Gigabyte recently introduced their EXTREME range of Graphics card and this product range is available starting from the GTX 950 model.
The box cover does not mention any WINDFORCE but the card is essentially an improved WINDFORCE design, the top of the cooler shroud has this WINDFORCE text that is with LED backlight.
The backlight is controlled by the OC Guru II software, however it must be made clear that this is not an RGB backlight, you have 7 colors to choose and the 8th option cycles all colors. Lighting behavior is limited to breathing, blink and double-blink – all of them allow you to adjust the speed of the lighting motion but none of them allows brightness adjustment, brightness adjustment is only available when it is on solid lighting.
The card is powered with an 8-pin PCI-E connector, this means it’s possible to draw up to 225W from the supposedly sub-100W GTX 950 GPU. On the back the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING has a sleek looking backplate that matches the cut of the heatsink shroud.
Here’s the I/O ports for the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME
Here’s the GPU-Z of the said graphic card, more details available at the official product page.
Test Setup
Processor | Intel Core i5-4670K |
RAM | AVEXIR Blitz 2x 4GB 1600Mhz DDR3 |
Motherboard | ASRock Z87 Extreme4 |
Cooler | NZXT Kraken X31 |
Monitor | Dell U2414H |
Power Supply | FSP AURUM S 700W |
Casing | NZXT S340 |
Operating System | Windows 10 64bit |
Overclocking
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING is overclocked to the hilt, I couldn’t even get it to pass 100Mhz increase in core speed. 50Mhz seems to work fine but in my opinion anything that’s under-100Mhz could just be left as it is because the gains will not be significant.
Benchmarks
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.
*NOTE : AA disabled in 4K test.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 31 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 30 |
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 32 |
Metro Last Light
Card | 1080p (avg) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 50 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 46 |
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 53 |
Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K
Card | 1080p (avg) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 71 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 67 |
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 78 |
Shadow of Mordor
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 43 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 37 |
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 42 |
Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 19 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 19 |
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 23 |
Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.
Card | Idle(°C) | Load (°C) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME | 41 | 62 |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME Full RPM | 26 | 49 |
The fan hovers at around 38% on AUTO settings where the noise level is silent.
Power Consumption
The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an FSP Aurum S 700W with 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 60w.
Card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME |
Furmark Burn-in | 204 |
Estimated Actual System Draw | 184 |
Estimated Card Power Draw | 124 |
At 124W the card draws a lot more power than the supposed 90W rated power draw for the reference design.
The Verdict
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING is priced at around RM 900, not exactly cheap if you consider some GeForce GTX 960 graphics cards can be acquired at the same price.
What I think is really neat about this card is that it is almost the performance of a reference GeForce GTX 960 2GB graphics card, and on top of that it has this beautiful cooling system and an attractive back plate. Let’s face it, if the performance is quite similar then the next factor for decision making would be the appearance and that’s where the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 EXTREME GAMING shines.