Nvidia is rounding out its GTX 10 series GPUs with two new entry-level cards, the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti. Joining the flagship GTX 1080, the VR sweet spot GTX 1070, and the VR-on-a-budget GTX 1060, the new cards are designed to improve the look and feel of everyday modern gaming.
The GTX 1050 Ti is the faster of the two with 4 GB of GDDR5 RAM, 768 CUDA cores and a base clock speed of 1,290 MHz, which can be boosted up to 1,392 MHz. The 1050 vanilla, meanwhile, is running on half the RAM, 640 CUDA cores, a base clock speed of 1,354 MHz, and a boosted speed of 1,455 MHz.
Nvidia is vocal about the VR capabilities of its higher end GPUs, but not all gamers are looking for that much power. For some, playing recent games at decent specs is enough, and that's who the 1050 and 1050 Ti are targeting, as well as those who may be building a new PC for the first time.
The company claims the cards can run most modern games at 1080p resolution and 60 fps, at mid-quality graphics settings and only using 75 watts of power. Tested in games like Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3, GTA V, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Star Wars: Battlefront, The Witcher 3 and The Division, Nvidia says the 1050 and 1050 Ti perform about 40 percent faster and are 128 percent more energy efficient than AMD's comparable card, the Radeon RX 460.
The GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti won't blow you away, but for bread-and-butter gamers who haven't taken the VR plunge, they make for a decent low-cost entry point to Nvidia's Pascal-powered cards. The GTX 1050 Ti will be available from October 25 starting at US$139, with the GTX 1050 following on November 8 for $109.
Source: Nvidia