The GTX 950 which has been released almost 18 months after the GTX 750 &750 Ti is Nvidia’s battlefield into the entry level graphics territory. It can be called the second generation of the Maxwell cards aimed at ARTS/MOBA gamers.
The GTX 950 works with all of the key features and has all the technologies powering the flagship, GTX Titan X, including SLI, GameStream, DirectX 12, etc. It is a great graphics card for use on computers sporting a full HD monitor.
MSI has revamped the looks of its Gaming series products with the majority of them sporting a red and black bi-colour theme with the dragon symbol. The GTX 950 Gaming 2G from MSI comes with a well-built metal shroud coupled with a dual Torx fan system which is placed on top of the heat sink and can be controlled independently.
Also See: MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G Graphics Card Review: Should You Consider Buying It?
Two heat pipes are seen protruding out the top and the base of the heat sink enabling faster heat dissipation. There is the absence of a metal cover on the back of the graphics card.
Specifications
The GTX 950 Gaming 2G sports a GM206 GPU, which was last seen on GTX 960 graphics cards. However, the GM206 on the GTX 950 has six SMMs that houses a total of 768 CUDA cores, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 Render Output Units.
This base clock speed for this GPU is 1026MHz, and the boosted clock speed is of 1190 MHz and 1279MHz in the Silent mode and Gaming mode respectively. It comes with 2 gigabytes of GDDR5 RAM which is clocked at 6,610MHz which is a bit less than that of the usual 7k MHz and has a 128-bit memory bus.
The Gaming app which lets the user switch between Silent modes, Gaming and OC is available for this graphics card. The Gaming mode boosts up the contrast of the display; while the as Eye Rest mode reduces the blue light coming out from your monitor.
Performance
The MSI GTX 950 Gaming 2G has been designed as a 1080p card and outpaces the Asus ATI Radeon R7370 in most of the cases. The poorest Full HD average came in Crysis 3 of 38fps which are still three frames more than the R7370 while its best 1080p average was in Batman Arkham Origins, where it skyrocketed to 108fps compared to the meager 84fps on the AMD counterpart.
Both of these results predict smooth gameplay on single monitors, but the GTX 950’s minimum frame rates faltered a little on the tougher titles. On Bioshock Infinite, the minimum fps was 26 which is a tad bit below the usually preferred 30fps mark.
For Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is just 22 fps. These results suggest that there might be occasional stutters, but if the graphics quality is toned down, there will be a smooth experience.
Price in India
The MSI GTX 950 Gaming 2G graphics card comes for Rs 16,850. It is a better option over the Asus ATI Radeon R7370 in the same price segment.
The Verdict
The card runs cooler than most other cards out there and makes very little sound. The Gaming app increases the ease of use and overclocking. Although the price may not be the entry-level segment, it is the cheapest in the GTX 900 series.
This card is a great upgrade for those using a GTX 650. Though it is faster than the GTX 750Ti on paper, there are no such significant improvements.
