NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950

NVIDIA has blazed a trail through the high-end graphics landscape with the hard-hitting GeForce GTX 900-series range of graphics cards. Starting from the NVIDIA GTX 960 ($199) and extending right through to the range-topping NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti ($649), the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs have been well received by users and critics alike.

If there's a catch, it's that the goodness of GTX 900-series graphics hasn't come cheap, and Nvidia has, until now, missed a trick by not targeting the sub-$170 market with a mainstream 900-series GPU touting the cutting-edge Maxwell architecture. That changes today with the arrival of the NVIDIA GTX 950, priced from $159 (roughly £130).

Designed, says Nvidia, "to deliver the best performance in its class," the GeForce GTX 950 is aimed at gamers who are playing on older GPUs or relying on their CPU's integrated graphics. If that sounds like you, GTX 950 touts full support for upcoming DirectX 12 games and promises to be an ideal solution for quality full-HD 1080p gaming.

As you might expect, a wide range of Nvidia partners are ready and prepped for launch with a diverse selection of custom-cooled and overclocked cards, but behind those pretty designs, what actually makes the GTX 950 tick? Let's break it down in table form.

There are many ways of extending the reach of a GPU architecture, but perhaps the simplest is to take an existing chip and trim some of the excess in order to meet a lower price point. That, essentially, is what the GTX 950 does, and it does so to good effect.

Moulding the GTX 960's GM206 GPU, GTX 950 shaves off two SM units, reducing core count to 768 and texture units to 48. Boost clock is notched-up a fraction to 1,188MHz to help compensate for cuts elsewhere, and the backend remains largely untouched - there are still 32 ROPs hooked-up to 2GB of GDDR5 memory via a 128-bit bus.

The changes reduce peak GFLOPS to 1,825 - a 24 per cent reduction over GTX 960 - and the offset is reflected in price, with GTX 950 costing 20 per cent less than its nearest sibling. The upside is that consumers get a cheaper GTX 900-series part with an ultra-low 90W TDP and enough horsepower to drive today's latest games at 1080p.

Performance and Power Consumption

Exactly what level of performance can you expect? Benchmarks from leading review sites show that a custom GeForce GTX 950 such as the Asus Strix is able to score 6,078 3DMarks, putting it just 10 per cent behind a pricier GTX 960 variant from the same manufacturer.

Translating those numbers to real-world gameplay, popular titles such as Grand Theft Auto V are rendered in excess of 60 frames per second, resulting in silky-smooth gameplay at a ubiquitous 1080p resolution. Nvidia's latest GPU certainly fills the void that once existed between NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti and GTX 960.

Don't, however, be expecting huge savings in terms of power consumption. Knowing that GTX 950 and GTX 960 are cut from the same GM206 fabric, it's no surprise to find that the newer GPU is only marginally more efficient.

Summary

Nvidia's GTX 900-series has made all the headlines over the course of the past 12 months through powerful GPUs that offer extreme gaming thrills to those willing to pay a pretty penny. That's all well and good, but the bulk of consumer gaming activity takes place in the mainstream segment, and you could argue that the GTX 950 is the first 900-series part to truly tackle this crucial area of the market.

Priced from $159 (£130), GeForce GTX 950 is tailored to high-quality 1080p gaming and in particular the burgeoning world of MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). One of PC gaming's most popular genres, MOBA touts huge fan bases attached to titles such as Dota 2 and League of Legends, and GTX 950 is an ideal fit where visual quality and responsiveness go hand in hand.

Wanting a DX12 graphics card that handles 1080p gaming without breaking the bank? NVIDIA's GTX 950 is shaping up to be a perfect fit.

You can browse the full selection of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950s right here at Scan Computers.