EVGA GTX 1050 SC vs EVGA GTX 1050 Ti (not SC)

BlueCat57

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Apr 7, 2009
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I was planning on purchasing the GTX 1050 SC when it hit $100 during the Christmas sales, but I can get a GTX 1050 Ti today for $115 after rebate.

I can see three differences between the cards (SC vs Ti):
1. 2GB vs 4GB
2. Core Clock 1417 vs 1290
3. CUDA Cores 640 vs 768

Which specifications matter most for playability?

I play exclusively online games, have a G3258 CPU and plan to use the card for a couple of years possibly past a CPU and Windows 10 upgrade. The $15 difference is inconsequential in my decision.

I checked the other threads on the subject of card comparisons but wasn't able to determine the answer.
 
1. Look at techpowerups reviews

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Ti_Gaming_X/32.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Gaming_X/32.html

Please do yourself a favor and save up a little more money to get something like the GTX 1050 Ti or maybe the RX 470 - it will make a huge difference, no matter which games you play.

Personally, at 1080p, I'd save a bit more for the $195 1060 3GB

BTW, when including "system specs", the most important is monitor resolution.

2. The SC series is one I generally recommend against. Historically, the SC series has included a reference PCB while then competition from Asyus, MSI and Gigabyte usually include custom PCBs with beefed up componentry.
 
While nVidia has long had clear edge from the x70 series on up, they have extended that dominance down to the x60 with this generation... but nVidia has not made any inroads below that, at least to date, and AMD still rules in all price / performance niche's from $175 and under.
 
The 1050ti is stronger than the 1050 by 20% or so.

Card model is pretty much irrelevant , any 1050ti will perform better than any 1050 non matter how much its overclocked.

For $15 more buy the ti, its as simple as that.
 
Thank you for you input. I chose the GTX 1050 Ti at $115. I did buy my other child a GTX 1060 for $170 from the Amazon Gold Box Deals on Black Friday. I usually try to avoid "price creep" and am into "instant gratification" when buying computer parts. The $150 was just too much more to go for the RX470.

I am still curious about which specification is most important:

Memory

Core Clock

CUDA Cores

I believe discussing these specifications would be informative to others that find this thread since they will generally be novice or casual gamers who are looking at the low end of the spectrum.

I read several articles that indicated that the "normal" price difference between the 2GB 1050 and the 4GB 1050Ti made the Ti not worth the difference. But why?

Since in my case the difference was not "normal" and I hadn't seen any rebates on the SC and it hadn't dropped to $100, I choose the Ti. If it wasn't for the rebate I would have waited longer to buy a card.

Thank you for your responses. I'll close the thread out a bit later to see if any discussion on which spec is most important takes place.
 
The amount of vram relatively will make the least actual performance difference apart from the fact that 2gb vram will limit you to low or medium quality textures at 1080p whereas 4gb vram will let you run high quality textures.
I wouldn't recommend any 2gb card nowadays unless budget is really really tight.

Core clock is important & will be performance relative , you're missing that the 1050sc only boosts to 1450mhz though & the 1050ti can boost to 1392.

That 60mhz max difference will not even come close to making a difference when the 1050ti has close to 20% more cuda cores which is where the real performance lies.

The 1050 is the equivalent of the old gtx 950 , the 1050ti is the equivalent of the old 960 if you were to compare to older cards.

Nvidias naming conventions are confusing & somewhat sketchy IMO in all honesty, whether its a deliberate attempt to confuse the consumer is up for debate.
 


Almost

perfrel_1920_1080.png


As far as overclocking the Ti also does better:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Ti_Gaming_X/30.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Gaming_X/30.html

Differences in overclocking generally are important to consider when comparing AMD cards and nVidia cards as the latter usually has about twice the OC headroom as AMD as compared to the reference models but the differences are not as start once we get down to the 1050 / 1050 Ti vs 470

For the MSI 1050 Ti Gaming X, performance gained from overclocking is 8.4% on top of a factory OC of 5.0%
For the MSI 1050 Gaming X, performance gained from overclocking is 7.7% on top of a factory OC of 4.7%
For the Asus 470 Strix, performance gained from overclocking is 6.5% on top of a factory OC of 5.3%

Again, the 1050 is not all that attractive scoring an unusually low 8.1 score from TPU.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Gaming_X/32.html

The MSI 1050 Ti and Asus 470 tie at 9.0
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Ti_Gaming_X/32.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/RX_470_STRIX_OC/29.html

But it all depends on pricing which is in flux, especially now w/ holiday sales.

MSI's pricing for the GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X is set to be around $165, which is $25 more than the "starting at $140" price provided by NVIDIA. In my opinion, this increase is way too big since it pushes the card into a territory where the RX 470 is the better option due to higher performance at the same price point. The GTX 1050 Ti definitely has a better power/heat/noise ratio than the RX 470, but I'd consider it as an option because performance trumps everything in this segment where every dollar counts. The Radeon R9 380 is completely obsolete now, with the spotlight being on the RX 470 and GTX 1050 Ti. Even at reference pricing of $140, I feel slightly tempted to recommend the RX 470 for its higher performance; with the price of AAA games these days, the difference is basically to skip one game and spend that money on a better graphics card, which will bring you more joy in all the other games you play. Another option could be the GTX 1060 3 GB, which is slightly more expensive than the RX 470 (after its price drops), but offers a bit better performance, especially in older titles.

At $179, the RX 470 is a decent option for 1080p gaming if you just can't save up enough money to afford any of the cards above the $200 mark. Another option would be the RX 480 4 GB if it makes a comeback with good market availability; the additional $20 will give you performance nearly identical to that of the 8 GB version. Last but not least, there is still the GTX 1060, which starts at $249 with no stock available, but has higher performance, better efficiency, noise and thermals. Don't get me wrong, the Radeon RX 470 is a great value proposition that sits right at the top of our performance-per-dollar charts, but there is also a lot of competition in this segment. However, the ASUS RX 470 is in my opinion slightly too expensive at $209; a better price would be $199 or $189 - if they fix that noisy cooler with a BIOS update. When I asked our head of news "What would you buy if you had $210?" he responded "I'd beg on the streets for $40 more if I had to for a 1060."

If it's me ... I agree with the last statement in bold

Looking at today's pricing... I'm of a slightly differing opinion than I was during the sales (yesterday)... using one model line for apples and apples price comparisons:


MSI 1050 Gaming X 2GB = $130
MSI 470 Gaming X 4GB = $180
MSI 470 Gaming X 8GB = $190
MSI 1050 Ti Gaming X 4GB = $200
MSI 1060 Gaming X 3GB = $210 ($195 yesterday)

See above graphic

To bump up performance from the 1050 to 1050Ti we are talking an 18% performance increase for a 54 % increase in price. So..if ya budget is < $150, or even if it's not ... I can't see a reason to "go there".

To bump up performance from the 1050 to 470 we are talking an 52% performance increase for a 38 % increase in price. That has a positive ROI so make sense if budget is available.

8GB makes no sense at 1080p so not going to address the 470 8GB

Spending more for the 1050 Ti instead of the 470 we will drop to 80% of the 470s performance for an 11 % increase in price. That doesn't make any sense unless you using G-Sync or there's other nVidia "must haves"

To bump up performance from the 1050 Ti 4GB to the 1060 3GB we are talking a huge 44% performance increase for a 5 % increase in price. That has a positive ROI so is the proverbial "no brainer"

To bump up performance from the 470 4GB to the 1060 3GB we are talking a 15% performance increase for a 17 % increase in price. At $195 again it was the proverbial "no brainer", but at 17% more money, it doesn't have a positive ROI. That doesn't make it a logically bad choice as due to the law of diminishing returns, the amount of performance per dollar decreases as performance improves. If it were me, I'd take the 1060 3GB.

If concerned about VRAM, we can see here that 2 or 4 GB is not going to make a difference in most games. Poor console ports (sloppy coding) and some DX12 games (optimizations still needed) seem to be the few culprits here.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_960_g1_gaming_4gb_review,12.html

Hi res textures are useful on hi res screens ... I don't really see the point, keep think using 1440p game settings on 1080p monitor.