NVIDIA Readies GeForce GTX 950 Ti Mid-range Graphics Card

[btarunr]

NVIDIA is preparing to cement its sub-$150 product offering, and compete with AMD's Radeon R7 370, with a new SKU called the GeForce GTX 950 Ti. This chip will succeed the GTX 750 Ti and is expected to be based on the 28 nm "GM206" silicon. The SKU reportedly features an ASIC variant code "GM206-250" (the GTX 960 features "GM206-300.") NVIDIA could create the SKU by either cutting down the CUDA core count (which is 1,024 on the silicon), lowering clock-speeds, or a combination of the two. The chip already features a narrow 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface, compared to the 256-bit memory bus on its competing R7 370.



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[Rowsol]

Hopefully it's better perf/price than 960, or what's the point.

 

[theonedub]

Like to see a short PCB and no 6pin on some of these like the 750Ti.

 

[THE_EGG]

I'm hoping this will have low power consumption like the 750/750 Ti along with improved performance (even if it is only a small improvement). If it does, I'll be sure to get one for my old man's HTPC that he uses mainly for videos but occasionally some gaming - he's still on a passive HD5750!

If a passive model comes out I will buy it instantly.

 

[RejZoR]

It may have a 128bit bus only, but it's using same ramebuffer compression as found on GTX 970/980. Where R7-370 has a 256bit bus with no framebuffer compression.

 

[N3M3515]

More like low-range....

 

[Chaitanya]

I hope like Gtx960 it comes with a H.265 encoding capabilities.

 

[Silas Woodruff]

I hope like Gtx960 it comes with a H.265 encoding capabilities.

Since it comes so late, I'm sure it will have that feature maybe more.

 

[Ubersonic]

Lol, £90 hasn't been mid range in like a decade.

 

[john_]

It's a cut down version of 960's chip, so I would expect power consumption to be close to that of 960, of course lower, but not as low as 750's and with all features of 960.

The question is how many cards are we going to see, only a 950Ti or a 950 also? And if the prices will be low enough to replace also 750. We could see 750 staying in the market and 950 card(s) being more expensive.

Also we now know why AMD's 370 is a Pitcairn Pro and not a Pitcairn XT.

 

[DeNeDe]

http://www.reviewstudio.net/2288-asus-gtx-980-ti-strix-gaming-review-the-card-for-gaming

 

[THE_EGG]

http://www.reviewstudio.net/2288-asus-gtx-980-ti-strix-gaming-review-the-card-for-gaming

Wrong thread?

 

[DeNeDe]

Hmm, not really. just pointed out that 980Ti from asus is on the way.

 

[john_]

Which is important for anyone waiting for a 950Ti?

 

[Uplink10]

I hope like Gtx960 it comes with a H.265 encoding capabilities.

Hardware decoding/encoding sucks because it is depended on the hardware and sometimes some frames are decoded/encoded wrong. Comparing hardware decoding to software decoding is like comparing XBOX/PS to PC. It will work for some time but when manufacturer drops support you lose support for new standard (e.g. h.265 on XBOX 360) whereas on PC that won't happen.

 

[john_]

CUDA encoding yes. It shoots the pixels in every direction. QuickSync on the other hand does an excellent job on h264 encoding. Even AMD's GPU encoding is good on quality, but I think not that much on performance.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So, 750Ti's should cease availability soon. I'd like to see a review on this, but if the price isn't competitive.......well...

 

[SetsunaFZero]

well 128bit GDDR5 go the fu* yourself nvidia. this card probably has nativ 3GB or 3GB with 1GB as slow as fu*

 

[rtwjunkie]

well 128bit GDDR5 go the fu* yourself nvidia. this card probably has nativ 3GB or 3GB with 1GB as slow as fu*

Where would you come up with that? no reason it would have 3GB if the 960 has 2GB. I'd wager it is 2GB just like 960 and not missing anything. That slower memory portion was a poor design decision for one card and one card only.

 

[dom99]

Hopefully comes in low profile form factor too

 

[looniam]

i was just going to pick up a 750ti for physX to replace a 570. . . . yes i like/play those games - so worth it to me.

 

[Vayra86]

This will probably be a much better buy than the 960, which is a rather shitty card that is starved for bandwidth (128bit on that gpu is taking things too far, evidenced by a worse performance than expected, ending up below a 770 in demanding games).

128 bit with a cutdown of the 960 seems way more balanced.

 

[hojnikb]

Hardware decoding/encoding sucks because it is depended on the hardware and sometimes some frames are decoded/encoded wrong. Comparing hardware decoding to software decoding is like comparing XBOX/PS to PC. It will work for some time but when manufacturer drops support you lose support for new standard (e.g. h.265 on XBOX 360) whereas on PC that won't happen.

Hardware decoding is great and almost always works, unless you watch exotic stuff.
By offloading decoding to a fixed unit, you get zero cpu load and much less power consumption and heat.

Without them, video on anything but PCs would not be possible

 

[Casecutter]

I think we're seeing again the renouncement of what was entry gaming market is; I mean it was back at the transition to 28nm that both sides walked away from the >$100 gaming market (the @1680 crowd), and now I think we're watching the beginning of the "marching up" of what constitutes "entry level discrete" and it isn't >$150.

Once the next generation of integrated solutions come to market it/they'll likely suffice. Today it's the $200 price point that provide strong 1080p, below that I think both see it as not worth vying for with new tech. Not that a GM206 isn't new tech or won't be a acceptable offering it, will be a step above the R7 370 and take over at $150. I think neither is willing to invest for what's again a price point they want to see the demise of, and perhaps why AMD kept Pitcairn there's "no return on innovation" at this level, so didn't see value in making some halved version of a Amethyst (full-Tonga). So, we can now see R7 370 starting MSRP at $150 as needing a price cut (it was always a $130 card). It's like this game... I hold the hill ($150) till you have something then back down, it like they both agree (unspoken) to maintain and pump-up this new placeholder.

Anymore you want entry gaming you go old sckool with a 6970 for $80, or GTX660's (perhaps a refurb GTX760) can roll-in at $120-130...

 

[arbiter]

Where would you come up with that? no reason it would have 3GB if the 960 has 2GB. I'd wager it is 2GB just like 960 and not missing anything. That slower memory portion was a poor design decision for one card and one card only.

nvidia made a did that on 1 card and made a mistake not in PR of not saying it. They won't do that again. Reason is when 980ti was released people tested for that issue to see if it was same as 970.