MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X

[HEXUS]

Nvidia's entry-level GPU gets the Twin Frozr treatment.

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[Tunnah]

It'd be sweet to see the 6BG 1060 included - you'd have to be an absolute spaz to buy a 3GB card in this day and age

[jigger]

DX12 and Vulcan have much better memory management and if you are looking at cards in this range then chances are you have a monitor with a resolution of sub 3MP.

I don't understand why some people think more VRAM = more performance because it's simply not the case. Cards with this level of performance will have run out of GPU steam long before VRAM becomes the bottleneck and you don't see performance scaling with VRAM on anything. 6 and 12GB titans get soundly beat by 4GB Fury cards and 3Gb GTX780Ti cards are still very competitive with cards like the R9 390 8GB and 4GB GTX980.

I agree the £170 price for this performance is pretty terrible value but I don't see the point of including midrange priced cards with what looks like the new entry level cards. It seems clear that any card up to the RX 470 level will have to leverage the new API's to offer any kind of playable frame rate for 1920x1080~ For that you need an AMD GCN based card or console.

[Tunnah]

DX12 and Vulcan have much better memory management and if you are looking at cards in this range then chances are you have a monitor with a resolution of sub 3MP.

I don't understand why some people think more VRAM = more performance because it's simply not the case. Cards with this level of performance will have run out of GPU steam long before VRAM becomes the bottleneck and you don't see performance scaling with VRAM on anything. 6 and 12GB titans get soundly beat by 4GB Fury cards and 3Gb GTX780Ti cards are still very competitive with cards like the R9 390 8GB and 4GB GTX980.

I agree the £170 price for this performance is pretty terrible value but I don't see the point of including midrange priced cards with what looks like the new entry level cards. It seems clear that any card up to the RX 470 level will have to leverage the new API's to offer any kind of playable frame rate for 1920x1080~ For that you need an AMD GCN based card or console.

I don't think more VRAM = more performance, but by not having enough VRAM for even medium sized textures, you're gonna encounter swapping. Games are already starting to show up with 3GB as the minimum for 1080p gaming, and that's for the lowest quality textures.

There are quite a lot of instances where being limited by the amount of VRAM is the only bottleneck to higher quality graphics. It's not a matter of GPU grunt, it's just a matter of the GPU being able to hold the bloody things! Take GTA V for example. While you can turn off the VRAM amount warning, and use above the amount available, simply increasing the texture quality drastically reduces performance, and the GPU usage hasn't changed

[jigger]

Never seen it from any of my cards and most are faster than a GTX 1060 yet have less memory. The 3GB 1060 has enough memory, adding another 3Gb would do zero for the cards performance.

[Tunnah]

Again, it's not about performance, it is purely, purely about being able to use higher quality textures, nothing more

If the textures take up 4GB VRAM and you only have a 3GB card, you're gonna encounter slowdown because of the swapping. That is all I'm trying to say

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Never seen it from any of my cards and most are faster than a GTX 1060 yet have less memory. The 3GB 1060 has enough memory, adding another 3Gb would do zero for the cards performance.

There are no cards with a single GPU faster than a GTX1060 3GB which have less memory - in ROTR,the RX470 and GTX970 have better minimums and more consistant frametimes in the game and there are a few other example where you are starting to see the same. The same in games like Hitman and the latest Deus Ex. In fact DF said to just buy the 6GB version as they were not sure if 3GB would be enough.

Then look at Forza Horizon 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7DuIIzOuE

The same goes with the R9 290 against the GTX780TI and so on. In fact the 8800GT 256MB is a great example of a card having issues within a year.

The GTX1060 3GB might great if you play a lot of WoW or something like that,but I think in another year it is going to have worse performance degradation than the RX470 overall in newer games.

[Tunnah]

There are no cards with a single GPU faster than a GTX1060 3GB which have less memory - in ROTR,the RX470 and GTX970 have better minimums and more consistant frametimes in the game and there are a few other example where you are starting to see the same. The same in games like Hitman and the latest Deus Ex. In fact DF said to just buy the 6GB version as they were not sure if 3GB would be enough.

Then look at Forza Horizon 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7DuIIzOuE

The same goes with the R9 290 against the GTX780TI and so on. In fact the 8800GT 256MB is a great example of a card having issues within a year.

The GTX1060 3GB might great if you play a lot of WoW or something like that,but I think in another year it is going to have worse performance degradation than the RX470 overall in newer games.

Thank you. I feel like I've been fighting against the tide trying to make this point lately, it seems it's like 90% of my Hexus convos.

[Otherhand]

I don't understand why some people think more VRAM = more performance because it's simply not the case. Cards with this level of performance will have run out of GPU steam long before VRAM becomes the bottleneck and you don't see performance scaling with VRAM on anything. 6 and 12GB titans get soundly beat by 4GB Fury cards and 3Gb GTX780Ti cards are still very competitive with cards like the R9 390 8GB and 4GB GTX980.

This was certainly my experience when I had a 4GB GTX770. It never really seemed like that VRAM overhead could actually do very much. I couldn't use Ultra textures on most new games because while it might have had the theoretical capactity, it was too much to ask it to keep loading to memory like that. At best, I was able to slightly increase my AA.

[Tunnah]

This was certainly my experience when I had a 4GB GTX770. It never really seemed like that VRAM overhead could actually do very much. I couldn't use Ultra textures on most new games because while it might have had the theoretical capactity, it was too much to ask it to keep loading to memory like that. At best, I was able to slightly increase my AA.

Ya that is most definitely likely when it comes to older cards, but we're now reaching a point where even the low end cards are more than capable of doing anything 1080p related.

We're at a stage in GPU technology where mid range means pushing 1440p@60fps.

The best example I can give is from personal experience. I have dual 670s. Singular, they're not bad cards by any means, but SLI'ed they're absolute beasts - they pretty much the horsepower of a 970. However they're 2GB cards, which means in a lot of titles I'm left with loads of unused GPU usage, whilst still experiencing slowdown and in some cases crashes, and it's always because they ran out of Vroom (hehe).

It's why I'm so passionate about pushing for people to not short change themselves on VRAM - I don't want people to lose out on the potential of their hardware. And yes it won't happen right away, but it WILL happen. I paid nearly 700 bloody quid for these cards just over 3 years ago, and if it wasn't for the VRAM they would still very much do their job.

There's nothing wrong with having spare VRAM. Not having enough - that'll ruin gaming for you.

[jigger]

There are no cards with a single GPU faster than a GTX1060 3GB which have less memory - in ROTR,the RX470 and GTX970 have better minimums and more consistant frametimes in the game and there are a few other example where you are starting to see the same. The same in games like Hitman and the latest Deus Ex. In fact DF said to just buy the 6GB version as they were not sure if 3GB would be enough.

Then look at Forza Horizon 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7DuIIzOuE

The same goes with the R9 290 against the GTX780TI and so on. In fact the 8800GT 256MB is a great example of a card having issues within a year.

The GTX1060 3GB might great if you play a lot of WoW or something like that,but I think in another year it is going to have worse performance degradation than the RX470 overall in newer games.

I'm not seeing that at least not as a general rule. The RX 470 is just a better card than the GTX 1060 IMO, and the performance drop off for the 780Ti against the R9 290 is probably as much down to the fact that after a year or so Nvidia cards fall in to the driver dead pool.

To test this theory Hexus should put a 4Gb R9 290x up against the 8Gb version. The GTX780Ti is faster than a GTX1060 and both have 3Gb of VRAM. Many of the GTX 980's are a lot faster than the GTX1060 6Gb CAT.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...e-gtx-980-hof/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not seeing that at least not as a general rule. The RX 470 is just a better card than the GTX 1060 IMO, and the performance drop off for the 780Ti against the R9 290 is probably as much down to the fact that after a year or so Nvidia cards fall in to the driver dead pool.

To test this theory Hexus should put a 4Gb R9 290x up against the 8Gb version. The GTX780Ti is faster than a GTX1060 and both have 3Gb of VRAM. Many of the GTX 980's are a lot faster than the GTX1060 6Gb CAT.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...e-gtx-980-hof/

But the problem you are ignoring all the cards like the 8800GT 256MB. Within a year a 9600GT with half the shaders and double the VRAM was thrashing it. They were both the same generation of GPU.

ROTR is a Nvidia biased title,so when a GTX970 or RX470 is showing massively better minimums on ultra settings you know there is a problem. This is because devs are targetting 1GB,2GB or 4GB of VRAM and this is seen in the Steam statistics. Any game which runs well on 3GB of VRAM is most likely to be optimised towards the performance of cards with 2GB of VRAM.

I am sorry but it is somewhat optimistic to say the GTX1060 3GB will be OK for new titles for the next year when a GTX970 can beat it. Yet the GTX1060 6GB is way ahead.

These was some testing done back in September:

Plus some other testing from other sites has shown issues with the card.

Actually as DF said,get the GTX1060 6GB,which chimes in exactly with what I said. Guru3D said the same. In Hitman the GTX1060 6GB is 14% faster overall it appears,and it gets bigger as the resolution increases too. Remember,Nvidia says it should be a 5% difference.

Both DF and Guru3D show it drops down to slightly below a GTX970 in the game too.

The same problem with Rise of the Tombraider:

http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/art.../80/format/jpg





DF said there was stuttering for the 3GB card.











Guru3D is testing a pre-overclocked card with better cooling against the FE GTX1060 6GB.

The 3GB card is pointless for such a small saving - it will get worse and worse. Games are going to push even more VRAM over the next couple of years. In fact Deus Ex,seems to also push VRAM usage.

History is not on the side of VRAM gimped performance cards.

Personally it won't affect me(or people I know in real life as I will tell them why spending that extra is worth it),but it makes me feel sorry for people who get the impression it will be fine,as its their money which is being wasted as time progresses.

So I am not sure what the point of the GTX1060 3GB card:
1.)Not enough VRAM as it can get pushed even at 1080P in very intensive games(both 2016 games)
2.)Not enough VRAM meaning it limits your monitor upgrade choices if you want to get a higher resolution monitor
3.)Less cores
4.)Only £30 to £40 difference
5.)Probably less resale value and less re-use value for a secondary rig

The same goes with the RX470 which is now more like £190 to £200 too. You might as well get an RX480 8GB.

At least the 8800GT 512MB was 40% more expensive than a 8800GT 256MB.

The GTX1060 3GB is not massively cheaper than a GTX1060 6GB.

£30 to £40(or even £50) on a £200 card over two to three years is nothing.

Its even more hilarious that the GTX1050 will be a 4GB card too - millions of GTX970 and GTX980 cards have over 3GB of VRAM and on Steam its either 1GB,2GB or 4GB of VRAM too.

My prediction is people will argue on how 3GB is "enough" and then it will be forgotten about when the next cards are launched.

Now its got worse - some more tests have shown the card is hitting much lower framerates in Forza Horizon 3. Deus Ex is another one. That is like 4 to 5 major 2016 titles showing the 3GB is being saturated. Even with game modding,even many of the modders say 4GB of VRAM is useful and that is huge in many games.

So within two months of release,it is showing performance losses in games more than 10% which is not a good sign.

So what happens in one years time?? Two years time?

I wasn't wrong about the 8800GT 256MB either.

Even Digital Foundry said to basically spend the extra on a GTX1060 6GB.

Its one thing if you might want to play a Blizzard title since they don't tend to push VRAM massively and Nvidia does better in that(or maybe PS2) but for most of the cutting edge titles,they are obviously designed with the GTX970 and R9 290 4GB cards as a minimum in mind.

Remember,the GTX960 2GB itself was replaced in a short time by the 4GB version,so even the GTX960 is more likely to be a 4GB card.

If the cheaper GTX1060 was a 4GB card we would not be having this discussion - the reason the RX470 is competitive is probably the fact it has 33% percent more VRAM. The GTX1060 3GB is probably more like a RX480 in core speed.

I can't recommend any the GXT1050TI 4GB or GTX1060 3GB to anybody as everybody I know keeps cards for at least two years.

The GTX1050TI is not massively faster than my GTX960 which is already starting to struggle and the GTX1060 has an abnormal amount of VRAM no dev is going to really care about.

[Tunnah]

Ah wow some data, thanks CAT, this isn't the only place I have this discussion, and I've never had more than anecdotal evidence so this'll be useful.

As has been said, it's heartbreaking to think a person is going to buy a card that will be useless in a few years.

I personally don't get why people are so against the VRAM argument in the first place, I think it's because we're finally at a point in history where the card will run out of VRAM first, in the past it's always been the cards not been up to snuff in the grunt department

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ah wow some data, thanks CAT, this isn't the only place I have this discussion, and I've never had more than anecdotal evidence so this'll be useful.

As has been said, it's heartbreaking to think a person is going to buy a card that will be useless in a few years.

I personally don't get why people are so against the VRAM argument in the first place, I think it's because we're finally at a point in history where the card will run out of VRAM first, in the past it's always been the cards not been up to snuff in the grunt department

Its because the XBox360 and PS3 were very VRAM limited - they were meant to ship with 256MB originally and devs pushed them to have 512MB. But even 512MB was not a huge amount by PC terms if you included graphics RAM too. In fact it was considered one of the major limitations of the previous generation.The reason why the PS4 and XBox One have 8GB of RAM is because devs had been complaining for years about the RAM limitations of the previous consoles. 8GB was not far off what most PCs had,ie,5GB(4GB system RAM and 1GB graphics card) to 10GB(8GB system RAM and 2GB graphics card) in most PCs at the time.

In fact you can see how much money was spent on console optimisation during the last generation - Skyrim had texture streaming tech to get around the issues,and RAGE was trying to do something similar. It cost a decent amount of money I suspect.

Now,newer cross platform games,are not so bound by these RAM limitations as much. Hence devs have more leeway in pushing RAM requirements. In fact even the PS4 Neo has 9GB of total RAM now.

Its why I got a GTX960 4GB in the end - there was this article even last year showing how even with GTX960/R9 380 class cards,2GB was starting to become an issue:

https://www.computerbase.de/2015-12/...380-vram-test/

I also like to add mods to games,and this increases VRAM usage due to the nature of the mods.

Edit!!

Luckily the XBox One is more constrained by the ESRAM setup they use otherwise VRAM usage probably might be worse.

[HiSJAM]

Read the following before making a decision to buy MSI products:Google 'NBR GT72/GT72S and GT80/GT80S Owners GPU Upgrade Discussion' and 'overclockers MSI MXM Graphics upgrade?'.

[Myss_tree]

Maybe its just me ... graphics debate always seems excessively anal and you imagine that the best friend of the debaters is of the blow up kind. ;-)