ASUS GeForce GTX 950 STRIX Graphics Card Review

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] Some 18 months after the launch of the first-gen Maxwell card, GeForce GTX 750 Ti, we're introduced to its successor: GeForce GTX 950. While the GTX 750 Ti impressed us with its ability to deliver solid 1080p game performance without the use of a power connector, the GTX 950's much-improved performance couldn't afford the same design. A bummer, but one that the card manages to make up for. As has become a theme with mid-range and lower parts, NVIDIA is touting its GTX 950 as being an ideal choice for MOBA gamers who demand excellent performance and don't want to break the bank. Fortunately, that latter goal isn't too hard to pull off thanks to the very nature of most MOBA games - they're isometric, limit what you can see, don't usually strive for realism, and thus run quite well even on older cards. With its GTX 950 launch, though, NVIDIA wants to draw attention to the fact that a card like this one could dramatically reduce latency in MOBAs and other games. It's not just about framerates, but also how quickly clicks will result in an action ingame. The video below explains the effect well. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZv1ZgDxBSY For those who can't view the video (or don't want to), NVIDIA shows a click made with the GTX 650 taking 107ms to register the action on the screen, while the value drops to less than half for the GTX 950. While it's obvious that a faster graphics card is going to deliver smoother and more timely frames, there's more to it than that here. NVIDIA's GeForce Experience suite allows gamers to optimize their games with one click, and within that click can be many different ingame (sometimes even unofficial) settings that are tweaked. Coupled with this and the GTX 950's architectural design, the graphics pipeline is more optimized to both increase performance and reduce latencies, ultimately giving us the result that NVIDIA shows off in the video. Considering the article has just begun, there's been a fair bit of MOBA talk. While NVIDIA's targeting the genre with its GTX 950, that's just because the card can act like a relative powerhouse when it comes to many of the titles found in it. Ultimately, the GTX 950 is designed to offer an excellent 1080p experience for the card's $159 price point. Does it deliver? We'll soon find out. First, let's take a look at the GTX 950 iteration that hit our doorstep: ASUS' STRIX edition. It's somewhat appropriate that this is the model we received as both the GTX 960 and GTX 970 we reviewed for launch were also STRIX cards. This STRIX model looks similar to the others, and carries with it similar goals. At the forefront, that includes 3x quieter operation, and if loads are really light, 0dB operation. Further perks include 5-phase Super Alloy Power II, a fancy way of saying the card uses very high-quality components, and GPU Tweak II, a performance tweaker that bundles in Xsplit Gamecaster. Before we go further, here's a roundup of specs for NVIDIA's latest GeForce series, along with the last-gen GTX 750 Ti as it's in effect the predecessor to the GTX 950. NVIDIA GeForce Series Cores Core MHz Memory Mem MHz Mem Bus TDP GeForce GTX TITAN X 3072 1000 12288MB 7000 384-bit 250W GeForce GTX 980 Ti 2816 1000 6144MB 7000 384-bit 250W GeForce GTX 980 2048 1126 4096MB 7000 256-bit 165W GeForce GTX 970 1664 1050 4096MB 7000 256-bit 145W GeForce GTX 960 1024 1126 2048MB 7010 128-bit 120W GeForce GTX 950 768 1024 2048MB 6600 128-bit 90W GeForce GTX 750 Ti 640 1020 2048MB 5400 128-bit 60W Being built on the second-gen Maxwell architecture, the GTX 950 stands to be much better than the GTX 750 Ti even if the specs were kept exact. But to give things a further boost, we see an increase to the cores as well as to the memory speed. Both cards come equipped with a 128-bit memory bus. As the lowest-end card to come out 11 months after the initial second-gen Maxwell cards, it's not too hard to surmise what it will be capable of even before we get into testing. Once again, "excellent 1080p gaming". ASUS' STRIX edition GTX 950 includes a total of four ports, including two DVI, a DisplayPort, and an HDMI port. In the first shot in the slide above, you can see that unlike the GTX 750 Ti, the GTX 950 supports SLI - a nice perk, especially if you are a MOBA gamer who wants to make the jump to the "sweet spot" 1440p resolution by simply buying a second card rather than a singular higher-end one. STRIX emphasizes effective cooling, and shots above highlight that well. Looking at the card top-down, it's easy to see that ASUS tried to give this card as much breathing-room as possible. It has two mammoth heatpipes coming out the top, and fins running along the entire surface. Also seen in these shots is the singular 6-pin power connector the card requires. Remember how GPUs of this price point used to look? Yeah - I'm sure glad the times have changed that. This STRIX card looks great and will enhance any PC it's installed into. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Test System & Methodology] At Techgage, we strive to make sure our results are as accurate as possible. Our testing is rigorous and time-consuming, but we feel the effort is worth it. In an attempt to leave no question unanswered, this page contains not only our test-bed specifications, but also a detailed look at how we conduct our testing. Our Graphics Card Test Machine. The below table lists our testing machine's hardware, which remains unchanged throughout all GPU testing, minus the GPU. Each card used for comparison is also listed here, along with the driver version used. Graphics Card Test System Processors Intel Core i7-4960X - Six-Core @ 4.50GHz Motherboard ASUS P9X79-E WS Memory Kingston HyperX Beast 32GB (4x8GB) - DDR3-2133 11-12-11 Graphics AMD Radeon R9 280X 2GB - Catalyst 13.12 AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB (MSI Twin Frozr IV) – Catalyst 14.30 AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB - Catalyst 13.12 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB - GeForce 334.89 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB - GeForce 340.52 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB - GeForce 331.93 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB - GeForce 331.93 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 2GB (ASUS STRIX) - GeForce 355.65 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB (EVGA SuperSC) - GeForce 350.12 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB (ASUS STRIX) - GeForce 344.11 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB - GeForce 344.07 Audio Onboard Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Power Supply Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1300W Chassis Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full-Tower Cooling Thermaltake WATER3.0 Extreme Liquid Cooler Displays ASUS PB278Q 27" 2560x1440 Dell P2210H 22" 1920x1080 x 3 Et cetera Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Important Note: EVGA's GTX 960 SuperSC was tested using a different motherboard (ASUS X99-DELUXE) and processor (Intel Core i7-5960X, overclocked to 4GHz). We don't ordinarily change test platforms without retesting everything, but this is a special case, and overall, performance is extremely similar between the two platforms (based on 3DMark results). Once Windows 10 is released, and with stable graphics drivers, we will be performing a GPU test suite overhaul and retest all cards. Notes About Our High-end System The goal of our performance content is to show you as accurately as possible how one product compares to another - after all, you're coming to us for advice, so we want to make sure we're giving you the best possible information. Typically, one major step we take in ensuring that our performance results are accurate is to make sure that our test systems are void of all possible bottlenecks, so for that, high-end components must be used. In the case of our graphics card test system, the processor chosen has six-cores and is overclocked far beyond reference clocks. Most games nowadays are not heavily CPU-bound, but by using such a chip, we feel that we completely rule it out as a potential bottleneck. The same can be said for the use of an SSD (as opposed to latency-ridden mechanical storage), and even our memory, which is clocked at the comfortable speed of DDR3-2133. Why this matters to you: Our test PC is high-end, and it's very likely that you'd encounter a bottleneck quicker than us. Our goals are to rid all possible bottlenecks, whereas yours is to build the PC you need. In our case, we need to go overboard to attain as accurate a representation of a graphic card's performance as possible. If your PC has at least a modern (~2-years-old) quad-core or better processor, and at least 8GB of fast memory (DDR3-1866+), that chances of you running into a bottleneck with today's hottest game is admittedly low. If you're using lower-end gear, you can absolutely expect that the rest of your system could be a bottleneck. It should be noted, though, that if you're seeking out a lower-end graphics card, the importance of a bottleneck would of course be lessened. Unfortunately, we're not able to test a single card on multiple PC configurations; each single card we test takes at least 3 hours to test, with another 2 hours added on for each additional resolution, and at least another 1~2 hours for our Best Playable results (for up to 11 hours of mostly hands-on testing for a high-end model). Please bear all of this in mind. If you're unsure if your PC could prove to be a bottleneck, our comments section exists for such questions. When preparing our test-beds for any type of performance testing, we follow these guidelines: General Guidelines No power-saving options are enabled in the motherboard's BIOS. No virus scanner or firewall is installed. The OS is kept clean; no scrap files are left in between runs. Machine has proper airflow and the room temperature is 80°F (27°C) or less. To aid with the goal of keeping accurate and repeatable results, we alter certain services in Windows 7 from starting up at boot. This is due to the fact that these services have the tendency to start up in the background without notice, potentially causing inaccurate test results. For example, disabling "Windows Search" turns off the OS' indexing which...

ASUS GeForce GTX 950 STRIX Graphics Card Review

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Rob Williams