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Looking at it today in 2025, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti may not seem completely powerful, but it’s still super powerful for those looking to address graphics issues in a budget system or build a gaming PC.
Here are all the points that will help you understand why the GTX 1050 Ti remains a surprisingly relevant and valuable card for your gaming PC setup and goals in 2025:
1. Streaming and Recording Encoder (NVENC) –
This is the most important reason why the GTX 1050 Ti is still powerful for its stated goal (gaming and simultaneous streaming/recording), as this component (NVENC) handles live streaming very well while gaming.
The 1050 Ti uses NVIDIA’s NVENC (NVIDIA Encoder) chip. This is a dedicated processing unit on the graphics card whose sole function is to encode video for streaming (OBS, Twitch, YouTube).
Because the card handles heavy video encoding, it’s free to run games on CPUs like the Ryzen 3 3200G. This results in more stable and smooth gameplay and prevents system crashes or stutters during live streaming.
Even the older NVENC of the 10-series is known to provide higher-quality and clearer video streams at typical streaming bitrates (e.g., 6,000 Kbps) than the encoders on similarly priced AMD cards (like the RX 6400).
2. Excellent Low-Power Compatibility –
The 1050 Ti is king for basic/pre-built PCs like this one –
- The card draws all the power it needs (about 75W) directly from the motherboard’s PCIe slot.
- This means you don’t have to worry about your power supply unit (PSU)’s wattage or cables. It will work reliably even with the small, inexpensive, or proprietary PSUs found in many budget systems.
- Although it’s slower than modern cards, it’s a significant upgrade over built-in graphics.
- In terms of performance, the GTX 1050 Ti is about 2x (100% to 150%) faster than the built-in Radeon Vega 8 iGPU, for example.
- It uses its own fast GDDR5 memory, which is much faster than the shared system DDR4 memory used by your Vega 8. This prevents memory bottlenecks that can weaken integrated graphics.
It can comfortably run popular competitive games like Valorant, CS2, and DOTA 2 at 1080p with good frame rates.
I know that the GTX 1050 Ti isn’t a great choice today due to its limitations. Modern AAA games often demand 6GB-8GB even at 1080p. It’s not fast enough for consistent 60 FPS in newer AAA games (like Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake 2). You’ll need to play these games at around 30-45 FPS on low settings.
So if you’re looking to build a budget gaming computer or upgrade to one you already own, buy this card without a second thought. It’s the best graphics card available at a low price.
Note: It is a personal experience that depends on various factors like the motherboard, hard drive, CPU, used with etc.