It's too high for single slot AND silent operation. I guess this kind of card would fit nicely in a more silent PC and the extra slot is less of a problem for most recent systems.
I'm curious what the actual power draw for 75W cards is. The spec says that the 75W max is supposed to break down as up to 65W @12V and 10W @ 3.3V (equivalent to what a legacy PCI card could draw - presumably originally to make porting cards via bridge chips easier when PCIe 1.0 came out a decade ago). Do these cards actually draw 10W on the 3.3V rail, or do they overdraw at 12V at full load?
If someone had a card and a clamp amp meter it would probably be easy enough to check if using a PSU with separately wrapped wires in the 24 pin connector, because AFAIK almost nothing in a modern system draws from that rail anymore; so a 3A bump when using one of these cards vs the IGP should be fairly clear.
Today's world.. lots of text and lots of numbers.. but all of that is only PR crap any real details how it actually works and how is possible to reach only 75W.
Binning and aggressive power throttling. The stated frequencies have very little bearing to real world performance as even at 90W the card throttles heavily under load.
Pray tell, why would anyone need a GTX 950 in a machine without additional PCIe connectors? I know those pre-assembled systems used to exist but they're typically so underpowered that even a 750 Ti would be bored to death... If you buy a system nowadays which can optionally be obtained with higher performance GPUs and do typically have the punch to run them they they almost certainly do provide at least one 6-pin connection, we're not really talking about crazy stuff like requiring 3 8-pin connections here where one needs rather special PSUs...
Quite frankly I'd rather take a regular GTX 950 with the connector just for the sake of ensuring system stability and actually being able to use the offered OC.
Not needing a cable is convenient. Lower power probably means less heat, which is a plus for small cases or cases with limited cooling.
I'm actually interested in these cards, I often buy decent systems build to specification (reliability is important) for specific projects and after a few years those PCs are no longer needed.
With a GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti or a low power GTX 950 these systems make good gaming systems for older games or MOBA's.
One of my clients gives his old PCs away for free to his employees and they are quite happy with a gaming PC for the price of a video card.
Any modern CPU - even a dual core Pentium (or even a Bay Trail quad core) - can gain massively from the step up from GTX 750ti to GTX 950. Sure, a more powerful CPU would probably gain even more. But unless all you do is RTS, the GTX 750ti is NOT CPU limited on low end desktops today. And even with the utterly crap PSUs that these come with (hence no PCIe connectors), they can easily power the ~140W these require while gaming.
B9 JTAG1 +TRST# B10 3.3Vaux 3.3v volt power B11 WAKE# Link Reactivation
Mechanical key
B12 RSVD Reserved
B17 PRSNT#2 Hotplug detect
B30 RSVD Reserved B31 PRSNT#2 Hot plug detect
B48 PRSNT#2 Hot plug detect
And all the way at the end:
B82 RSVD#2 Hot Plug Detect
I have no idea what the first bunch do, but otherwise they seem to have removed hotplug capability and unused pins? If my guess from skimming the Wikipedia article on SMbus, that would be used for on/off signaling of the card, which I would guess can also be related to hotplug use. And do modern GPUs use 3.3V at all?
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Amoro - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
No low profile option? Is the TDP still too high for singleslot?close - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
It's too high for single slot AND silent operation. I guess this kind of card would fit nicely in a more silent PC and the extra slot is less of a problem for most recent systems.nissefar - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
My GTX 750 is silent enough and is single fan. A dual fan low profile should easily be possible, I think MSI even had a dual fan low profile GTX 750.DanNeely - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
I'm curious what the actual power draw for 75W cards is. The spec says that the 75W max is supposed to break down as up to 65W @12V and 10W @ 3.3V (equivalent to what a legacy PCI card could draw - presumably originally to make porting cards via bridge chips easier when PCIe 1.0 came out a decade ago). Do these cards actually draw 10W on the 3.3V rail, or do they overdraw at 12V at full load?If someone had a card and a clamp amp meter it would probably be easy enough to check if using a PSU with separately wrapped wires in the 24 pin connector, because AFAIK almost nothing in a modern system draws from that rail anymore; so a 3A bump when using one of these cards vs the IGP should be fairly clear.
ruthan - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Today's world.. lots of text and lots of numbers.. but all of that is only PR crap any real details how it actually works and how is possible to reach only 75W.stardude82 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Binning and aggressive power throttling. The stated frequencies have very little bearing to real world performance as even at 90W the card throttles heavily under load.Daniel Egger - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Pray tell, why would anyone need a GTX 950 in a machine without additional PCIe connectors? I know those pre-assembled systems used to exist but they're typically so underpowered that even a 750 Ti would be bored to death... If you buy a system nowadays which can optionally be obtained with higher performance GPUs and do typically have the punch to run them they they almost certainly do provide at least one 6-pin connection, we're not really talking about crazy stuff like requiring 3 8-pin connections here where one needs rather special PSUs...Quite frankly I'd rather take a regular GTX 950 with the connector just for the sake of ensuring system stability and actually being able to use the offered OC.
RafaelHerschel - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Not needing a cable is convenient. Lower power probably means less heat, which is a plus for small cases or cases with limited cooling.I'm actually interested in these cards, I often buy decent systems build to specification (reliability is important) for specific projects and after a few years those PCs are no longer needed.
With a GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti or a low power GTX 950 these systems make good gaming systems for older games or MOBA's.
One of my clients gives his old PCs away for free to his employees and they are quite happy with a gaming PC for the price of a video card.
Valantar - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Any modern CPU - even a dual core Pentium (or even a Bay Trail quad core) - can gain massively from the step up from GTX 750ti to GTX 950. Sure, a more powerful CPU would probably gain even more. But unless all you do is RTS, the GTX 750ti is NOT CPU limited on low end desktops today. And even with the utterly crap PSUs that these come with (hence no PCIe connectors), they can easily power the ~140W these require while gaming.lagittaja - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
And still no LP GTX 950.Argh, we need a native HDMI 2.0 LP card.
Should easily be doable with a dual fan solution like they had with GM107.
Valantar - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
If this list of PCIe pinouts is correct (http://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml), then the missing pins are:B5 SMCLK SMBus clock
B6 SMDAT SMBus data
B9 JTAG1 +TRST#
B10 3.3Vaux 3.3v volt power
B11 WAKE# Link Reactivation
Mechanical key
B12 RSVD Reserved
B17 PRSNT#2 Hotplug detect
B30 RSVD Reserved
B31 PRSNT#2 Hot plug detect
B48 PRSNT#2 Hot plug detect
And all the way at the end:
B82 RSVD#2 Hot Plug Detect
I have no idea what the first bunch do, but otherwise they seem to have removed hotplug capability and unused pins? If my guess from skimming the Wikipedia article on SMbus, that would be used for on/off signaling of the card, which I would guess can also be related to hotplug use. And do modern GPUs use 3.3V at all?
wolfie.jacobs - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
My power connected 950gtx also has few missing pin. Not sure if it affect any of the performance, here is the benchmark I just ran, can any of 950gtx users with proper pin also share your performance score to settle my concern?https://www.dropbox.com/s/vi0i7a67t677rm5/950.test...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4edjrc0gomp6wbu/rsz_img_...