Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Review - Mini Card, Max Performance

In this Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Review, we will see how this "mini" card performs across different games and real-world benchmarks. Pasc...

In this Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Review, we will see how this "mini" card performs across different games and real-world benchmarks.

Pascal started out with High-End models like the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. Later on, users waiting for mid-range and entry-level cards were greeted with GTX 1060 and GTX 1050/Ti.

The GTX 1050 Ti from Nvidia is their effort to keep budget gamers happy. A GPU which provides decent 1080p experience to the first time PC builders or eSports players. It is competing with the likes of RX 460 and RX 470, which is AMD's lineup for entry-level 1080p gaming.



The GTX 1050 Ti uses a GP107 chip built using 14nm FinFET process. It is smaller than the 16nm process used by other higher end Pascal cards. There are 768 CUDA cores and 48 texture units across its six Pascal streaming multiprocessors. It supports all the features that the new architecture has to offer including Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) technology, Ansel, and enhanced memory compression technology.

In the stock form, it comes with a base clock of 1290 MHz and a boost clock of 1392 MHz. The 4GB GDDR5 memory is rated at 7GHz (effective). The reference design does not require any external power because of its 75W TDP. This makes it a considerable upgrade option for a prebuilt system which comes without any graphics card.

Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Mini - Main Specs



Now with the basic introduction out of the way, let's take a closer look at the GTX 1050 Ti Mini from Zotac.



As you can see from the specs, the Zotac card comes with a minuscule OC to the base and boost clocks. I wouldn't even call it a proper OC!

The Zotac GTX 1050 Ti is based on the reference Nvidia design. It uses a single 90mm fan and an aluminum cooler heatsink. It comes in a fairly standard packaging with no accessories. This helps in keeping the costs to a minimum.

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Zotac claims that it this card will fit 99% of the systems out there. Which, I cannot say with certainty, is definitely possible. It's not an SFF card, it still uses a 2 slot cooler but the overall design of the card is "mini" enough. But as it is based on the reference design 1050 Ti and it really is tiny. It's actually shorter than the PCIe slot on the motherboard!



Other than this, its a fairly standard design without LEDs, Backplates or any other bling. Great!

Let's have a closer look at the card.

Cooler

The plastic shroud comes off easily by removing the small screws. The shroud and the heatsink use two PCI slots.



The card uses a basic sunflower style aluminum heatsink cooled with a 90mm fan. The heatsink is molded in a way that it also partially covers overlaps the VRMs. There is no special treatment present for cooling the memory chips or VRMs. The cooler only makes direct contact with the chip.



The whole cooler seems pretty basic but when you consider that all it has to do is cool down a 1050 Ti GPU, then it all makes sense. As we will see in the temperature testing, this design is sufficient.

PCB

The matte black PCB looks clean and is free of any clutter. The GDDR5 memory chips are from Samsung. There's nothing special in terms of beefed up circuitry or special components. But that's not a bad thing.



As mentioned earlier, the card is based on the reference PCB. It comes without any external power supply. The power from the PCIe slot is enough. We will see how this will affect the OC capabilities. This limit also means that you only need a 300-350W PSU to power the system.



At the back, there's a single PCI bracket but the taller cooler means that you will still occupy two slots from the inside. There are 3 output options consisting of HDMI 2.0b DisplayPort 1.4 and DL-DVI. So it ready for 4K at 60Hz.

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As with GTX 1060, here too, Nvidia decided not to provide SLI support. Not a deal breaker by any means.

Test Setup and Methodology

I used the following system for testing the Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Mini. The links take you to Amazon India

Core i5 6600K
Asus H110M-K
Crucial 8GB DDR4 @2133 MHz
WD Blue 1TB
Cooler Master Silent Pro 700
Cooler Master CM 590 III

Nvidia 378.66 Drivers
Windows 10 x64

Every game test was performed 3 times with 5 minutes break. The average score was taken into consideration.

Now let me clear few things here. Though I will be showing the average FPS from games, this is not the most accurate method of testing a graphics card. Frame-time recording is a more accurate way of recording the data. But to do that, special hardware and proprietary software/applications are required. At the moment, this is not possible for an average user like me and you.

Yes, the FPS method is flawed but it is still repeatable and still a trusty method to record the raw performance of the card. It's much easier to recreate for you, as a reader.

If in the future, there comes an affordable way to record accurate frame-time data, I promise, we will jump to that.

Buy Zotac GTX 1050 Ti Mini Now from Amazon India

Head over to the next page for the benchmarks!

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