Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition Review – The Budget Graphics Card

We have seen how the GTX 1080 flagship consumer graphics card performed on our test bench, and we have also seen how the more popular GTX 1070 performed as well. Now it’s time to take a look at how the entry level or budget friendly NVIDIA Pascal graphics card performs. We have here the Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition to review. The GTX 1050 Ti is actually not at the bottom of the GeForce GTX 10 series but the GTX 1050, basically the little brother of the 1050 Ti. However between the two, I’d rather opt for the GTX 1050 Ti, which is faster in terms of performance and offers twice the memory. The GTX 1050 Ti is an ideal solution for those who are planning to build a budget gaming rig; and for users who usually plays not-so-heavy-on-graphics games at 720p or 1080p. If you are in the market for a sub-$200 graphics card check out our Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC review below and find out if this is the graphics card for you.

Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition Review

The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti isn’t the graphics card that enthusiasts and demanding gamers are excited about. It sits at the bottom of the GTX 10 series line up and it’s more suitable for games that are not so graphics intensive. The GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti are geared towards games like Dota, League of Legends, CS: Go, Overwatch, other MOBA games and other similar light graphics games.

At the heart of every GeForce GTX 1050 Ti lies a GP-107 chip featuring 768 CUDA cores with a base clock starting at 1290MHz; and is paired with a 4GB GDDR5 memory with 112 GB/s memory bandwidth running on a 128-bit interface. Its little brother, the GTX 1050, on the other hand has only 640 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

This graphics card is so power efficient, it only has a TDP of 75W and only requires a minimum of 300W power supply. In fact it doesn’t need an external power to power up the graphics card. While some GTX 1050 Ti may have a 6-pin power connector, the Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC doesn’t have one and draws its power via the PCIe slot.

Zotac has been in the graphics card industry for many years now and I, for one, can say that their graphics cards are reliable and can very much compete with any other graphics card on the market. Design wise or aesthetically speaking, they have improved their graphics card designs over the years. Obviously, the GTX 1050 Ti doesn’t produce much heat compared to the GTX 1060s and 1070s so it doesn’t require much cooling. In fact, most of the GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti on the market has a compact design with only has a single fan. Zotac too has this kind of GTX 1050 Ti – the Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Mini.

While, I don’t have a problem with the cooler design of the Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC edition, I prefer the cooler design of their old Zotac GTX 950 AMP Edition graphics card more.

Below is a side by side specifications comparison of the Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1050. Next page, we’ll take a closer look at the graphics card itself.

Zotac GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition Specifications