Why the controversy over the NVidia 1050 3GB?

[LightningZ71]

I mean, I get that it could potentially be confusing from a consumer standpoint with respect to fine grained performance comparing, but, is it really a big deal if:

It's priced between the 1050 2GB and the 1050ti 4GB
It's actually available on the shelf at something near MSRP

This card's existence is a direct result of the mining craze demolishing supplies of any card on the market that's got 4GB of VRAM or more due to most of the coins needing that much VRAM to be mined effectively. Any miner that's got an ounce of sense and wants to buy cards in bulk is going to do the first bit of research and realize that these cards have insufficient VRAM to be useful for mining and will be handicapped by reduced VRAM bandwidth. That means that, in a reasonable world, these cards will stay in the channel long enough for those of us that are looking for decent cards for 1080p gaming can find something that will be useful without destroying our wallets.

Is it an ideal gaming card? No. But, then again, NONE of the 1050 entries are either. The ti 4GB is a solid choice for 1080p gaming with sensible detail settings, but you aren't going to try and run 4K with it. This card is obviously NOT a Ti, nor is it advertised as having as much VRAM.

In most cases, it should be no worse than the 1050 2GB. In many cases, it should be a bit better. It's configuration justifies an MSRP that's a few tens of dollars above the 1050 2GB. If that's where it lands in the market, then I'm fine with it.

For me, it may very likely be the next card that I buy when I finally retire my i5-2400/ GT630-2GB-DDR3 rig later this year. It'll be a nice upgrade over what I've got and, hopefully, it won't break the bank.

 

[SPBHM]

reduced memory bandwidth, 96bits vs 128bits from the 2GB one... and the ROPs from 48 to 40

basically slower than a 2GB one if you don't hit vram limitations, and always slower than a 4GB one.
and it still keeps the same "1050" name? should be 1050SE or something

 

[LightningZ71]

Also, more CUDA Cores, More Texture units and higher core clocks than the vanilla 1050 2GB. There are situations where it will be measurably faster than the 1050 2GB.

I can't wait to see the actual benchmarks when they come out.

 

[Guru]

Because its completely different compared to the 1050 2GB. Considering Nvidia's -redacted- GPP and their lies and fraud, yet barely 2 weeks after canceling GPP, they are doing this! Where is the clearness and stuff they -redacted- on their GPP blog???

Profanity is not allowed in the tech forums.

Daveybrat
AT Moderator

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Hope they make a low profile version of this. Its the perfect 4K HTPC card.

But yes. The 96bit memory interface will hurt gaming. The question is how much?

 

[cbn]

This probably was released for 4K Netflix.

 

[dark zero]

reduced memory bandwidth, 96bits vs 128bits from the 2GB one... and the ROPs from 48 to 40

basically slower than a 2GB one if you don't hit vram limitations, and always slower than a 4GB one.
and it still keeps the same "1050" name? should be 1050SE or something

I would call it 1040.

Just like the infamous 1070Ti or the far worse GT 1030 DDR4 edition (that should be recalled GT 1010)

 

[Krteq]

This probably was released for 4K Netflix.

Netflix has no VRAM limitations. Intel and AMD can decode 4K UHD stream with even 2GB VRAM.

 

[crisium]

If the performance turns out to be about the same as 1050 2GB (other than VRAM limitations) then it's not the worst misnamed card ever. It's still a different configuration though.

640 Shaders and 32 ROPs @ 1455MHz (base boost) and 128-bit
vs
768 Shaders and 24 ROPs @ 1518MHz (base boost) and 96-bit

or
3GB has a 25% TFLOP or GT/s advantage
2GB has a 28% GP/s advantage
2GB has a 33% memory bandwidth advantage

So it's weird where the 3GB has significantly more FLOPs, but the performance-per-flop will be way down thanks to inferior pixel fillrate and memory bandwidth. A fair few games these days are very shader intensive and in these titles the 1050 3GB should be close to the 1050 Ti (it slightly beats it in raw FLOPS, though reduced ROPs will always hurt it). But in most other games it just might end up comparable to the 1050 2GB. Who knows.

As for naming, it's a combination of a naming scheme that leaves no room between vanilla and Ti, and Nvidia (and also AMD too btw) just not caring that much about consumers. At least having more VRAM in the name will make it clear it's a superior product. And I bet it will be somewhat better on average even ignoring VRAM since shaders are so important.

It's not the worst misnaming. It's better to release the faster card with the same name later... rather than have the slower card come out at the same time, or worse at a later date.

 

[cbn]

Netflix has no VRAM limitations. Intel and AMD can decode 4K UHD stream with even 2GB VRAM.

For whatever reason Nvidia states their cards need 3GB:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4583/~/4k-uhd-netflix-content-on-nvidia-gpus

 

[Krteq]

Yeah, that seems to be artificial limit (for obvious reasons).

 

[fire400]

how about it be called 1050MX?

remember geforce 460 Ti vs MX?