This card has a similar number of shader cores as the 1050 Ti as well as similar clocks, but cuts back on the VRAM and cripples the memory bus (at only 96 bits).
What we are seeing is that Nvidia apparently does not think having two models for each card type is enough (Ti, and Non-Ti), so they are adding in-between variants. Just when you think it can be tricky enough to go through the entire lineup for the best balance between your budget and the performance. There’s been reports of a third GTX 1060 model being unveiled as well, why can’t we have a simple lineup where we can estimate the performance and specs. based on how high the number is?
Now it is to be noted that this isn’t advocating against Nvidia or promoting AMD, but there’s disappointment being expressed on Guru3D as to why so many very similar, but different cards are even needed.
Now it is to be noted that this isn’t advocating against Nvidia or promoting AMD, but there’s disappointment being expressed on Guru3D as to why so many very similar, but different cards are even needed.
Because market conditions have changed. GDDR5 has become more expensive in the last 2 years, instead of cheaper. Since the 1050 is a low-end model for price/performance, and because GDDR5 is more expensive today, it only makes sense for NVidia to release a new version that better matches market conditions.
In general, buying the newest stuff will always result in the best price/performance ratio. I’d expect that these new 3GB 1050 (higher clocks but less RAM) are just that: cheaper to make but probably similar performance as before.
What is most likely going on, is that NVidia is doing their best to clear out stock of GP107 chips before the release of the 11xx series (or maybe 20xx series, depending on what NVidia’s marketing team decides to name their next generation). They’ve also decided that 4x channels of GDDR5 is too expensive, so they’re only selling 3x channels (96-bit GDDR5).
3x channels / 96-bit is still more bandwidth than the 1030, but its worse than the 1050 2GB and 1050 Ti. But it does mean that they only need to buy 3-GDDR5 chips per board now. This suggests that the GDDR5 shortage is probably affecting NVidia and they needed to release this board to better match market conditions.