NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (Desktop) vs Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is the second fastest Pascal based graphics card in November 2017. It is a high-end desktop graphics card based on a cut down GP104 chip as the GTX 1080 and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. Compared to the GTX 1080, it uses the more available GDDR5 graphics memory, and compared to the GTX 1070 it offers more shaders (2432 versus 1920). More details on the Pascal architecture including all features and comparisons to Maxwell, can be found here.

The performance of the GTX 1070 Ti was in our tests right between the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. However, the powerefficiency was worse than the GTX 1070 and near the GTX 1080. Nvidia also specifies the 1070 Ti and 1080 at 180W.

Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail)

The Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail) is a low-end integrated Bay Trail graphics card found in certain Atom models (Z3770), nettops (J2850) and notebook SoCs (N3510). It supports DirectX 11 and is based on the Ivy Bridge GPU. Clock rates and shader cores, however, are considerably lower.

Compared to Ivy Bridge, which offers either 6 or 16 Execution Units, the HD Graphics (Bay Trail) comes with only 4 EUs. The core clock is significantly lower as well. Depending on the specific model, the maximum Turbo Boost is 896 MHz or less and the memory controller can support DDR3(L), DDR3L-RS or LPDDR3 in single- or dual-channel operation.

The fastest notebook models equipped with this GPU nearly match the performance of the HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) and the AMD Radeon HD 6310. Therefore, older and less demanding Windows games like World of Warcraft or Half-Life 2 can be played fluently in very low settings. Performance is not sufficient for most modern titles.

Compared to competing ARM SoCs, Bay Trail outperforms the Adreno 320 (which can be found in different Qualcomm SoCs like the Snapdragon 600) and offers a performance similar to the Tegra 4 GPU. That is enough power to run even the most demanding Android games smoothly in very high resolutions as of 2013.

The integrated video decoder supports all popular codecs such as MPEG2, H.264, VC1, VP8 and MVC and is suitable for resolutions up to 4K up to 100 Mbit/s. The user can connect up to two displays via HDMI 1.4 (max. 1920 x 1080) or DisplayPort 1.2 (max. 2560 x 1600). Another new feature is the support for Wireless Display and Quick Sync, Intel's fast and power efficient H-264 hardware encoder. Some of these features are not available on all models.

Depending on the model, the power consumption of the entire SoC is somewhere between 2 and 10 W. The most efficient versions are therefore suitable for passively cooled tablets, whereas faster variants are used in larger subnotebooks with active cooling.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (N17P-G1) for desktops is an entry level gaming graphics card that was announced late 2016. It is based on the GP107 chip using the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 14nm FinFET at Samsung (the bigger Pascal chips are manufactured in 16nm at TSMC). Usually it is equipped with 4 GB GDDR5 memory with a 7 Gbps data rate. The mobile GTX 1050 Ti version should be announced later (beginning of 2017) and feature similar specs.

The performance of the GTX 1050 lies between the Radeon RX 460 and the RX 470 on a similar level of the old GeForce GTX 960 (or 970M). Therefore, the card is most suited for 1080p gaming at high detail settings (but not maximum settings).

See our extensive review of the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for more information on power consumption, benchmarks and noise level.