EVGA Releases GeForce GTX 950 Low Power Graphics Cards with 75W TDP
by Anton Shilov on April 7, 2016 3:00 PM EST
EVGA this week unveiled their NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950-based video cards with reduced power consumption. As a result, these new cards do not require auxiliary power connectors and can be powered entirely by a PCIe x16 slots Similar variants have already been announced from companies like ASUS and MSI, but EVGA decided to release a range of such graphics cards as well, including factory-overclocked models.
EVGA’s family of low-power GeForce GTX 950 graphics cards that do not need external power consists of four models, which is a lot by contrast to other manufacturers. The GPUs are based on NVIDIA’s cut-down GM206 graphics die (768 stream processors, 48 texture units, 32 ROPs, 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface) but use EVGA’s custom PCB with 3+1 phase VRM. The GPUs are equipped with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, one or two DVI connectors depending on model, one HDMI 2.0 port and one DisplayPort output.
From the four cards, two of them run at NVIDIA’s reference GPU clock rates of 1025/1190 MHz, while the other two a little bit faster and run the graphics chip at 1076/1253 MHz. In each pair, one has a single DVI-I while the other has DVI-I and DVI-D connectors. All the boards feature 6.6 Gbps GDDR5 memory. As for cooling, they use dual-slot single-fan EVGA ACX 2.0 coolers.
Unfortunately, EVGA does not mark its GeForce GTX 950 boards with reduced power consumption with any easy to recognize label, hence, the only way to distinguish the adapters without PCIe connectors is by referencing the product numbers:
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Graphics Cards Specification Comparison | |||||||||
| EVGA GTX 950 | EVGA GTX 950 | EVGA GTX 950 | EVGA GTX 950 | MSI GTX 950 |
ASUS GTX 950 |
Ref | |||
| Product Name | 02G-P4-0952 | 02G-P4-0956 | 02G-P4-0954 | 02G-P5-258 | 2GD5 OCV2 | GTX950-2G | - | ||
| CUDA Cores | 768 | ||||||||
| Texture Units | 48 | ||||||||
| ROPs | 32 | ||||||||
| Core Clock | 1025 MHz |
1076 MHz |
1025 MHz |
1076 MHz |
1076 MHz |
1026 MHz |
1024 MHz |
||
| Boost Clock | 1190 MHz |
1253 MHz |
1190 MHz |
1253 MHz |
1253 MHz |
1190 MHz |
1188 MHz |
||
| Memory Clock | 6.6 Gbps GDDR5 |
||||||||
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | ||||||||
| VRAM | 2 GB | ||||||||
| TDP | 75 W | 90 W | |||||||
| Outputs | DVI-I DP 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
DVI-I DP 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
DVI-D DVI-I DP 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
DVI-D DVI-I DP 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
DVI-I DisplayPort 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
||||
| Architecture | Maxwell 2 | ||||||||
| GPU | GM206 | ||||||||
| Transistor Count | 2.94 B | ||||||||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | ||||||||
| Launch Date | Apr '16 | Mar '16 | Mar '16 | Aug '15 | |||||
| Launch Price | unknown | $159 | |||||||
While graphics cards like the GeForce GTX 950 are not used to build high-end gaming PCs, these new PCIe-less models can be purchased to upgrade inexpensive or older PCs which sometimes come without an auxiliary PCIe power connector on the power supply. In addition, a GM206-based adapter is a reasonable choice for an HTPC as the GPU supports hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of H.265 (HEVC) video, as well as HDCP 2.2 content protection over HDMI 2.0 (which is required for Ultra HD Blu-ray playback).
Since at least three manufacturers of NVIDIA graphics cards already offer GeForce GTX 950 boards without auxiliary PCIe power connectors, it is could be assumed that the GM206-251 GPU (revealed by MSI) has been selected due to reduced power requirements. It is unclear whether NVIDIA picks such GPUs itself and then marks them accordingly, or if there is a new revision of the chip and makers of add-in-cards have to test power requirements themselves through binning.
Right now EVGA does not sell its GeForce GTX 950 low power graphics cards on its website. It is unknown at what price these units will be launched at this time.
Source: EVGA
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
bill.rookard - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
Interestingly enough, this really starts to encroach on the 750ti's home turf, and even more notable is the low-power aspect along WITH the SLI connector...nathanddrews - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Now if only it came in a low profile model...barleyguy - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
I'd be happy to see a single slot model as well. I'm currently running a single slot video card because my other two slots have studio sounds cards in them.My current card is a FirePro v7900, which is roughly equal to a Reason 6950. I have kept an eye out for better single slot options and haven't really seen any.
barleyguy - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Radeon. Stupid autocorrect.Senti - Saturday, April 9, 2016 - link
Your card looks more like Radeon HD 6930 than 6950. I still have 6950 unlocked into 6970 and that's a wonderful card except pretty much being abandoned by red driver team. Even your card has more SP FLOPS than that GTX950 and almost 10x the DP FLOPS which can be important if some of your software can use the GPU compute.On the other hand, I had pretty bad experience with single slot FirePro coolers – they were unbearable loud. If that's the case then changing it indeed worthwhile. Might be better to wait for release of new line of Radeon cards this summer which should be way more power efficient though (even if you are going with NV – for price cuts).
barleyguy - Wednesday, April 13, 2016 - link
Your analysis is pretty solid, though the FirePro v7900 has extremely fast memory (256-bit GDDR5 @ 1.2 Ghz). It's unlikely that level of memory ever made it to a 6930 card.I'm been pretty happy with the fan noise of the v7900. It seems to be very quiet at idle, I think because it has a lot of headroom. At load it does get a lot louder, but still not too bad.
I briefly tried a v5900, and that thing was like a leaf blower.
Cheers.
dj_aris - Monday, April 11, 2016 - link
What is the purpose of the SLI connector anyway? Do motherboards with more x16 PCIe slots support 75w for each one?DanNeely - Monday, April 11, 2016 - link
Yes. They have to because the cards assume they can get 75W from the mobo. It's not just low power cards either; basic models of ~150W cards will typically have only a single 6pin connector, 225W ones 2x6 or 1x 8pin connector. (Higher end over clocking friendly/preOCed models will have connectors that provide extra headroom OFC.)You'll see a number of high end mobos including an extra power connector of some sort in the GPU area. Over the years I've seen molex, sata, and more recently 6pin PCIe power headers on the bottom half of the board to provide supplemental power.
jabbadap - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
EVGAs European site has prices for 02G-P4-0952-KR = €144,99, 02G-P4-0954-KR = €149,99 and 02G-P4-0956 = €154,99(inc. VAT). Only 02G-P5-258 is missing:http://eu.evga.com/Products/ProductList.aspx?type=...
jabbadap - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
Doh there is typo in your table it's EVGA GeForce GTX 950 SC GAMING P/N: 02G-P4-0958-KR(€159,99), not 02G-P5-258.