EVGA GTX 950 FTW

EVGA GTX 950 FTW – A Closer Look

The GTX 950 FTW’s base clock is about 175MHz faster than NVIDIA’s reference specifications while Boost speeds see an equally impressive 217MHz increase. Sporting the ACX 2.0 cooler, business on the outside of the GTX 950 FTW is as usual. With optimized Swept fan blades, double ball bearings and an extreme low power motor, EVGA ACX 2.0 delivers more air flow with less power, unlocking additional power for the GPU. If you aren’t hi speed with the ins and outs of ACX 2.0 we’ve included a diagram below.

One word image summation: Efficiency. The new EVGA ACX 2.0+ cooler brings new features to the award winning EVGA ACX 2.0 cooling technology. A Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate (MMCP) reduces MOSFET temperatures up to 11°C, and optimized Straight Heat Pipes (SHP) reduce GPU temperature by an additional 5°C. ACX 2.0+ coolers also feature optimized Swept fan blades, double ball bearings and an extreme low power motor, delivering more air flow with less power, unlocking additional power for the GPU.The GTX 950 FTW card uses a custom PCB with 256mm length which makes it possible to use the ACX 2.0 cooler. We see the card requires 1x 8-pin PCI-E connector which some user’s older systems may not be able to accommodate.  For a single FTW a PSU (Power Supply) of minimum 350W is required.

The included backplate looks great inside your favorite case, can help to reduce operating temperatures by as much as 5 degrees Celsius and protects the memory modules placed on the back side of the PCB, plus it just looks super clean.

The GTX 950 FTW comes with one dual-link DVI, one HDMI and three DisplayPort connectors with support for HDMI 2.0. Able to run up to four simultaneous displays, with a single card you can also expand your PC games across three displays in full stereoscopic 3D for the ultimate “inside the game” experience. Add in a fourth accessory display to get access to your email, web, or other applications while you game. Helping reduce temperatures in the chassis, the I/O bracket doubles as an exhaust vent

So what exactly is changed on the GTX 950, compared to GTX 960? To put it simply, not much. We feel consumers will be pleasantly surprised to find they are pretty much being given a GTX 960, save for a bit less cores, a slightly slower memory bandwidth, and a few less TMUs.

	EVGA GTX 950 FTW	EVGA GTX 960 SSC	GeForce GTX 760
Chip	GM206 Maxwell 2	GM206 Maxwell 2	GK104 Kepler
Process	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm
Transistors	2.94 billion	2.94 billion	3.54 billion
GPU clock	1203 MHz	1279 MHz	960 MHz
GPU Boost clock	1405 MHz	1342 MHz	1033 MHz
Memory GDDR5	2048 MB	2048 MB	2048 MB
Memory clock	1650 (6610) MHz	1750 (7010) MHz	1500 (6000) MHz
Memory interface	128 Bit	128 Bit	256 Bit
Memory bandwidth	105.76 GB/s	112.16 GB/s	192.200 MB/s
TMUs	64	85	96
Shader Cores	768	1024	1’152
ROPs	32	32	32
TDP	125 Watt	160 Watt	170 Watt
Slots	2	2	Reference Design
Cooler	ACX 2.0	ACX 2.0	NVIDIA Reference

As you can see the EVGA GTX 950 FTW and GTX 960 SSC run a close race.  If you were expecting the GTX 950 FTW or any GTX 950 to be some way under powered junk not ready to handle 1080p with the options turned up, you are in for a lovely surprise.In the past the budget category of Nvidia GPUs did not include SLI support. The GTX 950 FTW supports up to 2-way SLI giving it that much more appeal when building a gaming system on the cheap. One of these silent killers gives solid results at 1080p resolutions and 2 in SLI would be interesting. Yes it still has the 128bit memory bus and 2Gb of VRAM which some will argue makes it pointless, but after seeing what the EVGA GTX 950 FTW  is capable of, or any GTX 950 for that matter for under 200$, it’s a great time to be alive.

As a budget card the EVGA GTX 950 FTW includes features you will find on high end cards, one being the QSD (Quick Switch Dual BIOS) allowing you to switch to the secondary BIOS on the fly. Designed for overclocking the FTW card has dual BIOS, allowing you to safely fiddle with the slave(secondary) without voiding the warranty.