ASUS GTX 950 2 GB (no power connector) Review

Name: ASUS GTX 950 2 GB (no power connector)
Brand: ASUS

W1zzard

on Apr 29th, 2016,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: ASUS

(20 Comments) »

Introduction

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 950 was released in August last year. It is built on the 28 nm GM206 silicon on which the GTX 960 is based. This is a tiny chip, and compared to the R7 370, it has a narrower 128-bit memory bus for just four memory chips on the card. NVIDIA makes up for some of the deficit with lossless texture compression tech, which improves effective bandwidth by around 20%. The sheer pixel-crunching muscle of the Maxwell architecture takes care of the rest, which creates a lot of room for future cost-cutting measures.

Today, we are reviewing the ASUS GeForce GTX 950 "unplugged", the first GTX 950 that does not require an additional PCI-Express power connector. This promises to make the card a great choice for lower-end systems that are being upgraded if you don't want to upgrade the power supply as well. I could also see this card do well in a media PC because of its low power consumption (if you have enough space for it).

ASUS achieved this design feat by lowering the NVIDIA power limit of the card to 75 watts, while keeping GPU and memory default clocks at reference design levels. So, what's gonna happen is that NVIDIA Boost clocks will be limited by power draw, which will result in less performance to satisfy those power consumption constraints. How low? That's what we're here to find out.

Price-wise, the card comes at a slight price increase, which is probably a small premium for its ability to operate without a power connector. The cheapest GTX 950 I could find on Newegg costs $140, and ASUS is asking $155 for their white GTX 950.

GeForce GTX 950 Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 750 Ti	Radeon R7 370	Radeon R9 270X	GeForce GTX 950	ASUS GTX 950	GeForce GTX 760	GeForce GTX 960	Radeon R9 285	Radeon R9 380	Radeon R9 280X
Shader Units	640	1024	1280	768	768	1152	1024	1792	1792	2048
ROPs	16	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32
Graphics Processor	GM107	Pitcairn	Pitcairn	GM206	GM206	GK104	GM206	Tonga	Tonga	Tahiti
Transistors	1870M	2800M	2800M	2940M	2940M	3500M	2940M	unknown	unknown	4310M
Memory Size	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB
Memory Bus Width	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	384 bit
Core Clock	1020 MHz+	975 MHz	1050 MHz	1024 MHz+	1024 MHz+	980 MHz+	1127 MHz+	918 MHz	970 MHz	1000 MHz
Memory Clock	1350 MHz	1400 MHz	1400 MHz	1653 MHz	1653 MHz	1502 MHz	1753 MHz	1375 MHz	1375 MHz	1500 MHz
Price	$105	$135	$180	$140	$155	$150	$180	$180	$170	$190

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card + driver CD
Documentation
World of Warships coupon

The Card

ASUS uses a slim, white, plastic cooler that looks cute, but is of high-quality at the same time. A backplate is not included; it's probably not as important in this price segment. Dimensions of the card are 21.0 cm x 12.0 cm.

Installation requires two slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include one DVI port, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort.

The GPU also comes with an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 2.0 compatible, which supports HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies.