An NVIDIA GTX 950 graphics card with no requirement for PCI-E power from the PSU – making this GPU the ideal upgrade for aging PCs.
Product on Review: GTX950-2G Graphics Card
Manufacturer & Sponsor: ASUS
Street Price: £120 GBP / $160 USD
The PSU (power supply unit) is often the device which acts as a hurdle for entry-level system upgrades or even an aging computer configuration, the overall wattage capacity dictates whether certain products can be installed. The graphics card is often the piece of hardware which many users will desire to upgrade but traditionally require extra wattage to permit usage. So when we heard that ASUS had designed a GTX 950 which ran directly from the motherboard PCI express lane as opposed to needing any power supplied from the PSU, we were especially intrigued.
In the spotlight today is the GTX950-2G – otherwise known as GTX 950 Unplugged. This graphics card seeks to liberate system builders who simply want to upgrade their graphics card but perhaps lack the extra juice from the PSU. As mentioned, this GTX 950 is able to operate from the PCI express lane and yet still delivers the same great 1080p performance as other GTX 950s – ASUS has also added in a dual-fan cooling solution which keeps noise and temperatures down.
ASUS on their GTX950-2G
ASUS GTX 950 is an astonishing graphics card – with distinctive white coloring. Featuring a dual fan cooling technology, ASUS GTX 950 delivers 2X greater airflow and 3X quieter performance. It also comes equipped with AUTO-EXTREME technology and Super Alloy Power II for premium quality and best reliability.With 14-days free premium license of customized ASUS GPU Tweak II and XSplit Gamecaster utility, ASUS GTX 950 enables you to squeeze every last drop of performance and lets you stream or record your gameplay instantly. It also comes with a World of Warships invite code for a free 15-day premium account and an exclusive Diana Cruiser. Claim your code and win some battles!
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical features surrounding the GTX950-2G – directly from ASUS:
Chipset
GeForce GTX 950
Digital max resolution
4096 X 2160
Core Clock
Default: Base/Boost clock: 1026 / 1190 MHz
OC Mode: Base/Boost clock: 1051 / 1228 MHz
Memory Clock
6610 MHz
Process Technology
28 nm
Memory Size
2GB
Memory Interface
128-bit
Card Bus
PCI-E 3.0
Memory Type
GDDR5
DirectX
12
[n]OpenGL
4.5
I/O
Dual-link DVI-I*1/HDMI*1/Display Port*1
Suggested Power requirement
75W – Via PCI Express Slot
Card Size
8.3 ” x 4.5 ” x 1.6 ” Inch
21 x 11.3 x4 Centimeter
GeForce GTX 950
Digital max resolution
4096 X 2160
Core Clock
Default: Base/Boost clock: 1026 / 1190 MHz
OC Mode: Base/Boost clock: 1051 / 1228 MHz
Memory Clock
6610 MHz
Process Technology
28 nm
Memory Size
2GB
Memory Interface
128-bit
Card Bus
PCI-E 3.0
Memory Type
GDDR5
DirectX
12
[n]OpenGL
4.5
I/O
Dual-link DVI-I*1/HDMI*1/Display Port*1
Suggested Power requirement
75W – Via PCI Express Slot
Card Size
8.3 ” x 4.5 ” x 1.6 ” Inch
21 x 11.3 x4 Centimeter
Detailed Look & Video Review
For this review we’ve produced a video review over on our YouTube channel which details all of the included features, and takes a close look at the PCB/cooling solution along with the addition of some gaming benchmarks. Please check out our video review or hit play on the video below:
Test Setup & Methodology
How we test graphics cards
Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphics card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and even out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and latest drivers so this does certainly need to be taken into consideration when viewing our testing results. Each game and benchmark is tested times with the lowest and highest scores omitted out of the 5 results and the average then taken from the three remaining to give us our final result for each resolution and setting used.
Hardware
With the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X79 setup to the very latest X99 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to a realistic, achievable 4GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB (4x4GB) of GDDR4 at 2666MHz and a 500GB SSD there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.
High End Graphics Cards on test:
ASUS GTX 950 Unplugged (Forceware 365.19)
GIGABYTE GTX 970 XTREME GAMING (Forceware 361.43)
ASUS MATRIX GTX 980Ti PLATINUM (Forceware 358.91)
ASUS STRIX GTX 980Ti DC3 OC (Forceware 353.30)
SAPPHIRE R9 Fury X (Catalyst 15.15)
XFX R9 390X Double Dissipation (Catalyst 15.15)
MSI R9 390X GAMING 8G (Catalyst 15.15)
NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti 6GB (Forceware 352.90)
ZOTAC GTX 970 AMP! EXTREME CORE(Forceware 344.75)
ZOTAC GTX 970 AMP! EXTREME(Forceware 344.75)
MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G(Forceware 344.75)
GIGABYTE G1 GAMING SOC GTX 970(Forceware 344.75)
ASUS STRIX GTX 970 4GB GDDR5(Forceware 340.60)
NVIDIA GTX 980 4GB GDDR5(Forceware 340.52)
SAPPHIRE TRI-X R9-290X 4GB GDDR5(Catalyst 14.3)
Special thanks go to Intel, Corsair, MSI and AOC for providing the extreme spec components used for our test bench:
Motherboard: MSI X99S GAMING 9 AC
CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition @ 4GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair LPX Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 2666MHz 16-17-17-35 C1
Power Supply – CORSAIR RM Series™ RM1000
Hard Drive – CORSAIR Force Series™ LX 512GB SATA 3 6Gb/s SSD
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H105 240mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Monitor – AOC 28″ 4K U2868 PQU
CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition @ 4GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair LPX Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 2666MHz 16-17-17-35 C1
Power Supply – CORSAIR RM Series™ RM1000
Hard Drive – CORSAIR Force Series™ LX 512GB SATA 3 6Gb/s SSD
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H105 240mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Monitor – AOC 28″ 4K U2868 PQU
Benchmarks
If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we have chosen:
Battlefield 4
Watchdogs
Company of Heroes 2
Thief
GRID: 2
Metro: Last Light
Watchdogs
Company of Heroes 2
Thief
GRID: 2
Metro: Last Light
We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included three of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:
Unigine: Valley
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike
Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…
Power, Temperatures, Acoustics
To test for power consumption we take a measurement from the plug socket. It is important to note that the figures below represent total system power use and not just the GPU. The CPU was always in a fixed state (4GHz overclock) so did not affect the additional power load when the GPU was placed under 100% load using Furmark which was ran for 15 minutes at which point a load reading was taken. Idle readings were taken 5 minutes after system boot to ensure any background services and applications had loaded.
Temperature
To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we would normally run Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained however we found that this throttled the card and resulted in spurious results. So we set Heaven running continuously for 20 minutes and used this as a temperature result.
Acoustics
There is very little noise emitted from the cooling fans when the card is being used for gaming – take a look and listen on our video.
Overclocking
In our overclocking efforts we managed to squeeze more performance out of our GTX 950 – bumping the GPU clock up by 200MHz and the memory clock from 1653MHz to 1813MHz. Modifying both these attributes helps to improve performance results.
3DMark FireStrike
Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is Futuremark’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.
Unigine Heaven 4.0
Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.
Unigine Valley
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.
Battlefield 4
Battlefield 4 is a 2013 first-person shooter video game developed by Swedish video game developer EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. It is a sequel to 2011’s Battlefield 3 and is perhaps currently the most popular online First Person Shooter for PC gamers. It has an extremely powerful gaming engine that will stress components more than most FPS titles available.
Watchdogs
Watch Dogs is a 2014 open world action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. Set within a fictionalized version of Chicago, Illinois, the single-player story follows a hacker and his efforts to seek revenge after the accidental death of his niece. The open world design lets players freely roam Chicago, which includes the urban city, open countryside, and slums. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. As such this is a very demanding game, especially when graphical options are turned up.
Thief
Thief is a stealth video game developed by the Canadian video game developer Eidos Montreal, and published by Square Enix. It is a revival of the cult classic Thief series of stealth games, of which it is the fourth game. Thief is set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Victorian, gothic, and steampunk aesthetics. Using a modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 it makes for a challenging game to pitch against our range of components.
Company of Heroes 2
Company of Heroes 2 is a real-time strategy video game developed by Relic Entertainment. It is the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2006 game Company of Heroes. As with the original Company of Heroes, the game is set in World War II but with the focus on the Eastern Front, with players primarily controlling the side of the Soviet Red Army during various stages of the Eastern Front, from Operation Barbarossa to the Battle of Berlin. Company of Heroes 2 runs on Relic Entertainment’s proprietary Essence 3.0 game engine and is extremely demanding of both CPU and GPU.
Metro Last Light
Metro: Last Light is a single-player post-apocalyptic-themed first-person shooter video game with stealth and survival horror elements, developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow, part of the universe of the novel Metro 2033 and its sequels, written by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The second of our FPS titles, it runs on the 4A gaming engine which again, has the capability to stress even the best GPU components.
GRID 2
Grid 2 (stylised as GRID 2 and known as Race Driver Grid 2 in Japan) is a racing video game developed and published by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008’s Race Driver: Grid. The game includes numerous real world locations and cities such as Paris. It also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility. It uses the EGO 3.0 engine which while not overly challenging, is representative of games of this genre.
Conclusion
The late arrival of GTX950-2G aka ‘GTX 950 Unplugged’ adds further value to the 1080p gaming segment which should be clearly evident from our analysis today.
The differential between this graphics card and other GTX 950s is the lack of any PCI express power connector. This distinguishing feature allows those with an aging computer system to still reap the benefits of a capable discreet graphics solution. The omission of a PCI express power connector and the significantly low power consumption of just 75W also means that system builders who are hitting the absolutely maximum values on their PSU can enjoy such graphics card too, because upgrading this type of product in such a scenario could mean a PSU upgrade is also mandatory – therefore GTX950-2G will alleviate a number of potential upgrade grievances.
Gamers can enjoy the same performance results with GTX950-2G as a reference GTX 950 would offer – most titles will run at 1080p with high detail presets at satisfying framerates. Since this card is entry-level and is specifically designed for the 1080p segment we deliberately tested this resolution; as highlighted, the GTX 950 is the next logical successor to the renowned GTX 750Ti. Those interested in wanting to squeeze even more performance out of this ASUS card will be pleased to know there is also headroom to overclock the GPU and memory clock speeds, which should assist with obtaining even higher framerates.
Some aftermarket coolers deliver on thermal performance but can be excessively noisy but we’re pleased to report the twin-fan configuration which ASUS have implemented on this card offers a good balance of low-noise and low-temperatures.
It’s difficult to identify any serious shortfalls with the ASUS GTX950-2G since it already builds on the success of the GTX 950 – the only which could be criticised is the physical design and styling. Although the card will pair up nicely with ASUS’ lineup of Z170 motherboards, configurations which are anything other than white/blue may spoilt an overall theme. So if for example you have a motherboard which has red or green heatsinks this card will look quite out of place, but such things may not even concern users who would simply rather focus on performance and functionality.
GTX950-2G arrives with a price-tag of £120 GBP / $160 USD, which places this card as one of the cheaper GTX 950s – great news for those wanting to bolster their 3D performance. Customers also benefit from a 2-year warranty with this card too, which is slightly more than some of the competition.
ASUS has brought to market an innovative graphics card in the GTX950-2G aka GTX 950 Unplugged. Not only is this GPU energy efficient but it also delivers practical solutions to a number of upgrade qualms.
VIDEO REVIEW – VORTEZ TV
Pros
+ Stylish design
+ Low-noise
+ Fairly low temperatures
+ Ideal for 1080p gaming
+ Doesn’t require PCI-E from PSU
+ Low power consumption
+ DirectX 12 ready
+ 2-years warranty
Cons
– None!
+ Stylish design
+ Low-noise
+ Fairly low temperatures
+ Ideal for 1080p gaming
+ Doesn’t require PCI-E from PSU
+ Low power consumption
+ DirectX 12 ready
+ 2-years warranty
Cons
– None!
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
