NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop) vs AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 2000/3000)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 is an entry level graphics card for desktops based on the Pascal architecture. It uses the same GP107 chip as the GTX 1050 Ti, but with only 640 instead of 768 shaders. The chip is manufactured at Samsung in 14 nm (opposed to the 16 nm TSCM based Pascal chips of the 1060 and up). The performance and specs should be similar to the GTX 1050 laptop version, that will be released later (early 2017). Compared to the faster GTX 1050 Ti, the 1050 offers less shaders (640 instead of 768) and only 2 GB of GDDR5 (instead of the 4 GB of the 1050 Ti).

Gaming benchmarks by Nvidia state that the GTX 1050 is about 30% faster on average than the Radeon RX 460 with 2 GB VRAM. The 4 GB version of the RX 460 should be about 10% slower and the older GTX 950 should reach a similar performance level as the new GTX 1050. Therefore, the GTX 1050 should be ideal for 1080p gaming with high detail settings (but not max settings).

AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 2000/3000)

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 is an integrated GPU for notebooks. It is used for the Ryzen 5 APUs, which were launched in the end of 2017. The GPU is based on the Vega architecture (5th generation GCN) and has 8 CUs (= 512 of the 704 shaders) clocked at up to 1100 MHz (Ryzen 5 2500U). The performance depends on the configured TDP (12-25 W at launch), the clocks, the cooling, and the memory configuration). The GPU should benefit from fast dual-channel DDR4-2400 RAM (contrary to DDR4-2133 single-channel, which is also possible).

The Vega architecture offers some improvements over the Polaris generation and now supports DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_1. More information is available in our dedicated article about the Raven Ridge architecture.

AMD's reference design GPU is sitting between the GeForce 940MX / Radeon Pro 450 and GeForce MX150 / Radeon Pro 555. It can handle smooth gameplay in simple titles like League of Legends (med), Dota 2 (low), Overwatch (low), CS:GO (med), and Quake Champions (high) in 720p up to 1080p according to AMD.

Thanks to the 14nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD), so the graphics card can also be used for slim and light notebooks.