Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti G1 Gaming 4GB Video Card Review

One of the side effects of running a tech website is that people always ask me for advice when building or upgrading a PC.  Being the performance minded individual I am my recommendations are often to the upper end of the performance spectrum where cost is less of a concern and always get concerned looks because while I might look past cost that isn't the case for everyone.  Thing is building a PC is an expensive endeavor and in an attempt to keep costs low you may cobble together parts from previous builds or look for lower performing components to leave you budget for a better motherboard or video card.

Whatever path you take the idea is that you should always have an upgrade option provided what you have will do what you need.

In this review I’ll be looking at the Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti G1 Gaming video card.  This is the latest NVidia offering based on the Pascal architecture and is one of two GPUs to be released for the “Discover GeForce Gaming” market.   NVidia has targeted this release at users who may have never installed a dedicated graphics card or are upgrading a low-end machine.

So, what makes this card so special?

In a word, price.  People in the low-end market are price driven and likely to pick up keyboards at the thrift store because they don’t know any better.  Granted, that makes good money "cents" but really isn’t helping to make their system any better.  This is where the GTX 1050 comes in.  The card is a little over a benny, requires no additional power and will run on a 300w PSU.  From a performance standpoint you’re not going to win any performance contests but, you will get to run the latest DX12 gaming titles, unlock GeForce Experience and get a taste of what it’s like to game on an NVidia based GPU.  (PhysX anyone?)

The Gigabyte G1 Gaming card featured in this review comes with a custom PCB, popular Windforce cooling solution, overclocking profiles, RGB lights and Gigabyte branded backplate.  All of the things a quality video card needs.