Hrrrm... at 75 Watts why does it need the huge aluminum block and twin fans? I have a couple 75W (much lower performance) cards and they are passive cooled, albeit with heat pipes and impressive cooler blocks. Still, TWO fans? To crack the HTPC market one expects they would have tried to take advantage of that lower power to make it silent.
I wouldn't be surprised if part of why it has so large a heat sink is because one of the places they cut power draw was to use less powerful fans; making it more dependent on the ability of a large heatsink to passively dissipate more of the load. Using a 2 fan design instead of a blower probably is the same thing again; blowers require a much higher RPM (and power eating as a result) fan to keep temps under check. Also, it might just be the pictures, but it looks like the cooler might be using a solid slab of metal with fins on top cooler as opposed to the open fins and heatpipe design in higher end models. If so, I'd guess it's probably cost driven.
The lower the temperature of a transistor, the lower the power required to switch it. It has been a long time since I found the research paper, but if memory serves the general power consumption difference between 40C and 90C is about a 10% increase in power consumption. I doubt Asus is going to the extreme to cut power consumption, but a cooling solution that results in 10-20C lower GPU temperatures could be cutting power consumption a couple of watts helping it to stay under the 75w cap.
Same reason you can get a Geforce 750TI with a giant heatpipe cooler with double fans even thought it just requires a tiny heatsink and fan, marketing.
No. You have a giant heatpipe cooler with double fans so that the fans rarely spin up unless you are pushing the card. It's about quiet. There's always the cheaper version for people that don't care about noise/temps (i.e. you).
I actually own a 750 TI, it's nearly inaudible. A 60Watt card doesn't need a bit heatsink but I see that there is a sucker born every minute. Just like those people who buy 4GB Geforce 720s.
My MSI GTX 950 Gaming 2G is rated at 90W. I use it in my HTPC where silence is of value. Of course, you are speaking about apples & oranges, but don't let me get in the way of your rant.
My 750ti was noisy as hell, what one are we talking about now? As I am pretty doubtful of your claims of it being quiet while under load of any decently demanding game.
There are good reasons for high memory on cheap cards. I have used many such low end nV and AMD cards in Hyper-V servers where there is a need for hardware video support and each VM requires 512MB of memory. I don't care about peak performance, I just care about supporting as many VM's as possible for the lowest cost.
Granted, there are also those who buy them without realizing that the GPU simply isn't powerful enough to make a difference, but that does not change the fact that there are legit uses for those cards.
It was a project I can't speak about, unfortunately. However to use RemoteFX with Hyper-V you need more than 16/32MB, the minimum that will permit RemoteFX is 75MB which is only a 1024x768 remote resolution. Once you go above that or add more monitors to the remote sessions it scales up from there. Here is a table:
My thought too. But power use rises with temperature. So to keep power use in check you need to keep temperature in check. Hence you need to have very good cooling compared to power consumption.
Since regular GTX 950 cards are very quiet to begin with, I'm sure this one with dual fans will be even quieter being able to spin at very low speeds with 2 fans to move air...
Pascal on 16FF+ and Polaris 10 can't arrive fast enough to finally get ride of these 28nm parts. For example, GP106 with ~1500 CUDA cores under 75W will be a perfect HTPC / FHD gaming solution
@Anandtech when you guys get a card extract the vBIOS and load it into MaxwelBIOSTweaker and compare the Boost/Voltage table to a reference BIOS (EVGA's vBIOS are usually very close to reference.
I'm very curious if they binned good silicon and then undervolted the card.
As a former 750 ti owner, I love the idea of this card. Up to 50% more performance compared to a 750 ti, with only a 15w increase to power, and it still only needs PCIe. There is probably zero overclocking headroom, so maybe a real world difference of about 25%. Also, with pascal and 16nm right around the corner, it seems that this will be replaced for "best low power card" award very soon. In theory, we could see a card with 960 levels of performance and still only need a PCIe connection. I'd love to see a review, though.
It's not low-profile?! That makes it useless for the vast majority of situations that require such a card. Why bother making a PCIe-powered card that's not low-profile? I got super excited for this only to see it's full-height two seconds later. How am I supposed to install this in the low-profile work case?
I really hope someone releases a low-profile, PCIe-powered GTX 950 - I want one real bad. This thing is faster than a GTX 580, shader-wise, and can push over 130 GB/s thanks to color compression. Enough to run the latest games properly. Can't wait to test it with a Core 2 Quad.
I'm pretty sure it does support HDMI 2.0a as my GTX 950 supports 4k@ 60 with 4:4:4 chroma... That is the 18gbps rate that 2.0a calls for so support is already there.
The 750's were 55/60W parts at stock; the 950 is a 90W baseline part. Getting it to run 15W cooler without (hopefully) major throttling is a major achievement for ASUS. Getting it a full third lower power would really be pushing the envelope if it was possible at all. At the 75W level it'd need to push the little 40mm fan in a half hieght card even harder to keep cool; which runs into potential noise problems.
I think there were whispers recently of a 950 SE, which would certainly produce cards that operate at a lower power threshold, however even with 640 CUDA cores and 40 TMUs (i.e. one disabled SMM), I think the rumour was 70W+, which puts it uncomfortably close to this.
I would except better analysis from Anandtech.. because is G950 only on box.. with some software TDP cap is same shame as 970 slow memory block.
I dont expect too much from this card, unless some benchmarks proof opposite.. It think that Asus is praying for no benchmarks for this card on major websites.. because lots of customer would believe that performance is same as normal G950.
"ASUS did not lower frequency of the GPU and did not alter its configuration, though as we've seen with past attempts to produce lower power SKUs, it's likely that this card has a reduced hard power limit to stay under 75W and may be more likely to power-throttle as a result."
Doesn't matter. GTX 750 ti, although 2 years old, was pretty good 1080p target. Next x50 is not going to jump to being OK for entry level 4k. Whatever they push is more than good enough for the vast vast majority that are still 1080p.
While it's great to see a GTX 950 card without the need for an additional power adapter, it definitely should be in the half-height size as that is the exact market such a card would target as it's a GREAT HTPC card, in any sze, but half-height is what's needed on the market.... Also, one of the best GTX 950 characteristics is it's gaming performance, once OVERCLOCKED, which this card obviously won't support much of... If you can at least bring the memory from 6.6 to 8Gbps like most regular 950 cards can do, then OC of the core becomes less important.
"Meanwhile on a quick housekeeping note, as today's launch comes at the tail end of Intel's IDF 2015, timing constraints mean that we won't be posting our review of the GTX 950 today. Our full review will be up next week once the show has concluded, so be sure to check back a bit later this month."
There is no data that was silently added to GPU 2015 on Bench either, this article is only the 2nd one that has ever mentioned any GTX 950.
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38 Comments
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darkgreen - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
Hrrrm... at 75 Watts why does it need the huge aluminum block and twin fans? I have a couple 75W (much lower performance) cards and they are passive cooled, albeit with heat pipes and impressive cooler blocks. Still, TWO fans? To crack the HTPC market one expects they would have tried to take advantage of that lower power to make it silent.meacupla - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
because it's a cheap, huge aluminum block that isn't as efficient as heatpipe heatsinks are at dissipating heat.Speculation, but it's probably quiet.
DanNeely - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I wouldn't be surprised if part of why it has so large a heat sink is because one of the places they cut power draw was to use less powerful fans; making it more dependent on the ability of a large heatsink to passively dissipate more of the load. Using a 2 fan design instead of a blower probably is the same thing again; blowers require a much higher RPM (and power eating as a result) fan to keep temps under check. Also, it might just be the pictures, but it looks like the cooler might be using a solid slab of metal with fins on top cooler as opposed to the open fins and heatpipe design in higher end models. If so, I'd guess it's probably cost driven.azazel1024 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
The lower the temperature of a transistor, the lower the power required to switch it. It has been a long time since I found the research paper, but if memory serves the general power consumption difference between 40C and 90C is about a 10% increase in power consumption. I doubt Asus is going to the extreme to cut power consumption, but a cooling solution that results in 10-20C lower GPU temperatures could be cutting power consumption a couple of watts helping it to stay under the 75w cap.Flunk - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
Same reason you can get a Geforce 750TI with a giant heatpipe cooler with double fans even thought it just requires a tiny heatsink and fan, marketing.bigboxes - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
No. You have a giant heatpipe cooler with double fans so that the fans rarely spin up unless you are pushing the card. It's about quiet. There's always the cheaper version for people that don't care about noise/temps (i.e. you).Flunk - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I actually own a 750 TI, it's nearly inaudible. A 60Watt card doesn't need a bit heatsink but I see that there is a sucker born every minute. Just like those people who buy 4GB Geforce 720s.Flunk - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
It also doesn't exceed 60C on load and I have it overclocked as far as the power limit will allow.bigboxes - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
My MSI GTX 950 Gaming 2G is rated at 90W. I use it in my HTPC where silence is of value. Of course, you are speaking about apples & oranges, but don't let me get in the way of your rant.meacupla - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
These GTX 950 are 75Wsc14s - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
My 750ti was noisy as hell, what one are we talking about now? As I am pretty doubtful of your claims of it being quiet while under load of any decently demanding game.Reflex - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
There are good reasons for high memory on cheap cards. I have used many such low end nV and AMD cards in Hyper-V servers where there is a need for hardware video support and each VM requires 512MB of memory. I don't care about peak performance, I just care about supporting as many VM's as possible for the lowest cost.Granted, there are also those who buy them without realizing that the GPU simply isn't powerful enough to make a difference, but that does not change the fact that there are legit uses for those cards.
ses1984 - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
What VMs are you running that require 512MB VRAM...? Most of mine are fine with 16/32MBReflex - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
It was a project I can't speak about, unfortunately. However to use RemoteFX with Hyper-V you need more than 16/32MB, the minimum that will permit RemoteFX is 75MB which is only a 1024x768 remote resolution. Once you go above that or add more monitors to the remote sessions it scales up from there. Here is a table:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff8176...
Oxford Guy - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
Maybe you have hearing loss because the EVGA cards I've used are clearly audible.TAZOO7 - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
your lack of knowledge is why you don't understand why someone would need 4gig of memory on a graphics card regardless of version.Quad5Ny - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
NVIDIA's reference blower design rattles if the card doesn't have the metal reinforcement plate running over the entire card.The only reference cards that have the reinforcement are =/> x80 parts or the current generation reference 970.
beginner99 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
My thought too. But power use rises with temperature. So to keep power use in check you need to keep temperature in check. Hence you need to have very good cooling compared to power consumption.danbfree1 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Since regular GTX 950 cards are very quiet to begin with, I'm sure this one with dual fans will be even quieter being able to spin at very low speeds with 2 fans to move air...ArthurG - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
Pascal on 16FF+ and Polaris 10 can't arrive fast enough to finally get ride of these 28nm parts. For example, GP106 with ~1500 CUDA cores under 75W will be a perfect HTPC / FHD gaming solutionQuad5Ny - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
@Anandtech when you guys get a card extract the vBIOS and load it into MaxwelBIOSTweaker and compare the Boost/Voltage table to a reference BIOS (EVGA's vBIOS are usually very close to reference.I'm very curious if they binned good silicon and then undervolted the card.
TallestJon96 - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
As a former 750 ti owner, I love the idea of this card. Up to 50% more performance compared to a 750 ti, with only a 15w increase to power, and it still only needs PCIe. There is probably zero overclocking headroom, so maybe a real world difference of about 25%. Also, with pascal and 16nm right around the corner, it seems that this will be replaced for "best low power card" award very soon. In theory, we could see a card with 960 levels of performance and still only need a PCIe connection. I'd love to see a review, though.yhselp - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
It's not low-profile?! That makes it useless for the vast majority of situations that require such a card. Why bother making a PCIe-powered card that's not low-profile? I got super excited for this only to see it's full-height two seconds later. How am I supposed to install this in the low-profile work case?I really hope someone releases a low-profile, PCIe-powered GTX 950 - I want one real bad. This thing is faster than a GTX 580, shader-wise, and can push over 130 GB/s thanks to color compression. Enough to run the latest games properly. Can't wait to test it with a Core 2 Quad.
stardude82 - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I'm dying for a low profile HDMI 2.0 capable card at about 25W for my ITX Haswell HTPC.blahsaysblah - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
HDMI 2.0a adds HDR support. HDR and not 4x pixel quantity is what is really supposed to improve image quality in movies.Make sure to look for HDMI 2.0a.
danbfree1 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I'm pretty sure it does support HDMI 2.0a as my GTX 950 supports 4k@ 60 with 4:4:4 chroma... That is the 18gbps rate that 2.0a calls for so support is already there.DanNeely - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
The 750's were 55/60W parts at stock; the 950 is a 90W baseline part. Getting it to run 15W cooler without (hopefully) major throttling is a major achievement for ASUS. Getting it a full third lower power would really be pushing the envelope if it was possible at all. At the 75W level it'd need to push the little 40mm fan in a half hieght card even harder to keep cool; which runs into potential noise problems.stardude82 - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I'm still thinking there is an error. Unless some minor miracle happened, something about those specs is wrong.silverblue - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I think there were whispers recently of a 950 SE, which would certainly produce cards that operate at a lower power threshold, however even with 640 CUDA cores and 40 TMUs (i.e. one disabled SMM), I think the rumour was 70W+, which puts it uncomfortably close to this.http://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/39982-nvidia-gef...
ruthan - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I would except better analysis from Anandtech.. because is G950 only on box.. with some software TDP cap is same shame as 970 slow memory block.I dont expect too much from this card, unless some benchmarks proof opposite.. It think that Asus is praying for no benchmarks for this card on major websites.. because lots of customer would believe that performance is same as normal G950.
Ryan Smith - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
"ASUS did not lower frequency of the GPU and did not alter its configuration, though as we've seen with past attempts to produce lower power SKUs, it's likely that this card has a reduced hard power limit to stay under 75W and may be more likely to power-throttle as a result."ruthan - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Thanks for replay, i read it, not good enough for me.zodiacfml - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Hmm, they could not wait for the 14nm parts. Or maybe, they could reuse the physical design for the next generation GPUs.blahsaysblah - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Doesn't matter. GTX 750 ti, although 2 years old, was pretty good 1080p target. Next x50 is not going to jump to being OK for entry level 4k. Whatever they push is more than good enough for the vast vast majority that are still 1080p.danbfree1 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
While it's great to see a GTX 950 card without the need for an additional power adapter, it definitely should be in the half-height size as that is the exact market such a card would target as it's a GREAT HTPC card, in any sze, but half-height is what's needed on the market.... Also, one of the best GTX 950 characteristics is it's gaming performance, once OVERCLOCKED, which this card obviously won't support much of... If you can at least bring the memory from 6.6 to 8Gbps like most regular 950 cards can do, then OC of the core becomes less important.we - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
What can this card do that the smaller MINI-GTX950-2G cannot? The MINI-GTX950-2G appears to have the same specs and also only requires max 75Wtrab - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
What ever did happen to the GTX 950 review? It was promised by Ryan Smith in August last year: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9547/nvidia-launches... . Quoted from the 4th paragraph on that launch article:"Meanwhile on a quick housekeeping note, as today's launch comes at the tail end of Intel's IDF 2015, timing constraints mean that we won't be posting our review of the GTX 950 today. Our full review will be up next week once the show has concluded, so be sure to check back a bit later this month."
There is no data that was silently added to GPU 2015 on Bench either, this article is only the 2nd one that has ever mentioned any GTX 950.
Oxford Guy - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
There was never a 960 review either, right?