GIGABYTE GTX 1050 Ti OC Review

Armed with the much-loved WindForce cooling solution, the GTX 1050 Ti OC (GV-N105TOC-4GD) is a graphics card designed for 1080p gamers seeking the >60 fps sweetspot.

Product on Review: GTX 1050 Ti OC (GV-N105TOC-4GD)
Manufacturer & Sponsor: GIGABYTE
Street Price: £145 GBP / $150 USD

In the graphics card department, NVIDIA has the low-end covered with their new GTX 1050 and the mid-range is occupied by the GTX 1060, but what about in between? Enter the GTX 1050 Ti. The Ti variant was announced alongside the 1050 and still offers gamers the opportunity to take advantage of gaming at 1080p but should allow for even stronger performance. A boost in CUDA cores, texture units, VRAM and clock speeds paves the way for more frames per second in the latest triple A titles.

Today we focus our attention on the GIGABYTE camp and what they have to offer in the GTX 1050 Ti OC. As the name suggests, this graphics card arrives with a factory overclock – featuring a small boost to the GPU clock speed. GTX 1050 Ti OC also benefits from a small footprint allowing it to squeeze into small builds and its dependence on PCI-slot power means this could be a great upgrade for many with an aging PC.

About GIGABYTE

Founded in 1986, GIGABYTE is committed to providing top-notch solutions that “upgrade your life”. We are regarded as a pioneer in innovation with groundbreaking excitements such as Ultra Durable™ — a revolutionary technology that redefines the industry, WINDFORCE™ — exclusive heat dissipation design that builds for extreme performance, G1™ Gaming series—the perfect solutions for gamers and enthusiasts, P series — a powerful gaming laptop less than an inch thick, and BRIX series—a versatile mini-PC in the palm of your hand. GIGABYTE has continuously brought unique new ways of digital world and created marvelous products that empower you with meaningful and charming experiences.

Technical Specifications

Below are the technical specifications surrounding GTX 1050 Ti OC, supplied directly from GIGABYTE:

GPU
GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti
CUDA cores
768
Video Memory
4GB GDDR5
Memory Bus
128-bit
Engine Clock
Base: 1341 MHz
Boost:1455 MHz
Memory Clock
7 GHz
PCI Express
3.0
Display Outputs
DisplayPort 1.4
HDMI 2.0b
DL-DVI
Multi Display Capability
Triple Display
Recommended Power Supply
300W
Power Consumption
75W
DirectX
12 API feature level 12_1
OpenGL
4.5
Cooling
Dual 80mm Fan
Slot Size
Dual Slot
Supported OS
Windows 10 / 8 / 7
Card Length
191mm x 111mm
Accessories
User Manual

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

Taking Intel’s High-End Desktop platform, our hardware utilises the Intel X99 chipset. Combined with this we use the Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to a realistic and achievable 4GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB (4x4GB) of DDR4 at 2666MHz and a 750GB 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:
GIGABYTE 1050 Ti OC (NVIDIA 376.33)
ZOTAC GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition (NVIDIA 376.33)
ZOTAC GTX 1050 MINI (NVIDIA 375.57)
XFX RX 460 DD Edition (Crimson 16.9.2)

Special thanks go to Epiphan, Intel, Corsair, MSI and AOC for providing the extreme spec components used for our test bench:

Motherboard: MSI X99A Workstation
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 HX1050
Hard Drive – Samsung 840 EVO 750GB
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H105 240mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Monitor – AOC 28″ 4K U2879VF
Capture Card – Epiphan AV.io 4K

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’ve chosen:

DOOM (OpenGL 4.5 & Vulkan)
Total War: Warhammer
Rise of the Tomb Raider
HITMAN
DiRT Rally

To capture framerates we use a combination of in-game benchmark tools, FRAPS and PresentMon.

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
Futuremark 3DMark Time Spy

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 Heaven 4.0 which was ran for 20 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 set Heaven 4.0 running continuously for ~30 minutes recorded the peak/maximum GPU temperature.

Acoustics

Our graphics card uses twin 80mm cooling fans and during normal gaming usage operate at around 35-40% fan speed. As shown in our video review, this card is especially quiet under load. Click here to listen!

Overclocking

To overclock the GTX 1050 Ti OC we used the MSI Afterburner Tool since it gives extensive options for modifying the GPU and memory clock.

Overclocking the card was relatively easy and we were able to nudge up the frequencies to an admirable level. Our result took the GPU clock up to 1466MHz (1580MHz Boost) and modifying the memory clock up to 1752MHz. By tweaking both these elements of the card, we are able to tap into better 3D performance. Below is an example of how the overclock compares to the stock settings in Unigine Heaven 4.0.

DX12: 3DMark Time Spy

With its pure DirectX 12 engine, which supports new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, 3DMark Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

DX11: 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.

DX11: 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.

DX11: 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.

DX12: DOOM OpenGL 4.5

By default DOOM utilises an OpenGL 4.5 renderer, and is one of relatively few Windows PC titles to not use DirectX 12. It tests how well NVIDIA and AMD’s GPUs deal with a less mainstream approach, especially in regards to driver optimisations, and like all of id titles stretches graphics quality to the limit.

DX12: DOOM Vulkan

id have also released an optional Vulkan rendering path for DOOM. This API is a development of AMD’s Mantle low level which has been taken on board by the Kronos Group for implementation as the next generation of Open graphics APIs. Like DirectX 12 Vulkan is capable of Asynchronous Compute in specific configurations.

DX12: Total War: WARHAMMER

Total War: WARHAMMER is a pseudo Real-Time Strategy title which leverages DirectX 12 to render huge numbers of complex units on screen at any one time.

DX12: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Square Enix’s Rise of the Tomb Raider is the sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. An enormously challenging title graphically, the developers also released an optional DirectX 12 render path for Windows 10 users. Although it has undergone a number of iterations this rendering pathway notably doesn’t currently utilise the full capabilities of DirectX 12.

DX12: HITMAN

Yet another DirectX 12 title, 2016’s Hitman from Square Enix and developer IO Interactive has a more robust DirectX 12 implementation than Rise of the Tomb Raider. We’ve tested at a full range of resultions, from 1080p through to 4K, which provides a look at the impact of GPU speed and memory utilisation.

DX11: DiRT Rally

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of the graphics card. This figure is determined by finding the average FPS across all of the settings used in a particular benchmark(game) to give us an overall value.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Conclusion

We’ve now comfortably established that NVIDIA’s GTX 1050 is a component designated for the 1080p space. The Ti variant consolidates this by supplying an even stronger candidate for this resolution.

While GIGABYTE’s GTX 1050 Ti arrives in many different options offering varying ports, overclocks and fan quantity, the GV-N105TOC-4GD we’ve been looking at today is certainly worth some consideration. Not only is this among the cheaper of the GTX 1050 Ti graphics cards but it performs admirably in a range of DX11 and DX12 environments and does so while emitting low-noise and low-temperatures too.

Those wanting to achieve the 60 fps sweetspot will be satisfied by the performance coming from this GTX 1050 Ti OC. On some occasions, we even experienced up to 70 fps with the high detail preset enabled which is certainly encouraging for a low-end offering.

GIGABYTE has applied a factory overclock to the GPU clock on our GTX 1050 Ti which realises a 5% increase which is somewhat measly. In general, factory overclocked cards are usually given a 10-15% boost by rival partners and often the memory clock is modified too. However, our own investigation allowed us to apply at least 100MHz to both the GPU and memory clocks – demonstrating the extra headroom above the factory overclock.

What makes this card so appealing is the footprint and power attributes. The physical size and dimensions mean that small form factor computer cases are able to entertain this GPU and system builders wanting to keep things condensed and compact can feature this capable 1080p champion to their build. The omission of a PCI-Express connection and reliance on the PCI-Express slot for power alters things dramatically too because a 300W PSU is then the only mandatory component; this again is likely to mean a small form factor PSU can be installed.

As we mentioned this GTX 1050 Ti OC is among the cheaper of the lineup available with the Ti moniker and a boost to the GPU clock, arriving at a cost of £145 GBP / $150 USD. Ideal for gamers who use 1080p and require something qualified to deliver high detail too. The benefit of a 3-year warranty contributes to the overall package too, adding even more value.

GIGABYTE’s GTX 1050 Ti OC delivers some superb performance for 1080p gamers and arrives with a price-tag that even budget conscious builders can afford.

VIDEO REVIEW – VORTEZ TV

Pros
+ Small footprint
+ Powered by PCI Express slot
+ Low power consumption
+ Manually overclocks very well
+ Quiet & effective cooling
+ Great 1080p performance
+ DirectX 12 ready
+ One of the more affordable 1050 Ti cards

Cons
– No backplate
– Design isn’t the most visually pleasing

Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.