Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 1050 2GB Graphics Card Review

Introduction Not everyone has the money to splash on a new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and in all fairness, not everyone needs that kind of power either. For those building a system for younger gamers, those who game a 1080P monitor, or who are solely interested in playing many of the less graphically demanding eSports titles, a 2GB graphics cards like the GTX 1050 from Gigabyte is more than enough for their performance and budgetary needs. "GIGABYTE G1 Gaming Series graphics cards are crafted for perfection in pursuit of the ultimate graphics experience for gaming enthusiasts. Based on the revolutionary NVIDIA® Pascal™ GPU architecture, G1 gaming graphics card brings you incredible gaming experience. Pascal-powered graphics card give you superior performance and power efficiency. Classic and modern games at 1080p @ 60 FPS. Fast, smooth, power-efficient gaming experiences" - GIGABYTE Designed to deliver a modest upgrade for those looking for entry-level gaming. The Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1050 is ideal for League of Legends, DOTA II, Counter Strike, and so many others. 2GB of VRAM can be quite limiting these days, so we're expecting this card to struggle in some of our demanding benchmarks, but with support for DirectX 12, and all the other cool features delivered by the NVIDIA Pascal architecture, the G1 Gaming is still set to be good value for money at just £127 (at the time of writing). "The WINDFORCE 2X cooling system features two 90mm unique blade fans, 2 pure copper composite heat-pipes, alternate spinning fan design, and heat pipes direct touch technology, together delivering an effective heat dissipation capacity for higher performance at lower temperatures." - GIGABYTE Packaging A Closer Look The card is quite compact, but the design is still pretty funky. It has two large fans fitted over a sizable heat sink, more so than you would normally require for a card of this specification, but that should just mean it runs cooler and quieter than most in its class. The shroud is plastic, but it's very nicely finished with a matte black look and soft orange coloured highlights. It's certainly a gaming card and should pair up nicely with most motherboards. Down the side, you'll find an RGB LED lit Gigabyte and fan stop badge. The fan stop is quite an important one, as that light indicates that the card is running in passive mode. With this chipset, and such a large heat sink, I'm expecting this card to be able to run almost passively in most scenarios, and the fans will just kick in when you've been running your games for a while. The card is powered by a single 6-pin connection too, so it'll be compatible with pretty much any power supply, including more affordable models. Around the back, the angular design continues, giving the card a rather aggressive appearance. connectivity is excellent, with a DVI-D port at the top, 1 x DP, and 3 x HDMI, so lots of options dependant on what your monitor supports, as well as support for multiple monitors if that's what you desire. The card also comes equipped with lovely backplate, which should help with the overall cooling capabilities, but also helps tidy up the design for a clean look. It'll also help strengthen the card, but it's not exactly long and heavy, so it's unlikely to droop anyway. The PCB is laid out nicely, with lots of room for airflow. As you can see, the cooler design is pretty robust, with three radiator sections and two thick copper heat pipes connecting everything up. The actual GPU block is extended to cover the other major chips too, allowing for comprehensive passive cooling as well as active cooling. Testing & Methodology Please note that on 16/04/2017, the graphics cards featured in this review were completely retested. This was done to implement new changes in the way we test, the settings we use, the software and more. We've also made some slight hardware changes to our test benches, and all games have been recently updated, as has the OS, graphics drivers, etc. This would mean new results would not be a fair comparison to old. For your reference, the last review to feature our old results can't be found here. Here is the test system used for all graphics card reviews (pictured above) and game performance analysis: Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 Processor – Intel Core i7 5960X at stock with turbo enabled RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz Graphics Card – Varies per review CPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15S Power Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets which stress graphics cards to reasonable limits. However, in the interest of fairness, any technology which favours either AMD or NVIDIA is disabled. More specifically, this refers to PhysX, Hairworks and similar technologies. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA, including FXAA, to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by sophisticated AA. Theoretically, we could have employed FXAA because it only has a minor impact on the frame-rate, but many users strongly dislike the hazy image this causes. N-Sync is always disabled in our testing, graphics card power usage is set to optimised or balance, system power mode is set to High Performance. Some benchmarks may feature more cards, this is due to some tests being older or newer than others, and being used in other game specific feature tests we have conducted, so you'll find all relevant cards included in each chart as we add or remove new and old tests. Selecting strenuous presets especially at higher resolutions can cause hitching and other performance problems on graphics cards with lower amounts of video memory. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider's Very High textures requires 4GB of RAM to maintain a smooth frame-rate. In theory, we could run the benchmarks at the High setting, but this defeats the purpose of high-end graphics cards which are designed to cope with the absolute best graphics on the market. Furthermore, the notion of enthusiast cards sporting less than 4GB memory has become less of an issue. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly and detailed for clarity. Identical settings are used for all resolutions, 1080, 1440, 2160, and 1440 Ultrawide, unless otherwise stated. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Graphics Settings For this game, we use the Very High preset, with some small changes to increase the Texture Filtering, turn off the AA, and all V-Sync settings. Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On VSync: Off Anti-aliasing: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Sun Soft Shadows: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Dynamic Foliage: High Ambient Occlusion: On PureHair: Off Specular Reflection Quality: Normal Vignette Blur: On Motion Blur: On Bloom: On Tesselations: On Screen Space Reflections: On Lens Flares: On Screen Effects: On Film Grain: On Rise of the Tomb Raider Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On MSAA: Off VSync: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Ambient Occlusion: Very High Contact Hardening Shadows: On Parallax Occlusion Mapping: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Volumetric Lighting: On Screenspace Reflections: On Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Disabled Motion Blur: On Sharpen: On Bloom: On Lens Flares: On Cloth Physics: On Subsurface Scattering: On Chromatic Aberration: On Tesselations: On Far Cry Primal Graphics Settings Graphics Quality: Custom HD Textures: On Textures: Very High Shadow: Ultra Post FX: High Geometry: Ultra Terrain: Very High Water: Very High Environment: High Anti-Aliasing: Off Volumetric Fog: Very High Motion Blur: On Ghost Recon: Wildlands Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Antialiasing: Off Ambient Occlusion: SSBC Draw Distance: Very High Level of Detail: Ultra Texture Quality: Ultra Anisotropic Filtering: 16 Shadow Quality: Ultra Terrain Quality: Ultra Vegetation Quality: Ultra Turf Effects: Off Motion Blur: On Iron Sights DOF: On High-Quality DOF: On Bloom: On God Raws: Enhanced Subsurface Scattering: On Lens Flare: On Long-Range Shadows: Ultra Software 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark Time Spy Unique Superposition Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Far Cry Primal Ghost Recon: Wildlands CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Noise Everyone has their own reasonable noise level when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from one metre above our open air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is crucial to keeping power bills under control. Power is tied to heat, so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and NVIDIA have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock, so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming essential to maximise performance. We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 25%, 50%, and 99% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when selecting a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are critical. Lower temperatures are always better, and with AMD and NVIDIA opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account, it is important that graphics card vendors use high-performance cooling solutions to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching critical temperatures are now in the past, but the importance of low temperatures remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. 3DMark This card is quite limited in terms of VRAM, so to expect it to be anywhere far from the bottom of most of our benchmarks is wishful thinking. This isn't a very powerful card, but it's not designed to be. Our benchmarks stress the card quite hard, but keep in mind it is designed for less demanding games such as those use in eSports. As you can see, it goes head to head with the similar specification RX 460 in 3D Mark testing. Unigine Superpossition The 1050 G1 Gaming beats out the RX 460 again here, although the main limiting feature is the 2GB of VRAM, it still has more raw horsepower to keep the lead here. In the 4K Optimized test, it pulls even further ahead of the RX 460. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided One of the most demanding games on the market today, Deus Ex can make even the flagship cards work extremely hard. However, since we test this game in DirectX 12, the RX 460 pulls slightly ahead, as AMD cards tend to do quite well with this API. Due to the VRAM limitation, we did not run the 2160p and 1440p Ultrawide gaming benchmarks on this card for any of our games. Rise of the Tomb Raider The RX 460 beats it out again here, but only by a small amount. The frame rate isn't too bad, and since we test at ultra settings, you could easily tune this to hit that magic 60fps figure. A 2K gaming card this is not, and pushing the resolution up just put too much strain on the already limiting 2GB VRAM. Far Cry Primal Far Cry favoured much better for the G1 Gaming, putting out respectable numbers given the demanding graphics presets we used. Again, we see it fall flat at 1400p, but it's still holding its own against the RX 460. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Ghost Recon is extremely demanding, especially with the settings we use to stress our test cards. However, the 2GB card still manages to pull a small lead on the RX 460 again at 1080p. Pusing up the resolution, the 2GB VRAM does cause limitations again. Acoustic, Thermal and Power Testing Acoustic Performance Since we revamped our testing methodology, all cards that have a zero fan idle will now be reported as zero decibel, rather than recording our system and office ambient noise, as this is subject to variations. As you can see, the card ran completely silent at low loads. However, what's surprising is that it took quite a long time of heavy load for the fan to kick in, and even when it did, it was whisper quiet at just 40 dBa. Thermal Performance The card clocked in at just 40c idle and 68c load, which is pretty cool, but this isn't a massively powerful card, so it doesn't generate much heat anyway. Either way, the rather large cooler for this chipset does a fantastic job. Power Usage It's also very efficient, with one of our lowest idles and our absolute lowest load total power consumption. Final Thoughts Price The Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1050 G1 2GB is available for just £120, which is fantastic value for money given the overall quality of the card. It has a great cooler, runs almost silently, and has a backplate. It's about £10 more than the equivalent RX 460, but overall it's a better performing card too, making it the more appealing option. Overview This card may not have scored big numbers in our benchmarks, but we weren't expecting it to. It's pretty much bottom of the ladder for the 10xx series of cards, but with a huge cooler added to it, it's one of the best budget cards of the series. What I found remarkable is that it ran almost passively for most of our testing, and even some of the more demanding benchmarks didn't kick the fans up at all. This is good news for those who want a compact gaming PC for their living room, as it would be nice and quiet. When it comes to gaming, the G1 Gaming may not have looked to score quite highly, but a bit of personal testing paints the card in a different light. Using ultra settings was just decimating that 2GB VRAM limit. However, running just about any game at 1080p with medium to high settings netted that golden 60FPS. For less demanding games like League of Legends, the card was awesome to use, and for those looking to build an affordable eSports machine, the card is certainly a worthy contender in this market. Those wanting to game at frame rates over 60fps, or resolutions above 1080p shouldn't be concerned with this card. It's obviously priced to reflect its performance and suited to less demanding scenarios. If you needed more horsepower, then the GTX 1050 Ti 4GB version is about £20 more, and better suited to those who like to max out their graphics. Of course, if you're looking to get gaming and not max out your credit card, then the non-Ti version we reviewed today is certainly the way to go. This may be one the last of the 2GB cards on the market, the need for 4GB and above is growing and it clearly held the card back in some tests. However, more VRAM = more money, so it's understandable that this card exists to suit a certain part of the market. "Great build quality, virtually silent performance, a trusted brand name and a competitive price make the 1050 G1 Gaming an appealing option for the budget conscious eSports loving gamer. One of the best budget cards on the market today." Pros Excellent cooler Low power usage Virtually silent Great for eSports Ideal for 1080p gaming Budget friendly Stylish design Backplate Cons 2GB VRAM is a little restrictive Ti version is only £20 more