Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950: specs and benchmarks
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 950 sales 20 August 2015 at a recommended price of $159 . This is a desktop graphics card based on a Maxwell architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 2 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6.6 GB/s are supplied, and together with 128 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 105.6 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is dual-width card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 7.938" (20.2 cm). 1x 6-pins power connector is required, and power consumption is at 90 Watt.
It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 13.73% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.
General info
Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 950: architecture, market segment, release date etc.
| Place in performance ranking | 318 | |
| Place by popularity | 84 | |
| Value for money | 6.03 | |
| Architecture | Maxwell (2014−2018) | |
| GPU code name | GM206 | |
| Market segment | Desktop | |
| Release date | 20 August 2015 (8 years old) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $159 | |
| Current price | $12.88 (0.1x MSRP) | of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB) |
Value for money
Technical specs
GeForce GTX 950's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 950's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 768 | of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT) |
| CUDA cores | 768 | |
| Core clock speed | 1024 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
| Boost clock speed | 1188 MHz | of 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX) |
| Number of transistors | 2,940 million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080) |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 90 Watt | of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem) |
| Texture fill rate | 49.2 billion/sec | of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB) |
| Floating-point performance | 1,825 gflops | of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo) |
Size and compatibility
This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce GTX 950 and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).
| Bus support | PCI Express 3.0 | |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | |
| Length | 7.938" (20.2 cm) | |
| Height | 4.376" (11.1 cm) | |
| Width | 2-slot | |
| Recommended system power (PSU) | 350 Watt | |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pins | |
| SLI options | + |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 950: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory bus width | 128 Bit | of 19000 (GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB) |
| Memory clock speed | 6.6 GB/s | of 22400 (GeForce RTX 4080) |
| Memory bandwidth | 105.6 GB/s | of 3276 (Aldebaran) |
| Shared memory | - |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 950. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.
| Display Connectors | Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2 | |
| Multi monitor support | 4 displays | |
| HDMI | + | |
| HDCP | + | |
| Maximum VGA resolution | 2048x1536 | |
| G-SYNC support | + | |
| Audio input for HDMI | Internal |
Technologies
Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GTX 950. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| GameStream | + | |
| GeForce ShadowPlay | + | |
| GPU Boost | 2.0 | |
| GameWorks | + |
API support
APIs supported by GeForce GTX 950, sometimes including their particular versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | |
| Shader Model | 6.4 | |
| OpenGL | 4.5 | of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile) |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | |
| Vulkan | 1.1.126 | |
| CUDA | + |
Benchmark performance
Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 950. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
Passmark
This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
Benchmark coverage: 25%
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
Benchmark coverage: 16%
3DMark Fire Strike Score
Benchmark coverage: 14%
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
GeekBench 5 OpenCL
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.
Benchmark coverage: 9%
GeekBench 5 Vulkan
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.
Benchmark coverage: 5%
GeekBench 5 CUDA
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.
Benchmark coverage: 4%
Octane Render OctaneBench
This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.
Benchmark coverage: 4%
Send in your benchmark results
Send your test results of GeForce GTX 950.
Mining hashrates
Cryptocurrency mining performance of GeForce GTX 950. Usually measured in megahashes per second.
| Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) | 233 Mh/s | |
| Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) | 9.97 Mh/s |
Gaming performance
Let's see how good GeForce GTX 950 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
Average FPS across all PC games
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:
| Full HD | 52 | |
| 4K | 21 |
Performance in popular games
Full HD
Low Preset
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 |
Full HD
Medium Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 27−30 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 45−50 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 35−40 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 35−40 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 35−40 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 45−50 | |
| Hitman 3 | 35−40 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 27−30 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 27−30 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 24−27 |
Full HD
High Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 27−30 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 45−50 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 35−40 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 35−40 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 35−40 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 45−50 | |
| Hitman 3 | 35−40 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 27−30 | |
| Metro Exodus | 21−24 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 27−30 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 38 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 24−27 |
Full HD
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 27−30 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 45−50 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 35−40 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 35−40 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 45−50 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 21 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 24−27 |
1440p
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 20−22 | |
| Hitman 3 | 21−24 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 18−20 | |
| Metro Exodus | 12−14 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 10−11 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 16−18 |
1440p
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 14−16 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 9−10 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 27−30 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 8−9 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 24−27 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 24−27 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 0−1 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 8−9 |
4K
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 10−11 | |
| Hitman 3 | 12−14 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 9−10 | |
| Metro Exodus | 6−7 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 7−8 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 8−9 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 13 |
4K
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 8−9 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 5−6 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 14−16 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 2−3 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 10−12 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 12−14 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 18−20 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 4−5 |
Relative perfomance
GeForce GTX 950's performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 950 is Radeon HD 7970, which is slower by 2% and lower by 5 positions in our ranking.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 950:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended processors
These processors are most commonly used with GeForce GTX 950 according to our statistics.
3.5%
3.4%
3%
2.9%
2.1%
1.7%
1.5%
1.5%
1.4%
1.4%
