There's a new budget GPU in town, the 3GB version of the GeForce GTX 1050, and boy is this ane a strange fauna.

Recently nosotros checked out the disaster that is the DDR4 version of the GT 1030, a horribly misleading product that shouldn't be. We expect that to go downwards as ane of the worst graphics card released in history.

Nosotros don't expect this GTX 1050 3GB version to be nowhere nigh equally bad, in fact it might not even be bad at all. Notwithstanding we bring up the GT 1030 to memory because information technology's an unnecessary odd release and a chip misleading.

Prior to May 2022 in that location was only one version of the GTX 1050 (lawmaking-named GP107-300) and it came with a 2GB retentiveness buffer. That's the aforementioned GPU we've seen on retail since October 2022 when we offset tested it. However, on May Nvidia quietly updated the GTX 1050 page on their website to include a 3GB model that looked to slot-in between the existing 2GB 1050 and the 4GB 1050 Ti, though information technology'southward a bit more complicated than that.

The 3GB 1050 isn't merely a 1050 with an extra gigabyte of VRAM. Instead it features 768 CUDA cores only on a smaller 96-bit memory coach and this is due to a change in the backend configuration. Ok, so it's a GTX 1050 Ti with a gigabyte less VRAM... nope non that either.

In this table yous tin can come across that while it has the same CUDA core count as the 1050 Ti information technology has 25% less ROPs and that ways it has 25% less than the original 1050 every bit well. Although you lot get the same 7 Gbps GDDR5 retentiveness, the memory bus is at present only 96-fleck due to the reduction in ROPs which sees one of the 4 retentiveness controllers disabled. The result is just 84 GB/s of memory bandwidth, down from the 112 GB/s of the 2GB 1050 and 4GB 1050 Ti.

Additionally, this likewise means the L2 cache capacity has been reduced downwards from 1MB to 768KB. Nvidia is clocking the cores college to recoup, simply nosotros expect that in some cases this won't help overcome the 25% reduction in memory bandwidth, ROPs and cache.

And then why is Nvidia selling a 3GB version of the GTX 1050 that likely won't perform like a 1050 with an extra gigabyte of VRAM?

Given the specs we await that for the most part it volition sit down betwixt the 2GB 1050 and 1050 Ti, but in that location will no doubtfulness exist instances where it'due south actually slower than even the 2GB 1050. The virtually likely explanation is that they had a stockpile of lacking GP107 dies that had one faulty retentivity controller, for example. And so Nvidia is salvaging those parts by creating the 3GB 1050. It's a bit odd to see this so late in the product cycle but that's not actually the issue here. What nosotros run into as an result again is offering multiple GPU configurations nether the same name.

At the very least the 3GB version should have been chosen the 1050 SE, or LE, or anything other than just the 1050 3GB. It's not different the 3GB and 6GB GTX 1060 situation and I'm expecting to find a similar result.

On hand for testing we have the EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 SC Gaming. It comes with a pocket-size 5% factory overclock and right now it'southward selling for $140 which is basically what you tin look to pay for a 2GB model, making it around $xxx cheaper than the GTX 1050 Ti. Our test consists of 23 games, all of which have been tested at 1080p using various quality settings. However we're only going to hash out the highlights for viii of the games and and so jump into our performance breakdown, which looks at the whole picture show.

Our test bed build around Corsair's Crystal Series 570X was used. Within nosotros have a Core i7-8700K clocked at v GHz with 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory. We realize this hardware configuration is overkill for these GPUs, just as usual the idea is to remove any potential organisation bottleneck that might mask GPU functioning. Onto the good stuff…

Benchmarks

Starting with the Battlefield 1 results nosotros see that the 3GB 1050 is nine% faster than the 2GB version and 16% slower than the 1050 Ti. And so that'southward a great result for the 3GB version as it is indeed faster than the original 1050 in this championship. That said it is all the same quite a flake slower than the 1050 Ti due to the downgrades I spoke of earlier.

Despite the positive performance just seen, when testing with Wreckfest nosotros discover a very unlike picture. Here the 3GB 1050 was actually slower than the original 1050, 13% slower in fact and that meant information technology was 21% slower than the 1050 Ti. A troubling result in that location so allow's motility on.

Now when testing with Rainbow 6 Siege we encounter that the 3GB 1050 is 22% faster than the original 2GB model and but 11% slower than the 1050 Ti. So like Battlefield i this is a very expert result for the new 3GB model.

Okay so we're certainly looking at very mixed results here, this time when testing with Far Cry 5 the 3GB 1050 was a few frames slower than the 2GB model, making it 5% slower. This as well meant information technology was 15% slower than the 1050 Ti.

Testing with Fortnite shows similar functioning betwixt the 2GB and 3GB 1050 models making them both only slightly slower than the 1050 Ti.

We also meet comparable performance when testing with Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, hither the 3GB model was 3% faster than the original 2GB version.

Interestingly we see an xi% reduction in operation for the 3GB 1050 when playing ARMA 3 and every bit a result the 1% low event dropped beneath sixty fps. So another poor result for the new 3GB model.

Finally we're going to look at the Warhammer Vermintide 2 results and here nosotros run across a necktie betwixt the 2GB and 3GB versions of the 1050, making them thirteen% slower than the 1050 Ti.

On the next page we'll be looking at ability consumption and the full game criterion results across 23 games to become a fuller picture besides equally our assay of where the 3GB GeForce GTX 1050 stands.