Introduction
Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB KalmX EDITION
The passively cooled 1050 Ti
We review the passively cooled Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX, the graphics card has no fans, just one big cooling radiator and is positioned at the budget minded consumer these cards are located in the entry level and budget minded segment. We say budget minded as these cards are supposed to be very affordable and positioned in an attractive 109 and 139 dollar (US) segment. The reality is more difficult though, the product as tested today costs €169.- in the EU and $139.99 in the USA. The 1050 series is Nvidia's answer to the Radeon RX 460 with the Ti models perhaps flirting with the Radeon RX 470 from AMD.
Both models GeForce GTX 1050 graphics cards are once again based on Pascal, fabbed with fins (FinFET) on an even smaller node, 14nm. As it turns out, the smaller fabrication process works out really well for Nvidia as they have been able to cram 3.3 Billion transistors into a very tiny 132 mm² chip. The 1060, 1070 and 1080 have been a high-clocked success story ever since their launch. The new GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti should suit gamers on a budget. Please note that there is no Founders Edition of the GTX 1050 (2GB) or 1050 Ti (4GB), you will only see board partner models. Based upon a GP107 GPU the top model "Ti" SKUs will get 768 shader processors. The entry-level "regular" 1050 model will get 640 shader processors. By itself it's nothing to dream about when you read the specs, but 16 and now 14 nm has been treating Nvidia well, and as such you are going to notice fast clocked models and if you tweak a little, you should be able to reach that 1.9, maybe 2.0 GHz marker on the GPU Boost frequency.
| GTX 1060 6 GB | GTX 1060 3 GB | GTX 1050 Ti | GTX 1050 | GTX 950 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | GP106-400 | GP106-300 | GP107-400 | GP107-300 | GM206-250/251 |
| Shader processors | 1280 | 1152 | 768 | 640 | 768 |
| TMU's | 80 | 72 | 48 | 40 | 48 |
| ROP's | 48 | 48 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| GPU freq | 1,506 MHz | 1,506 MHz | 1,290 MHz | 1,354 MHz | 1,024 MHz |
| Boost freq | 1,709 MHz | 1,709 MHz | 1,392 MHz | 1,455 MHz | 1,188 MHz |
| Mem freq | 2,002 MHz | 2,002 MHz | 1,752 MHz | 1,752 MHz | 1,653 MHz |
| Mem size | 6 GB GDDR5 | 3 GB GDDR5 | 4 GB GDDR5 | 2 GB GDDR5 | 2 GB GDDR5 |
| mem bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| TDP | 120W | 120W | 75W | 75W | 90W/75W |
With 640 shader processors it means the GPU has five (1050 model) or six (768 shader processor for the 1050 Ti model) SMs active (six streaming multi-processors x (2x64) 128 shader cores). The cards will be equipped with 128-bit memory as well, in either a 2 GB or 4 GB model, though we do recommend the 4 GB models to be a bit more future proof. That memory is tied to a 128-bit wide bus locked in at 1,752 MHz which is 7 GHz (GDDR5-effective) at a memory bandwidth of 112 GB/s.
For this review we are testing the Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX that obviously is intended for small and silent form-factor PCs. KalmX is all about silence as this unit is passively cooled, meaning it has been fitted with a cooling system that has no active fans. You cooling performance relies solely on that nice radiator and a bit of airflow inside your chassis. The end result is impressive as you will be gaming in cheer silence. We'll talk about the precise specs on these puppies during the photo shoot.
Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB KalmX series with the Nvidia GP107-A1 GPU.
