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Today Nvidia is announcing their latest Maxwell based graphics card, the GeForce GTX 950. Designed to replace the GTX 750 Ti, this is the first truly affordable Maxwell GPU that will deliver high quality 1080p gaming performance. The GTX 950 will be taking on the Radeon R7 370, so we are keen to see how that battle plays out... Nvidia turned up the heat of AMD’s Radeon product range late last year when it released its latest GPUs based on the Maxwell microarchitecture. The GeForce GTX 980 delivered previously unseen performance from a single GPU and even at $550 it was a sort after product. The GTX 980 wasn’t our first look at the Maxwell architecture as the GTX 750 Ti gave us a glimpse of what was to come 8 months prior. Priced at $150 the GTX 750 Ti was designed to go head-to-head with AMD’s R7 265. The Radeon R7 265 wasn’t a particularly impressive GPU for the simple fact that the R7 270 and R7 270X didn’t cost much more at the time but delivered noticeably better performance.  This then made the GeForce GTX 750 Ti all the more disappointing as it struggled to keep pace with the equally priced R7 265 which lead us to this conclusion, “In spite of the GTX 750 Ti's efficiency gains, solid overclocking and low power requirements, it doesn't offer enough oomph compared to the R7 265 if both cards were to be sold at $150.” Although the GTX 750 Ti left us disappointed, the Maxwell GPUs that followed haven’t. The GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 980, 970 and the 960 are all great GPUs, unfortunately most of them cost well over $300. The GTX 960 is the cheapest Maxwell based GPU worth buying, but at $200 it is still too pricey for many gamers. This is where the new GeForce GTX 950 steps in, to replace the GTX 750 Ti as the new $150 GPU in Nvidia’s current generation line up. However while the GTX 750 Ti was light on performance, the GTX 950 promises to deliver highly playable 1080p performance. Whereas the GTX 750 Ti battled with the R7 265, the new GTX 950 will be stepping up to take on the R7 370, which subsequently is a re-badged R7 265 which is a re-badge of 2012’s Radeon HD 7850. The 7850 did cost $250 when it debuted a little over 3 years ago now, so that is some progress. |
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