Review: MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X

Conclusion

...the cooler is well built, real-world boost frequencies are both high and stable, and it runs whisper-quiet at all times.

Nvidia has extended the reach of its latest-generation Pascal architecture with the release of the GP107 GPU. Built on a 14nm process and productised as the GeForce GTX 1050 or GTX 1050 Ti, the entry-level chip is well suited to 1080p gameplay and is best realised as a small, bus-powered graphics card that doesn't break the bank.

Strike those notes and GTX 1050 Ti makes perfect sense as a slot-in upgrade from CPU-integrated graphics, and we expect to see it featured prominently in budget OEM machines. The market for self-builders, however, is tightly contested, and there's very little room for higher-priced cards touting more elaborate coolers and a decent factory overclock.

MSI's GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X, at £170, struggles to find a happy medium. On the one hand, the cooler is well built, real-world boost frequencies are both high and stable, and it runs whisper-quiet at all times. Admirable attributes for any graphics card, yet these plus points are offset by a form factor that's larger than need be, an additional six-pin power requirement, and a price tag that's dangerously close to mid-range cards that are clearly a cut above.

Bottom line: the GTX 1050 Ti is an efficient entry-level GPU whose performance characteristics make it worthy of consideration only if priced below £150. For this reason alone, we'd encourage would-be buyers to divert their attention from MSI's Gaming X to the better-balanced GTX 1050 Ti 4G OC.

The Good		The Bad
Can play modern games at 1080p Decent overclocking potential Whisper quiet at all times Low power consumption		Requires a six-pin power cable Priced too close to GTX 1060/RX 470 Should an entry-level card be this big?

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The MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X graphics card will be available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Review: MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X

Conclusion

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