Nvidia has launched it’s budget-oriented GTX 1050 graphics cards worldwide, and the hardware is already available in South Africa.
While AMD’s Radeon RX Series had some initial stock problems, the Polaris-based cards seem to also be available from most local retailers.
As the GeForce GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti, and Radeon RX 460 all exist in the same price and performance bracket, we thought we’d compare their value to find out which is the best graphics card for gamers on a budget.
Luckily, the folks over at GamersNexus have conducted a comprehensive review of both the GeForce GTX 1050 and the GTX 1050 Ti, providing users with a breakdown of the new graphics cards’ performance.
We’ve compared the performance of these cards with a Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro 4GB review by GamersNexus, in order to maintain the same benchmark standard and increase comparability.
Specifications
Below are the specifications of the three graphics cards, along with the cheapest South African pricing available.
Graphics cards compared:
- Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro 4GB
- MSI GeForce GTX 1050 OC 2GB
- MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X 4GB
|
Specifications
|
Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro
|
MSI GeForce GTX 1050 OC
|
MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Stream Processors | 896 | 640 | 768 |
| Base Clock | 1,090MHz | 1,354MHz | 1,290MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1,200MHz | 1,455MHz | 1,392MHz |
| Memory | 4GB GDDR5 | 2GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 112GB/sec | 112GB/sec | 112GB/sec |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| TDP | 75W | 75W | 75W |
| Price | R2,562 | R2,799 | R3,599 |
Performance
The average frames-per-second of the three graphics cards were measured across 11 different tests, with an overall average calculated below.
Different versions of DirectX were separated into different tests in order to ensure accurate representation of Polaris’ performance increase in DX12 and Vulkan.
|
Game
|
GeForce GTX 1050
|
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
|
Radeon RX 460
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefield 1 DX11 | 46.0 | 58.0 | 43.0 |
| Battlefield 1 DX12 | 29.7 | 50.2 | 42.5 |
| Gears of War | 60.0 | 71.7 | 51.6 |
| DOOM OpenGL | 50.7 | 72.0 | 45.0 |
| DOOM Vulkan | 38.9 | 67.1 | 56.8 |
| Overwatch | 92.0 | 102.7 | 66.7 |
| Dota 2 | 148.0 | 161.0 | 118.0 |
| GTA V | 56.7 | 66.7 | 43.7 |
| Metro: Last Light | 47.3 | 53.3 | 38.0 |
| Shadow of Mordor | 47.0 | 55.0 | 39.0 |
| Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst | 40.0 | 52.0 | 37.0 |
| Average FPS | 59.66 | 73.61 | 52.85 |
Comparison
While the Radeon RX 460 is the least powerful graphics card of the three tested, it is also the cheapest.
Purchasing a budget graphics card is more about value for money than raw performance, so we’ve used the price and overall average frames-per-second for each card to calculate a Rand-per-FPS value, with a lower score indicate better value than a higher one.
Below are the value scores for the three graphics cards:
- Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro 4GB: R48 per FPS
- MSI GeForce GTX 1050 OC 2GB: R47 per FPS
- MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X 4GB: R49 per FPS
The three budget graphics cards deliver good value thanks to a new generation of GPU architecture.
While the GTX 1050 may lead by the narrowest of margins, such a small difference in value score is easily accounted for by pricing difference between retailers or small discounts.
All three graphics cards remain relatively equal in terms of value, but cannot compete with GPUs like the Radeon RX 470 or GTX 1060 in terms of raw performance.
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