 6/13 48fps
200 960 1/15 48fps
160 950 8/15 46fps
6 years – price has come down 87% & performance has only jumped 39%
Wow that’s some shitty perspective
5 years… poofta
5 years… poofta