Budget video cards are in constant demand in the domestic market. And the GeForce GTX 1050 is one of the best solutions for a limited budget. Video cards of this series show decent performance for their level with low heat and power consumption. This is clearly seen in our large comparative testing of the GeForce GTX 1050 and Radeon RX 560. In this review, we will again turn to budget models from NVIDIA. Our focus was on ASUS’ inexpensive version of the GeForce GTX 1050. Let’s compare it with some solutions of the previous generation and with the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, let’s explore the possibilities of overclocking.

ASUS Dual GeForce GTX 1050 OC (DUAL-GTX1050-O2G-V2)

The video card comes in a small box without additional adapters and any accessories.

ASUS Dual series graphics accelerators are often distinguished by a white body color, but in this case we see a video adapter with a dark casing and small light elements.

The total length of the device is 20 cm. A system with a pair of fans occupies two slots. At first glance, it looks very solid, but there is a lot of empty space under the fans — the radiator is obviously small in size.

The black printed circuit board has compact dimensions and a length of 17.5 cm. One of the screws on the cooler is protected by a warranty seal, which prevents the device from being disassembled.

Three ports are provided for image output: DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI.

If you remove the cooler, then under it we really see a lot of empty space. The radiator occupies the central part of the entire cooling system, and here one fan could easily be dispensed with.

The dual-fan design is somewhat redundant, as the GPU gets very little heat. But all the elements on the board are well blown.

For clarity, here is a photo of a bare heatsink on the board. This is a typical budget design with divergent petals. Similar heatsinks are used in many other GeForce GTX 1050s, but only ASUS combines this design with two 80mm fans.

The printed circuit board is not of the simplest design; against the background of the Palit GeForce GTX 1050 StormX, it looks very solid. A three-phase core power supply system has been implemented.

The heart of the graphics card is the GP107-300-A1 processor with 640 active streaming CUDA cores. Two gigabytes of memory are filled with four Samsung K4G1325FE-HC28 GDDR5 chips.

The prefix OC in the model name clearly indicates factory overclocking. Base core clock increased from 1354 to 1400 MHz with Boost Clock 1519 MHz. The memory operates at standard frequencies, which is equivalent to an effective value of 7000 MHz.

Real frequencies under normal gaming load may exceed the declared Boost Clock, but for budget cards it all depends on the specific instance and power restrictions. The ASUS video card has an operating frequency range of 1772-1785 MHz with peak Boost values ​​up to 1810 MHz. This is illustrated below with screenshots of parameter monitoring during tests in Final Fantasy XV and Subnautica. Approximately the same frequencies were shown by the MSI GTX 1050 Aero ITX 2G OC video card with an identical base value of 1405 MHz.

On an open stand at 22°C indoors, the chip warmed up to 63–65°C, which can be called standard temperatures for most models of this series. The fans spun up to 1600-1700 rpm with little noise.

The ASUS video card has a fixed power limit, like other GeForce GTX 1050s. This somewhat limits the potential for overclocking. But the ASUS results are still excellent. Managed core midrange frequencies of around 1900 MHz with a base value of 1555 MHz.

In some games, the core frequency was kept around 1924 MHz (peak values ​​1962 MHz), in rare applications there were drops to 1873 MHz or so (Subnautica). Along the way, we reached an impressive memory frequency of 9 GHz, and this is not the limit of GDDR5 modules, but software overclocking limits. As a result, we got the highest combination of frequencies among all the GeForce GTX 1050s we tested.

To maintain operating temperatures at the initial level, the fan speed was increased to 1900 rpm, which is associated with more pronounced noise, but without noticeable acoustic discomfort.

In order to compare ASUS with the simple variants of the GeForce GTX 1050, the initial frequencies were slightly reduced. Based on the experience of communicating with different video adapters of the series, we decided to limit the frequencies to a peak level of 1721 MHz, which gave about 1696 MHz under load.