ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1050 Ti MINI Review - Conclusion

Conclusion

Petite performance with the smallest of them all ? At 14cm the card manages to impress, but as you have noticed the overall performance was a notch less then reference. There might be another BIOS update for this card as the boost performance seems a little off (conservative). Then again, with a very compact chassis or Mini-ITX build in mind that might be done deliberately to keep the temperatures at exceptional low values, which this card does as we never passed 50 Degrees C under heavy load.  Sure, this is entry level stuff, but they are easy to use cards alright -- just pop them in, install a driver and you're good to go. Currently pricing is off and odd though, but we'll talk about that a bit more in another paragraph. The 1080P resolution is the maximum domain of the focus for products like tested today, WQHD not so much obviously. The 4 GB of graphics memory does make a lot of sense for this product. Realistically the 1050 Ti 4GB is a bit all over the place in the benchmarks, some games behave extremely well where others just have a hard time. Performance wise I had hoped the 1050 Ti would be much closer to the AMD Radeon RX 470, but it simply isn't. It is a fun card, but is outperformed by that RX 470. A 1050 Ti should cost you 139 USD / 149 EURO as for 169 USD you can pick up that RX 470. Pricing in the EU however is very different, the product as tested today costs €159,- in the EU yet can be spotted for $139.99 in the USA though.

Aesthetics

It's small, dark, relatively cheap and serves all purposes. These cards are not designed for a massive PC with side window chassis. But even then, the looks remain trivial at best, totally fine as far as I am concerned.

Cooling & Noise Levels

This card runs under 50 Degrees C, though the compact design does make the card more audible compared to what others offer, it's all fine really. These cards run totally at 38~39 dBA, which is silent enough. There was not any audible coil noise heard.

Power Consumption

GP107-A1 Pascal series GPUs are rated as having a 75 Watt TDP under full stress, our measurements show it to be a tiny bit higher in that region. Low wattage cards are hard to measure due to the fact that a PSU gets more inefficient at low power usage. But we tag the 1050 Ti at 75 Watts. Again, we do need to weigh in a little reserve here power supply efficiency wise so it might be a notch lower as well. It remains to be a very low value. 

Gaming Performance

The 1050 Ti with 4 GB of graphics memory can game at 1080P. In DX12 with proper PC gaming quality settings you will run out of power pretty fast though, even at 1080P. But lower image quality a notch and you should be fine. It is a perfect little card for 1080P and the latest Battlefield 1 for example. Overall, in DX11 games we see decent enough performance. With a 4GB model you'll have more breathing space and that helps quite a bit. Obviously not everybody requires or demands 100+ FPS and many people find that 30~40 average FPS is good enough, especially with a GSYNC monitor. 

Tweaking

Overclocking wise things are very simple. This card could run and reach a boost frequency of roughly 1800 MHz, the memory subsystem can do 8 Gbps. After these values you'll run into restrictions mostly set by Nvidia. Check out the overclock pages for more precise numbers. 
  

Last Words

The 1050 Ti Mini is a funky little product at 14cm, that's what it is all about -- to offer a bit of gaming perf inside a compact PC. usage for HTPCs would be great, simple NET and desktop usage is lovely and even a bit of gaming is an option. It is a fun 1080P range card that can deal with modern games. For it to become successful whoever it needs to be under the 150 euro marker, currently this specific card sells at €169,- in the EU but at a proper $139.99 in the USA. For the EU it is a notch too high to make sense as the competition RX 470 is merely a few tenners way and will offer more value for money, we spotted the HIS RX 470 for example at € 195,- The product and build itself we cannot complain about as ZOTAC did a good job with the 1050 Ti. The performance is however a notch under reference, we had no clear answer for that. It is what it is though, otherwise totally stable and enjoyable. Compared to the 2GB 1050 this  GeForce GTX 1050 Ti it has a little more power under the hood and the 4GB of graphics memory really helps it out dealing with more crispy textures and, well, PC gaming the way it is meant to be played really (no pun intended). 1080P is your domain, but with certain titles you will need to lower image quality. Tweaking wise we'd achieve a stable ~1.8 GHz boost clock frequency. With the graphics memory you should be reaching 8 Gbps (effective data-rate) quite easily. Hey, for the bigger part Nvidia is in control of your tweak, not you. The ZOTAC Mini is a fun little product that you easily add-in a simple PC. If you can spot them for the right price, these cards can be little gems for your entry level gaming purposes.

 - H.

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