GTX 1050 Ti review compilation thread

[CA_Steve]

GTX 1050 Ti 4GB- In brief: great 1080p card for lighter weight games, heavier weight games will need to dial back quality levels. 1080p performance is ~35% faster than RX 460, 20% faster than GTX 960 and ~25% slower RX 470. 75W TDP, but OEM stock OC'ed cards may use yy-zzW at stress loads. DVI is digital only. DisplayPort is 1.2 certified and 1.3/1.4 ready as well as HDMI 2.0b compatible. No SLI.
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GTX 1050 Ti 4GB reviews:


Roundups:
hardwareLUXX (German) with Asus Strix, MSI Gaming X, Gigabyte G1 Gaming, and Zotac OC Edition.

Reviews with acoustic testing:

MSI GTX 1050 Ti GAMING X (8.94-9.06" length, 5.16" height, dual slot (1.38"), 6-pin PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Passive to 60C.
Tom's Hardware
Techpowerup
Guru3D
KitGuru
hardwareLUXX (German)
ComputerBase (German)

MSI GTX 1050 Ti OC(6.93" length, 5.16" height, dual slot (1.34"),no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Not passive at idle.
HT4U (German)

Palit GTX 1050 Ti StormX(6.69" length, xx" height, dual slot (xx"), no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Not passive at idle.
ComputerBase (German)

Palit GTX 1050 Ti KalmX(7.2-7.28" length, 5.39-6.1" height (hmm), dual slot (1.42"), no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Passive design - no fans. Needs some directed airflow.
ComputerBase (German)
ithardware (Polish)
Guru3D
KitGuru
Tom's Hardware
Techpowerup

EVGA GTX 1050 Ti SC(6.02" length, xx" height, dual slot (xx"), no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Not passive at idle.
hardwareLUXX (German)
Hexus

Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Mini(5.75" length, xx" height, dual slot (xx"), no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Not passive at idle.
hardwareLUXX (German)

Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC(6.02" length, xx" height, dual slot (xx"), no PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Not passive at idle.
hardwareLUXX (German)

Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti G1 Gaming(8.62-8.66" length, 4.72" height, dual slot (xx"), 6-pin PEG. 1 DP, 3 HDMI, 1 Dual-link DVI). Passive at idle up to 60C.
Techpowerup
Guru3D
hardwareLUXX (German)

Asus Strix GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition(9.45-9.53" length, 5.12" height, dual slot (xx"), 6-pin PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 2 Dual-link DVI). Passive at idle up to 55-60C.
hardwareLUXX (German)
KitGuru

Asus Strix GTX 1050 Ti (9.45" length, xx" height, dual slot (xx"), 6-pin PEG. 1 DP, 1 HDMI, 2 Dual-link DVI). Passive at idle up to 60C.
ComputerBase (German)

[CA_Steve]

First reviews are up.

[CA_Steve]

MSI Gaming X @ KitGuru added.

[CA_Steve]

Gigabyte G1 Gaming @ Techpowerup added.

[BSim500]

So which is the quietest single-fan 1050Ti? Are there any decent acoustic focussed reviews that don't involve 30-40db noise floor tests and aren't obsessed with only reviewing the dual-fan MSI Gaming versions? Any reviews which spell out exactly what the min fan % / rpm is permitted in MSI Afterburner? Any reviews which can be bothered to mention stuff like nearly all the single fan versions use those cheap & nasty 2-pin fans (which often come with higher than normal BIOS locked min fan speed control) except for the Gigabyte D5 (4-pin with fan off), which no-one can be bothered to review?

It's cards like this that are just born for a low-powered, silent HTPC that are where SPCR's own missing reviews are sorely needed the most.

[Abula]

So which is the quietest single-fan 1050Ti? Are there any decent acoustic focussed reviews that don't involve 30-40db noise floor tests and aren't obsessed with only reviewing the dual-fan MSI Gaming versions? Any reviews which spell out exactly what the min fan % / rpm is permitted in MSI Afterburner? Any reviews which can be bothered to mention stuff like nearly all the single fan versions use those cheap & nasty 2-pin fans (which often come with higher than normal BIOS locked min fan speed control) except for the Gigabyte D5 (4-pin with fan off), which no-one can be bothered to review?

It's cards like this that are just born for a low-powered, silent HTPC that are where SPCR's own missing reviews are sorely needed the most.

If this are similar to what the GTX750Ti were, it shouldnt matter much, my 750Ti never went over 70C no matter the load, and usually it hang below 65C on long time gaming, i honestly never could hear the MSI GTX750Ti in my HTPC even with madvr and lav filters, even though it was underpowered for it, and was loaded on most movies, it always remain inaudible to me. This low power GPUs are very quiet, specially because the heatsinks dont need to do as much as higher end cards, thus allowing very quiet operation. If i were buying today one low power GPU, i would continue with MSI, they have been very good over the past 3 gens on all models.

[Smanci]

If this are similar to what the GTX750Ti were, it shouldnt matter much, my 750Ti never went over 70C no matter the load, and usually it hang below 65C on long time gaming, i honestly never could hear the MSI GTX750Ti in my HTPC even with madvr and lav filters, even though it was underpowered for it, and was loaded on most movies, it always remain inaudible to me. This low power GPUs are very quiet, specially because the heatsinks dont need to do as much as higher end cards, thus allowing very quiet operation. If i were buying today one low power GPU, i would continue with MSI, they have been very good over the past 3 gens on all models.

Oh no, many, especially those from EVGA and Gigabyte were annoyingly noisy; idle fan speeds hovered at ~1500RPM so they were louder than the quieter 120W cards.

I've been eyeing these short models, too, but seems like there currently are no decent reviews available.

[BSim500]

If this are similar to what the GTX750Ti were, it shouldnt matter much, my 750Ti never went over 70C no matter the load, and usually it hang below 65C on long time gaming, i honestly never could hear the MSI GTX750Ti in my HTPC even with madvr and lav filters, even though it was underpowered for it, and was loaded on most movies, it always remain inaudible to me. This low power GPUs are very quiet, specially because the heatsinks dont need to do as much as higher end cards, thus allowing very quiet operation. If i were buying today one low power GPU, i would continue with MSI, they have been very good over the past 3 gens on all models.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, my experience with the 750's was mixed. Eg, the EVGA 750Ti Mini-ITX was noisy due to locking in a 42% min fan speed into the BIOS that couldn't be changed. At least two MSI 1050 Ti (non Gaming) reviews also commented on how "clicky" it sounds (maybe they've changed the fan since the 750Ti?):-

- MSI. 2-pin fan. Legitreviews shows a min 35% fan speed, no zero rpm when idle and complained of a "clicky" sound ("made a slight ticking sound when ramping up and down the fan curve profile as the cards temperature changed"). Hothardware agreed "the MSI cards did emit some ticking / clicking sounds as the fans jumped between speeds". No idea if fan can be manually slowed.

- EVGA. 2-pin fan. Has fan speeds of 30% idle / 35% load, but no zero rpm when idle. If the fan is the same as the GTX 1060 SC (other than 2-pin vs 4-pin), then I can guess that translates to 800-900rpm, which should be quiet for a 9cm fan but all tests done so far are in 30-40db environments. No idea if it can be manually slowed. Hexus measured it at 31db with a 30db noise floor which is also not very helpful.

- Gigabyte D5. 4-pin fan. Zero rpm when idle. Looks promising, but there are literally zero reviews (professional or amateur) anywhere on the web, so it's anybody's guess.

- Inno3D Compact. 2-pin fan. No zero rpm when idle. As Gigabyte, no reviews anywhere.

- Zotac. 2-pin fan, no zero rpm when idle. LegitReviews shows a high 45% min fan speed (1300rpm idle / 1500rpm load). Same 42db "measured" as MSI doesn't sound particularly quiet to me (but again - 40db noise floor).

^ It's precisely things like this that are frustrating when "buying blind" due to the lack of reviews that actually know what "how to test a very quiet card properly" means. Everyone is reviewing the premium MSI Gaming (Twin Frozr), and yet that's so over-priced for the 1050's that for only +25% more everyone ends up buying the +60% faster GTX 1060 3GB instead (which is fast, cool and quiet, but also huge and heavy (+28cm & +1kg). And the cards that people want reviews on (cheaper single-fan) are the ones people aren't reviewing...

Does anyone reading this own the single fan EVGA or Gigabyte D5 1050 Ti's? If so, how are you finding them?

[CA_Steve]

1) The sad truth is almost all sites only review the free stuff sent to them by manufacturers. Very few sites generate enough revenue to have a budget to buy the stuff they might want to review.

So, if you were the MSI/Asus/etc marketing guy, would you send out the overclocked cards with bling (and higher profit margins) or the baseline/cheaper cards? The former provides more tout (fastest card, quietest card, etc..) and brand bump than the vanilla cards.


2)...as for the 3GB GTX 1060, just say no.

3) Are you trying to cram the gfx card into a space limited case? That's the sole reason why I'd consider the shorter cards.

[BSim500]

You certainly have a point, Steve, as to why they send only high-end stuff and I can understand the economics behind it. On the flip-side, I know people who are giving up reading tech sites altogether when it's a case of 20x sites all measuring exactly the same irrelevancies for only 1x single product variant in exactly the same 7x AAA games, so I'd also question the "wisdom" of a business model that becomes so overly-homogenised it no longer gives people a reason to read it. Eg, only 1 site (pcgamer.com) out of about 16 sites could be bothered to test low-end RX460 / GTX 950 / 1050 cards as most people play them in reality (Med/High settings at 50-70fps, not just "Ultra" only at 15-40fps). So to me, there's a certain onus on review sites to use common sense and actively request things that better fit the target markets. To me, relevancy trumps the illusion of "consistency" (ie, people building silent / compact PC's are disproportionately more likely to choose lower powered cards and be more interested in noise, whereas someone looking for GTX 1080 performance and budget really doesn't care about being able to compare $600 vs $150 cards in an easily comparable way and vice-versa). That's what made SPCR stand out from the crowd and was the first in line for "go to" reviews on pretty much any component with moving parts (PSU, GPU, CPU cooler, case fans, HDD, etc).

At the moment I have a Micro-ATX tower and a bigger card up to 30cm length / 14cm width of a Twin Frozr will easily fit, but I was thinking more about buying small now to keep my options open for a future M-ITX build (I mean in a genuinely small ITX case, not the giant cube stuff whose footprint's end up +20-30% bigger than half the M-ATX towers they're trying to "downsize" from). Honestly though, the "coverage" is that bad I'm thinking about just giving up and sticking with a M-ATX tower and Twin Frozr cards.

[quest_for_silence]

- Zotac. 2-pin fan, no zero rpm when idle. LegitReviews shows a high 45% min fan speed. Same 42db "measured" as MSI doesn't sound particularly quiet to me (but again - 40db noise floor). No idea if it can be manually slowed.

TweakPC (german).
HardwareLuxx (german, along with EVGA SC)

Please also note that the D5 should NOT be a mini/ITX-class card, it should actually be slightly longer (3cm more than EVGA/Inno3D/Zotac), like the MSI/ZOTAC OC baseline models (for instance, the Palit Storm X should be ~1cm shorter than the D5 length).

[BSim500]

TweakPC (german).
HardwareLuxx (german, along with EVGA SC)

Thanks for the links, quest_for_silence. Unfortunately the reviews contradict each other again. One says the Zotac is "whisper quiet" at 37db (their apparent noise floor), and the other shows it has a 3200rpm fan that can't physically run any slower than 1300rpm min (presumably a 12v fan already running at 5v at 1300/3200rpm) and ramps up to 1500rpm (5.5v?) under load. Another example of bad design (a 2000rpm @ 12v fan would have been better allowing for 850-1100rpm idle at 5-7v).

The more I read, the more I just decide to give up on junk 2-pin +3000rpm fans that can't be manually overridden in MSI Afterburner. As Smanci said above, it's ridiculous that single-fan 75w cards are consistently louder than 120w cards due to "cheapening out" on 2-pin fans whilst demanding a price premium for not doing something better. Thanks anyway.

[Smanci]

There's of course this if Arctic Cooling confirm compatibility with 1050. Not exactly a compact solution widthwise but should fit a bunch of small sub-20L cases.

[BSim500]

There's of course this if Arctic Cooling confirm compatibility with 1050. Not exactly a compact solution but should fit a bunch of small sub-20L cases.

If that's the Accelero Mono, it takes up 3 slots rather than 2 (and ends up 90% of the price of a GTX 1060). To be honest even though I don't need the horsepower, I'm seriously thinking about writing off the GTX 1050 Ti's completely after reading this review of the MSI 1060 Gaming. 62c GPU temps, low VRAM & VRM temps, 800rpm fan speeds maxed out (half that of some 1050 fans when idling), only 25% more expensive (3GB version) than the 1050 Ti MSI Gaming, and 1,000x less bullsh*t in terms of hours wasted researching basic functionality that every sub 75w 2016 card should have by default. Another single-fan option for the same money could be the 3GB EVGA GTX 1060 SC and just nudge the Power Target down a notch. According to Toms review, even knocking it all the way down to 50% (turning it into a 60w card), it still maintains 1500Mhz clocks and loses only 20% performance, which is seriously impressive. (Or for 80% PT, 95-96% performance in a "90w" card).

Thanks for your help though guys.

Edit: And just to highlight how badly SPCR reviews are needed for this stuff, the MSI 1060 Gaming gets "40db" in HardwareLux review (due to high noise floor), whilst the same card gets only 28-29db at Toms and TechPowerUp with a 23-25db noise floor.

[CraigB]

There's of course this if Arctic Cooling confirm compatibility with 1050. Not exactly a compact solution widthwise but should fit a bunch of small sub-20L cases.

It fits on my GTX 1050ti.

Craig

[adfhg]

Has anyone got any further info on what of the many 1050/1050 TIs are quietest? I've not been able to find out, but google brought me to this thread, where it seemed like people interested in knowing might be likely to congregate.

[quest_for_silence]

Has anyone got any further info on what of the many 1050/1050 TIs are quietest?

It's a 75W card: pick the cheapest, slap an Arctic Cooling Accelero S3 (or even a larger cooler) on it, then live long and prosper, sorry, silent.

[Hrafn]

Has anyone got any further info on what of the many 1050/1050 TIs are quietest? I've not been able to find out, but google brought me to this thread, where it seemed like people interested in knowing might be likely to congregate.

Head-to-head comparison between the Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti G1 Gaming 4 GB, MSI GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X 4 GB & MSI GTX 1050 Gaming X 2 GB on Techpowerup (above & in the 1050 thread) suggest that they're equally quiet. Reviewstudio (here: http://www.reviewstudio.net/2441-asus-g ... g-solution ) suggests that the ASUS GTX 1050 Ti Strix OC is as quiet, and slightly cooler than the MSI Ti (but quite a bit more expensive, a bit less OCed and currently only available in Europe). Beyond that, head-to-head comparisons of dual-fan/semi-passive cards aren't that common.

[adfhg]

Thanks for that info. Gratefully appreciated.

[CA_Steve]

Gigabyte G1 Gaming @ Guru3D added.

** Small note - recent improvements to our test environment now allow us to measure with starting ambient threshold of 29~30 dBA.

Just wanted to highlight this ~1dB improvement as it'll affect all past load results near the floor. So, while the Gigabyte looks to be 2dB better in load than the MSI 1050 Ti Gaming X, it's gonna be closer to 1dB.

[Hrafn]

This Hardwareluxx review (in German) provides a head-to-head comparison of the 2-fan ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and Zotac 1050 Ti cards (also lists the EVGA 1050 Ti SC on the comparison graphs).

[CA_Steve]

This Hardwareluxx review (in German) provides a head-to-head comparison of the 2-fan ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and Zotac 1050 Ti cards (also lists the EVGA 1050 Ti SC on the comparison graphs).

added.

[CA_Steve]

MSI Gaming X and Asus Strix (not OC Edition) @ ComputerBase added.

[Abula]

In case someone is eyeballing 1050Tis, Palit has just release a passive version,

Palit releases the Silent 0dB GeForce GTX1050 Ti KalmX

[CA_Steve]

In case someone is eyeballing 1050Tis, Palit has just release a passive version,

Palit releases the Silent 0dB GeForce GTX1050 Ti KalmX

Glad they made it - although with 75W TDP, I bet it'll require some directed air to stay under the throttle limit.

[VERiON]

Not a review unfortunately, but I've spend decent amount of time comparing low end (cheap) 1050 - and it looks like this Gigabyte GV-N1050OC-2GD is the way to go (at least for me).

I was looking for confirmation in user reviews if with this card:
- there is no additional power connection (only PCI-E)
- fans stay off if under 50'C (not that pesky 2-pin fan as with single fan versions)
- has beefier heatsink than single fan versions

All above checks out.

Of course "users" reviews are not the best source of info, but at least it's some kind of confirmation. Of course all of them are saying that it is quiet... but we all know that it means nothing

---

It looks like "budget" version of faster OC/GAMING versions - and it costs on par with single fan versions. And that is for me the main reason to buy 1050, it has to be significantly cheaper than 1060.

[CA_Steve]

Palit KalmX @ ComputerBase added.

[Abula]

Palit KalmX @ ComputerBase added.

Interesting review, seems with some case fans the card perform fairly well.

[shosiu]

Another review of KalmX (in Polish): http://ithardware.pl/testyirecenzje/tes ... -1940.html

[CA_Steve]

Another review of KalmX (in Polish): http://ithardware.pl/testyirecenzje/tes ... -1940.html

Welcome to SPCR.

Added.