NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (N17P-G1) for desktops is an entry level gaming graphics card that was announced late 2016. It is based on the GP107 chip using the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 14nm FinFET at Samsung (the bigger Pascal chips are manufactured in 16nm at TSMC). Usually it is equipped with 4 GB GDDR5 memory with a 7 Gbps data rate. The mobile GTX 1050 Ti version should be announced later (beginning of 2017) and feature similar specs.

The performance of the GTX 1050 lies between the Radeon RX 460 and the RX 470 on a similar level of the old GeForce GTX 960 (or 970M). Therefore, the card is most suited for 1080p gaming at high detail settings (but not maximum settings).

See our extensive review of the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for more information on power consumption, benchmarks and noise level.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is a powerful, mid-tier, Turing-based, desktop GPU. The GTX 1660 Ti relies on the TU116 chip with 1536 shader units, 48 ROPs, 96 TMUs and a 192-bit-wide memory bus (clocked at 6 GHz, effectively 12 GHz, bandwidth: up to 288 GB/s). The notebook version of the GTX 1660 Ti  is 10 to 20 % slower due to a lower TDP.

The TU116 chip and other Turing-based GPUs are produced using the 12-nm manufacturing process. However, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti does not offer the latest features such as DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and Real Time Ray Tracing. Nevertheless, there are some architectural improvements when it comes to floating point and integer performance. These operations can now be carried out simultaneously. Other notable features include Adaptive Shading, unified cache, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as H.265 encoding and decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

At Full HD resolution, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti performs somewhat worse than the GeForce GTX 1070, but significantly better than the GeForce GTX 1060. Therefore, it is best-suited for Full HD gaming. However, it can run less demanding titles in 1440p.

The energy consumption of the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti amounts to 120 watts. The older GeForce GTX 1060 also has a TDP of 120 watts.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 with the Max-Q design is a mobile high-end GPU from the Pascal series. It is designed for thin and light laptops and about 10-15% slower than a regular GTX 1070 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1101-1215 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1070 (1433 MHz, at least -10%) and the Boost (1265-1379 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1645 MHz (at least -6%) for the regular GTX 1070. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1070 though. The drivers for the Max-Q version were optimized for efficiency (and not performance; only for Max-Q models), there are optimized voltage converters for 1V operation, high-end cooling methods, and a 40 dB limit for the fan noise (with clock adjustments to ensure this at all times).

Features

The GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1070 for laptops and ranges between 80 and 90 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.