NVIDIA unveils affordable GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti gaming cards starting at $109
When it comes to shopping for PC gaming hardware, there are often three types of consumers -- hardcore, budget, and those that fall in between. Hardcore gamers will spend massive amounts of money to get the absolute best performance. Budget gamers, however, aim for respectable specifications at affordable prices.
If you fall into the budget category, today, NVIDIA announces two new graphics cards that will make you very excited -- GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti. While neither card is top of the line, they should be able to achieve solid performance at 1080p. Best of all? The 1050 starts at a super-low $109.
"We're adding two new gaming GPUs to our award-winning lineup of NVIDIA-Pascal based GPUs -- the GeForce GTX 1050, starting at $109, and the GTXD 1050 Ti, starting at $139. Both will let you play your favorite games at a smooth 60 frames-per-second. Built on the same Pascal architecture as the most advanced GPUs in the world, the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti let new PC gamers discover why GeForce delivers the best gaming experiences. These GPUs are a great choice for new gamers", says Justn Walker, Product Manager for GeForce desktop GPUs, NVIDIA.
Walker further says, "out of the box the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti are both blazing fast, with the GTX 1050 Ti on average 40 percent faster and more than 128 percent more power efficient than the closest competitive product at stock speeds, demonstrating again the prowess of our Pascal architecture and GeForce GTX lineup. And upgrading to the GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti couldn't be any easier. Neither need an external power connector. Yet both deliver unheard of levels of performance and power efficiency for this class of product. Just plug in the card, install our GeForce Experience software, click a button to optimize game settings and game on".
NVIDIA shares some notable specifications below. You can check out the full specs here.
| Card | GeForce GTX 1050 Ti | GeForce GTX 1050 |
| GPU Architecture | Pascal | Pascal |
| NVIDIA CUDA Cores | 768 | 640 |
| Memory | 4GB GDDR5 (128-bit) | 2GB GDDR5 (128-bit) |
| Memory Speed | 7 Gbps | 7 Gbps |
| Boost Clock (Relative) | 1.3x | 1.3x |
| Boost Clock (Actual) | 1392 MHz | 1455 MHz |
If you are interested in purchasing either the GeForce GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti, you can get them in one week on October 25, 2016. There will be cards available from popular manufacturers such as ASUS, EVGA, PALIT, and MSI.
The question, however, is which one should you buy? Only you can answer that question. With that said, the additional $30 gets you double the memory, more cores, and overall better performance. If you can swing it, the extra money for the Ti is likely worthwhile.