Its safe to say that the vast majority of PC builders are not buying the $1,000 graphic, one that comes to mind is the Titan X. I mean who wouldn't want a graphic card that is capable of handling games in full fledged 4K Ultra HD, the gaming experience would be just amazing. The money aspect of it all is what thwarts many from enjoying such great visual technology. Good news, graphic card manufacturers have taken notice and are launching graphic cards for us mainstream folks , one such manufacturer is ASUS which has unveiled their new GeForce GTX 950.
Here's the deal, you won't be gaming in 4K Ultra HD and get the visual sexiness, but you can still partake in full HD 1080p gaming. There is though a positive catch to it all which I'll get to later. There is enough power to push enough pixels on your display. The entire graphic card consist of 768 CUDA cores, 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6,610MHz on a 128-bit memory bus.
The feature of interest with the GeForce GTX 950 is the graphic cards ability to operate in two different modes. The first is "Gaming Mode" which is a graphic cards default setting. In Gaming Mode, the GPU sports a base clock speed at 1,026MHz and boost clock speed at 1,190MHz. To give the graphic card more power, the card goes into "OC Mode" the base clock bumps up to 1,051MHz and 1.228MHz, respectively.
Remember I eluded that there is a positive catch to it all,well this graphic card does not require any external power connection of any sort, meaning you don't have to insert 8-pin and or 6-pin connectors to the graphic card. It consumes 75W of power right directly from the PCIe 3.0 slot, or bus for the technically correct. This is of course is huge for those who wants to partake in cable free clean builds.
ASUS states that the graphic card uses "Super Alloy Power II" components . Each parts selection results in less component buzzing under load and lower temps.
There is no official word from ASUS on market release date or price tag. My guess the ASUS GeFroce GTX 950 will be valued at $170.