The Best Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Small but deadly the GPU can still peform in most circumstances
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It’s always exciting planning a new build; the sky’s the limit. You’ll have hundreds of components to choose from, each having a different level of performance (and price!) to take note of, but we focus on the best RTX 1050 Ti. It doesn’t matter what kind of system you’re building; you’ll eventually come to the point where you have to choose the right graphics card for you.
While the graphics card doesn’t solely dictate the performance you will get from your build it is still one of the most important parts to consider. It can be confusing to decide on a brand of GPU, never mind an exact model. With so many offerings from different companies, which is the best for you?
There are a couple of things you should look at when picking a graphics card; how much is it going to cost you? Will it be powerful enough to play your games? Will it hold up well in the future? These are all great questions to ask, and we’re going to break down some of the best GTX 1050 Ti offerings out there to help you make your final choice.
With all this in mind, it’s about time to take a quick look at the cards we’ll be writing about today.
How we choose
No matter which product we recommend, we like to be sure it’s good enough for our users before we list it. We put a lot of research and care into all the reviews we write in order to make them as accurate as they can be.
It’s tough to narrow down a list of products, especially when there are so many out there. When we make our recommendations we aim to conduct both product research and personal tests before we deliver our findings.
Once we have our results, we can lay them out in an easy-to-digest article such as this one. This will include around four of the best offerings, a short review on each alongside a couple of pros and cons to give a general idea of how much we like the product.
How we test
It can be a tricky task to whittle a list down to the ‘best’ offering. There are a couple of things we need to look at before we can come to that decision. In the case of graphics cards, we make sure we compare the performance, build quality, cooling solutions, and even the overall design of the card before they earn a recommendation.
By doing this, we can create these comprehensive comparison guides and can be confident in the products we recommend. If there’s something we really like in a card, it’s something we probably have in our own system, or an upgrade we’d personally make.
Each of these products will vary in different ways, but once we have done our research we can make an honest recommendation on what is best.
Things to consider
Performance
First and foremost, what kind of gamers would we be if we didn’t primarily look at the performance? This is arguably the biggest reason to upgrade any component in your system.
A greater level of performance will allow you to play some of the more demanding games out there as well as giving you a bit of breathing room when playing future releases.
You’ll want to have an idea of what you are looking to achieve with your system before you set out to purchase a card. It’s all too easy to get sucked into the numbers game and end up with a £400 monster CPU that is meant for 4K gaming, when all you needed was a budget CPU to play League of Legends.
Cooling
With great power comes high temperatures. This is an unfortunate fact with any system but luckily most graphics cards come with built-in cooling systems these days.
The more power your GPU will be pushing out will result in the card getting hotter and hotter, this means cooling is something you’ll want to bear in mind when comparing each graphics card.
This is especially important if you plan to overclock your card. While you’ll get a greater level of performance from your card doing this, if the raised temperatures aren’t kept in check, this can affect the running performance and efficiency of your hardware.
Size
If you haven’t decided on a case to house your system yet, there’s no better time than now. It’s a risky endeavor to build a system without any concept of size in mind. You’ll need to make sure that your graphics card fits in your case as well as leaving a bit of room to work around.
As the GPU isn’t the only thing you’ll have in your case, you’ll want to have a rough measurement of your other components. Will your CPU cooler get in the way of your graphics card? Will a longer card make water cooling more difficult? It’s questions like these that can’t be answered until you have a case in mind.
Budget
Now, it would be great if we could just sort from high to low when shopping for our graphics cards and pick the best one, however, it’s not always as simple as this. While some of the better-performing cards will be quite expensive, you may not need the best card that money can buy.
If you have a firm budget in mind you can start to narrow down some of your options and save yourself investing in a card that is overkill for your needs.
If you’ve managed to narrow down your search towards GeForce GTX 1050 Ti cards you’ll be looking in the range of $100-$150 these days. There isn’t much to separate the offerings either as there are a number of newer cards available from Nvidia. This is good news though as it makes your choice that little bit easier.
Best GTX 1050 Ti
ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1050 Ti GAMING OC
Clock Speed
1392MHz Base, 1506MHz Boost
CUDA Cores
768
Memory Size
4GB GDDR5
Dimensions
241mm x 129mm x 40mm
PSU Required
300W
- Biggest factory overclock
- Best cooling
- Quiet cooling
- Requires power connector
- More expensive option
The Strix OC brings the highest performance over the stock PCB. The card clocks in at over 100MHz more in base and boost clocks, with no other differences between performance specs this edges the card in front. This is achieved with the cooling solution on the card itself, with the biggest design of them all there are two fans on the heatsink. Easily cooling the card to keep up the performance and push it further.
However, that does require extra juice, as the only card that requires a power connector. It does only need one 6-pin PCIe power connector but it is more than the other options. So if you wanted to keep a clean setup the connector may be a problem.
It also is a larger 2-slot and longer card that may be too large to fit into smaller builds. But looking for the best performance in this category of cards, this is the best option.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mini
Clock Speed
1303MHz Base, 1417MHz Boost
CUDA Cores
768
Memory Size
4GB GDDR5
Dimensions
Dual slot 144.78mm x 111.15mm
PSU Required
300W
- Small form factor
- Larger cooling than low profile
- Loud operation
The ZOTAC mini offers up an improved performance to the GTX 1050 Ti but not on the highest level. But it is still an improvement on most to push it above the base level. While also holding up that performance with an improved cooler design that keeps the GPU cooler.
It is also a smaller card compared to the STRIX, with only one fan on the card, it manages a shorter and more compact design. Ideal for a small build it offers a better solution for those without much of a compromise.
With only one fan and a smaller design, it compromises the volume when working. It is likely to be quite noisy while being put under pressure.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP
Clock Speed
1392 MHz boost, 1290 MHz base
CUDA Cores
768
Memory Size
4GB GDDR5
Dimensions
182 x 69 x 35 mm
PSU Required
300W
- Small form factor with compact cooling system
- Low power consumption
- Still overclocked with limited cooling
- Considered quite pricey
- Hindered performance from lower coooling potential
Modern-day GPUs have been constantly increasing in TDP requiring much bigger cooling solutions. So if you’re in the market for a low profile card it is harder to come by for newer hardware. However, you can find a few for the GTX 1050 Ti, and the Gigabyte OC is a great choice for it.
This card is even overclocked from the factory, which is surprising with such a small cooling solution. So even as a smaller form factor, the card gives higher performance than some larger ones. It gives it an edge over the others and saves you plenty of space.
However, running such a limited cooling capacity does limit how much more performance you can squeeze out of the card. It may also run hot when under stress and so decrease the longevity of the card.
Final word
That wraps up our best 1050 Ti list, we’ve tried to make this one of the most comprehensive guides for choosing the best GeForce GTX 1050 Ti possible. It’s always a tough task narrowing down a list like this but this is a great set of cards.
Best GTX 1050 Ti FAQs
Which version of GTX 1050 Ti is best?
The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1050 Ti GAMING OC is the best overall choice for the 1050 Ti. It is well-designed with great cooling so to offer the best performance across the board. Along with overclocked specs to push beyond what the rest of the options have to offer.
Is the 1050Ti a good 2023?
In 2022 there are other low-tier options to pick from over the 1050Ti. Although it can handle some basic gaming on lower settings it might not hold up too well on the newest titles. Especially as it may be harder to find a new one to buy.
