NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce MX330 vs NVIDIA GeForce MX350

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile

The Nvidia GTX 1050 is a mainstream GPU based on the Pascal architecture and was announced in January 2017. Contrary to the faster models, the GTX 1050 uses the GP107 chip, which is manufactured in a 14 nm process at Samsung.

The notebook version differs a bit in terms of clocks, but is equipped with 640 shader units, just like the desktop model. It is shipped with up to 4 GB GDDR5-VRAM attached via 128-bit interface and a 7 Gbps memory data rate (112 GB/s).

Features

The GP107 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

Performance

The performance of the GeForce GTX 1050 can vary quite a lot depending on the cooling performance of the laptop. It can be just as fast as the desktop model under ideal conditions, but the notebook model is usually a bit slower. The GeForce GTX 960M is beaten by around 30%, so the GTX 1050 is comparable to a GTX 965M in general. It is therefore an upper mainstream GPU. Games from 2016 can be played in high settings an the Full HD resolution.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 1050 is roughly on par with the old GTX 960M, which would mean around 40-50 Watts and (probably due to better selection and optimized parts) therefore much lower compared to the desktop counterpart. This means the graphics card will usually be used for powerful multimedia notebooks and entry-level gaming systems with at least 15.4 inches.

NVIDIA GeForce MX330

The Nvidia GeForce MX330 is a dedicated entry-level mobile graphics card for laptops. It was released in February 2020 and is basically a renamed Geforce MX250 / GeForce MX150 / desktop GeForce GT 1030. It uses the same GP108 chip as the MX250 (GP108-655-A1 e.g.). It offers the same 384 CUDA cores as the MX250 and MX150 and also the clock speeds only increased slightly (+12 MHz Boost = 0.8% for the 25 Watt version). The dedicated GDDR5 graphics memory is connected via a 64 Bit memory bus and clocked at 3500 MHz (7000 MHz effective) leading to maximal bandwidth of 56 GB/s. Again there is a 25 Watt and slower 12 Watt (low power) variant.

In Nvidia drivers the GeForce MX330 appeared with the hardware ID 1D16.

The GP108 chip is manufactured in a 16 nm FinFET process and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). 4K HDR with Netflix however won't run due to the minimum 3 GB graphics memory that is required. Compared to the bigger Pascal chips, the small GP108 does not support Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) for VR and G-Sync. A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

The performance of the GeForce MX330 should be identical to the MX150 and MX250 of previous years. See our GeForce MX250 page for gaming benchmarks. Nvidia states on the product page that the MX330 offers 2x of the performance of a Intel Iris Plus Graphics G7 in an i7-1065G7 (vs 2.5x of the MX350).  Therefore, very demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2 will not run smoothly, older and less demanding games like Fifa 20 or Farming Simulator 19 however should run fine in medium settings (see below for our benchmark results with different laptops). The low power version (see below) will be clearly slower however.

There is a low power version N17S-LP with a TGP of 12 Watt (up 2 Watt from 10 Watt of the LP MX250) and a "normal" 25 Watt N17S-G3. The performance of both variants should clearly differ. The low power variant offers relatively slow clock rates of 746 - 936 MHz (base - Turbo), where the 25 Watt G3 variant is clocked at 1531 - 1594 (similar to the MX250 and +70% boost clock versus the LP variant).

NVIDIA GeForce MX350

The Nvidia GeForce MX350 is a dedicated entry-level mobile graphics card for laptops. It was released in February 2020 and is based on the same GP107 Pascal chip with 640 shaders as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 for laptops. The memory bus is cut in half to 64 bit (GDDR5).

First benchmarks however show a bit slower performance as the GTX 1050 and on par with a GTX 960M. Nvidia states on the product page that the MX350 offers 2.5x of the performance of a Intel Iris Plus Graphics G7 in an i7-1065G7 (vs 2x for the MX330). Therefore, demanding games of 2019 like The Division 2, Metro Exodus or Rage 2 will only run in lowest detail settings acceptable. Less demanding games like Fifa 20 should run fine in high settings and even 1080p. However, this is always also depending on the used processor and main memory. See below for detailed gaming benchmarks.

The GP107-670-A1 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

In new Nvidia drivers drivers the GeForce MX350 appeared with the hardware ID 1C94.

The power consumption in our tests was lower than the average GTX 1050 (even Max-Q) and similar to the older MX graphics cards (as the TGP of 25 Watt suggests). Therefore, the GPU is suited for thin and light laptops.