Skip to main content

Asus’ new GTX 950 ditches the power connector without downgrading performance

If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, it might appeal to you that Asus’ latest debut — the GeForce GTX950-2G — omits a principle component, namely, the power connector. It’s missing from the Taiwanese computer company’s most recent offering.

As expected from a GTX 950 card like this, the new product headlines a trimmed-down GM206 GPU that promises an energy-saving 75W power limit through its PCI-Express slot — which clearly explains the exclusion of a 6-pin connector. Nonetheless, even without the power attachment, Asus’ new hardware still exhibits better specs over Nvidia’s reference speeds.

ASUS GeForce GTX950-2G specs:

  • Graphics Engine: Nvidia GeForce GTX 950
  • Bus Standard: PCI Express 3.0
  • Video Memory: GDDR5 2GB
  • Engine Clock: OC Mode – GPU Boost Clock : 1,228MHz , GPU Base Clock : 1,051MHz
  • Gaming Mode (Default) – GPU Boost Clock : 1,190MHz , GPU Base Clock : 1,026MHz
  • CUDA Core: 768
  • Memory Clock: 6,610MHz
  • Memory Interface: 128-bit
  • Resolution: Digital Max Resolution: 4,096 x 2,160
  • Interface: DVI Output : Yes x 1 (Native) (DVI-I)
  • HDMI Output : Yes x 1 (Native) (HDMI 2.0)
  • Display Port : Yes x 1 (Native) (Regular DP)
  • HDCP Support : Yes
  • Power Consumption: up to 75W, no additional PCIe power required
  • Software: ASUS GPU Tweak II & Driver
  • Dimensions: 8.3″ x 4.5″ x 1.6″ Inch, 21 x 11.3 x 4 cm. This is a 2-slot graphics card design.
Recommended Videos

In the wake of a handful of rumors indicating the arrival of a more capable GeForce GTX 950 build, there’s little doubt that Asus is one of the first to take advantage of it.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

With both the Overclock Mode and Gaming Mode of the GTX950-2G having beaten out the Nvidia’s reference speeds — including a GPU boost clock of 1188MHz, a GPU base clock of 1024MHz, and a memory clock of 6.60GHz — Asus’ card appears to be the definitively better option. Especially when you consider the reference model’s power-hungry 90W spec necessitating the 1×6-pin power connector compared to Asus’ 75W limit.

Although we criticized it for its bulky physical proportions, our review of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 called it “the new gold standard for budget gaming.” As far as the cost of Asus’ model, it’s unfortunately yet to be revealed.

Gabe Carey
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A freelancer for Digital Trends, Gabe Carey has been covering the intersection of video games and technology since he was 16…
Leaked Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 specs hint at powerful new era for PC gaming
NVIDIA RTX

 

Ahead of Nvidia's planned GeForce event on September 1, we're seeing more leaks detailing the company's upcoming line of RTX 3000 series graphics cards. Even though Nvidia has announced the event, the company has not given any specific details on what to expect. Industry insiders have long speculated that Nvidia will use the September event to unveil the successor to the current flagship RTX 2080 Ti GPU, and now we're hearing that up to three new 3000 series cards could make their debut.

Read more
Meta faces lawsuit for training AI with pirated books
A silhouetted person holds a smartphone displaying the Facebook logo. They are standing in front of a sign showing the Meta logo.

In a recent lawsuit, Meta has been accused of using pirated books to train its AI models, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg's approval. As per Ars Technica, the lawsuit filed by authors including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sarah Silverman in a California federal court, cite internal Meta communications indicating that the company utilized the Library Genesis (LibGen) dataset—a vast online repository known for hosting pirated books—despite internal concerns about the legality of using such material.

The authors argue that Meta's actions infringe upon their copyrights and could undermine the company's position with regulators. They claim that Meta's AI models, including Llama, were trained using their works without permission, potentially harming their livelihoods. Meta has defended its practices by invoking the "fair use" doctrine, asserting that using publicly available materials to train AI tools is legal in certain cases, such as "using text to statistically model language and generate original expression."

Read more
Intel needed a win — its new laptop CPU delivers just that
An MSI laptop sitting on a table.

It feels cliche at this point, but it's true. Intel can't catch a break. The new Arrow Lake-H chips feel like a tide shift for Team Blue, though, leveraging the highly efficient architectures the company debuted with Lunar Lake to deliver performance and battery life worthy of the best laptops on the market.
By the numbers
We've already seen what Intel's Lunar Lake processors are capable of -- read our Asus Zenbook S 14 review for more on that -- but these new Arrow Lake-H offerings are a bit different. Under the hood, Intel is still using its Lion Cove and Skymont core architectures, which Arrow Lake-H shares with Lunar Lake. However, these chips get a larger core count, higher power budget, and beefier integrated graphics based on Intel's Battlemage architecture.

The power budget is really important here. The base power is 45W, but Intel allows the chip to boost up to 115W for short periods of time. The core split is interesting, too. You get 16 total cores, but they're split between six performance cores, eight efficient cores, and two low-power efficient cores. If you remember, the efficient cores are actually the main performance driver in this architecture, so the extra two low-power ones are simply there for a little extra multi-core grunt.

Read more