Synthetic Benchmarks

To start of my testing I ran the GTX 950 Strix through our synthetic benchmark suite. Here we can get a look at how the 950 compares to other cards, especially the R7 370. While synthetic benchmarks don’t show you how the card will perform in game, they are a consistent way to compare the performance gap from card to card at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. In this card when testing in 3DMark using the performance setting the GTX 950 pulled a large lead on the R7 370 right out of the hole giving us numbers closer to the GTX 960 than I expected. When I turned up the settings higher the gap between the GTX 950 and the R7 370 did get smaller. In fact when we hit the ultra-setting the 370 actually pulled ahead. This actually makes a lot of sense though, the GTX 950 Strix has two gigs of video memory and that memory runs through a 128 bit memory interface. This isn’t an issue at 1080p but it chokes as we turn up the settings and the memory gets filled. While I would prefer the GTX 950 to have more memory and a bigger memory interface, the setup seems to be more than enough for 1080p gaming, what I would expect to be the goal for anyone buying the card. In the Heaven benchmark the 950 Strix fell right in between the R9 280 and the GTX 760 for performance, over 10 FPS higher than the R7 370. In the more demanding Valley benchmark the gap between the cards was smaller but still noticeable.