1050 2GB vs 1050 4GB vs 1050Ti 4GB

I'm looking to buy a new laptop sometime in the near future when a good deal comes out, but with my budget being in the $700-$1000 range I don't think I can get anything better than the 1050Ti (especially considering I'd like a 17" laptop, an i7, and a HDD+SSD).

That being said, they throw out different options and allow you to upgrade. So my first question is this: is there any practical difference in performance between the 1050 2GB and 4GB versions? Or is it a waste of upgrade money? I guess that question might depend on the price; what I'm looking at has it at $80 more. My hypothesis: the 4GB would not really be utilized, meaning the money would be better spent on other upgrades.

However, the 1050Ti seems to be a notable upgrade. How about that for $100 more than the 1050 4GB ($180 more than the base 1050 2GB)? I hypothesize that if $80 for the 4GB upgrade isn't worth it then it's silly to think $180 would be worth it, even for a better card, not to mention $180 seems an awful lot for that upgrade.

Finally, if it's a matter of not being worth the price, at what price would you consider it a good investment to upgrade?

Thanks. I try to look around for info on this, but the value difference between these 3 (especially between the 1050 cards) is very elusive. I appreciate your input, experts!

 

I don't think the 4GB would really be utilized, but I think it's safer to go that route because some games block you from using higher details because your video card doesn't have more vRAM. Also, I think the 1050 Ti is worth $100 over the 4GB 1050, but that's just me. It does seem a little steep but more cores the better. I wouldn't expect to game higher than 1080p though.

 

What are the notebooks that you're looking at? I've got a few recommendations for that price bracket if you're interested.

 

Ok, I've been ho-humming about getting 4k, but figured it would not be worth it unless I could get at least a 1050 Ti, which would be hard to get all for under $1000.

I've been looking at the HP laptops right now, since from my search in price comparisons I find them to generally be good value as long as you get a good sale (I'm hoping for 20-30% off, which comes up every now and then for HP). I know HP is generally discouraged due to cheaper build quality, but I don't know if it's really that big of an issue for me. The Pavilion doesn't offer the 1050 Ti upgrade, but if I were buying right this minute that's probably what I'd get due to it having a decent sale (the Omen would be preferred but too much more $$ than the Pavilion right now, can't compete with the Pavilion 7t's sale).

What are your recommendations?

 

2GB GPUs are obsolete, even at 1080p

 

I wouldn't bother even considering gaming at 4K unless you have at least a 1080!

 

For a sub-$1000 17" notebook with a GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, try the Clevo N870HK1. Sounds like it's practically the best bang-for-buck you can possibly get. As for gaming at 4K... Unless you want to play at slideshow frame-rates, as @HTWingNut has said, I wouldn't consider anything worse than a GTX 1080 now.

 

Yup, agreed.. The 1050ti will do 1080p fine but for 4K, good luck.. GTX 1080 is needed and personally, 4K at 15 inch is not good for your eyes!

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If you are looking at the HP Pavilion super sale (ongoing), then yes, it's an epic great deal.
I'd suggest the following config:

i5 7300HQ
8GB DDR4
256GB NVME SSD - No HDD
GTX 1050 2GB,
I think this config will cost you around 700$. Trust me, you won't find a better bang for your buck, as most sub 800-900$ machines will have a bad build quality as well. They will be no different than this HP.

4GB theorically makes no difference in the 1050. Yes some games will not run at high settings if you don't have 4GB of VRAM, but why would you even max the graphics on a 1050? It's supposed to be a budget card, equal to the 965M from last year (runs cooler), you don't expect to run the latest games at High/Max. Most of the old games won't require more than 2Gigs.

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Im surprised that any manufacturer are still using 2GBs GPUs, they're so obsolete and most of the latest games uses over 2gbs of memory because they use a lot of textures. Between the two GPUs there is a 30% difference, the 1050 is like a 965m and the 1050ti is like a 970m. I was going to suggest the new Dell inspiron 7567 but people who had it said it has some cooling problems

 

Texture settings rely on VRAM. Don't cripple yourself to 2GB anymore.

 

http://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/productdetails/inspiron-15-7567-laptop?~ck=bt
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/dell-inspiron-15-7000-gaming

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-001A-00487

 

Thanks all for your replies.

First, I want to address the 4k thing. I realize that even the "pricier" (at least in my book) 1050 Ti would not be able to handle a whole lot of games at 4k, but there's also movie viewing. I tend to be a sucker for high resolution, and may even play some games at 4k anyway even with the slow rates (I don't usually play new games anyway, and if it handle 4k I will simply play 1080p; most games I play or even own don't even support 4k anyway). I realize that there is very little 4k movie content, but I anticipate this laptop lasting at least 3-4 years (hopefully 5 years like my old Pavilion that I bought in 2011; see specs in signature) and would hope that content has gone up significantly by then. With all that being said, the 4k upgrade seems to be the least practical upgrade and will probably not get as much "real" use for the price (I say "real" use as in usage that will actually take advantage from the higher resolution; if everything is scaled/displayed as 1080p anyway, why have 4?), therefore dropping its value and is the first upgrade to get axed.

Second, I'm actually surprised at the support the vRAM upgrade is getting; like I said I hope this laptop will last several years and I do occasionally get into a new (or newer) game so I don't think I'd want that to be a bottleneck (I'm generally willing to sacrifice FPS for higher quality visuals, as long as it's not too slow; I'm not enough of a gamer to complain about getting only 35 or 40 rather than 60, especially since I don't play first-person shooters much anymore). It sounds like the 2GB would go obsolete too fast.

That does look like a good bang-for-buck, except that to add a SSD ups the price to over 1000 (barely over $1000 if I swap the HDD for a 256 GB SSD). Not to mention that it appears that the operating system is not included, and since I do play games I'd prefer Windows. Adding that would cost another $70.

At first I thought you were talking about the 17t, then realized you were talking about the 15t. The price right now for that would be $760, which looks pretty good. The SSD looks really nice speed-wise (though on the small side for storage capacity), but I lose the i7 and the 4GB vRAM, not to mention that I would prefer 17". It seems to me that the vRAM upgrade is more important than having a NVMe SSD rather than a non-NVMe SSD (although I am not terribly familiar with that yet). I'm thinking if I'm willing to drop to 15" with an i5, the Inspiron 15 7000 would be better value, with a 1050 Ti 4GB instead of the 1050 2GB, and from my understanding better build quality, for $882. In direct comparison the Inspiron seems to be the better deal (I am essentially upgrading the 1050 2GB to a 1050 Ti 4GB for $122), but with HP coupons I could probably get a similar or better Omen for around $800, plus on a 17" screen.

Right now that seems like my best option for a 15" laptop, although since I'm in no hurry to buy, if I wait until HP comes out with a 25% coupon I can get a 17" Omen with an i7, 1050 Ti, 1TB HDD + 128GB SSD for about $953 (based on current prices, which HP is known to change the spec options and prices rather frequently), or a similar 15" version for $863 (or for that price I could get a 17" Pavilion with a 1050 4GB rather than the Ti). With 30% off (what I used to buy my old one) I could get them for $889 and $805, respectively. Of course HP may not come out with such a coupon until March or April.

Thank you all for your input! I certainly learned a lot!

So it sounds like I should avoid the 2GB 1050. But what about the value difference in the 4GB 1050 vs the 1050 Ti? What is the upgrade worth? Or in other words, what performance (or performance in 3-4 years) would I lose out on if I went with the 1050 rather than the Ti?

Another question: in your opinion, which upgrade is more important: i5 to i7, or 1050 to 1050 Ti?

 

For both questions: get the 1050 Ti rather than the 1050, or the i7. The i5-7300HQ is plenty fast enough that it won't bottleneck the performance of the 1050 Ti (which is already rather slow) and most games aren't even fully multi-threaded yet, even in this day and age. As for the 1050 Ti over the 1050, the difference is obvious. You're getting around 40-50% more performance.

P.S. If you are interested in really serious 1080p 60FPS gaming, something like a 100% leap in performance over the 1050 (and a $200-300 leap in price, of course), you might be interested in a machine with the GTX 1060 instead (but rumours say that nVidia is likely to refresh Pascal this year, so it might still be better to wait).

What sort of gaming are you looking for?

 

I know the 1060 is a much better option, but looks like it is more than I'm willing to pay. I'm not serious enough about 1080p 60FPS gaming to drop the extra few hundred on a 1060.

The sorts of games I play vary, sometimes I get nostalgic and play old games (which is completely a non-factor when it comes to which card I need), but I currently am into Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft 2. My friends have suggested Overwatch, but I haven't tried it yet. I have also lately been into Wargame Red Dragon, Civilization V, and Neverwinter (my wife is currently into that game and wants me to play with her). I bought Star Wars Battlefront last year on a sale, but never got into it (probably haven't played more than 10 or 20 hours, and that was mostly single player), but that could change. So I don't usually play new games (too expensive anyway ).

 

In that case, the 1050 Ti will fit very nicely for what you need. Focus on the GPU; for most of your games (with the exception of Civ 5), they're not really heavy on the CPU (nor on the GPU, for that matter), and if you want some future-proofing, it'd last you fairly well into 2018, too. It's roughly on par with a GTX 970M, so there's that. If you do want to play 'expensive games' as you put it (Witcher 3 is apparently on sale, go get it, it's an incredible game), you also have a fair bit of leeway for something like 900p 45-60FPS on moderately high settings.

 

Ok thanks, that makes sense. My first laptop (the one that died) was an i5, my desktop has an i5, and I keep telling myself "i5 is all I need, but next time I'll upgrade to i7", but every time "next time" comes I find out that I really don't need an i7 (I'm more interested in saving money than I am in having the better CPU, especially if there's no noticeable difference in performance). My understanding is that an i5 should handle Civ 5 well enough anyway. Now my other question is whether to go down to 15" to save money. I'd like an optical drive, which is practically non-existent on anything but 17" laptops anymore, so that's something to consider as well.

 

i7 would do better.

i3 is dual core, w/ HT essentially 2 cores 4 threads.
i5 is quad core w/o HT essentially only 4 cores 4 threads
i7 is quad core w/ HT essentially 4 cores 8 threads

 

Would it do better for games, though? Particularly the kind of games I mentioned, or similar games coming out within the next year or two (should I choose to play them)? Or would I simply be paying more for 4 more virtual cores from the hyper-threading that will rarely be utilized?

 

Actually just saw that Civ 5 isn't that good for i7 so I take my word back.

 

Ok. Just out of curiosity, what about Civ 6? I don't anticipate playing it, but would the i5 bottleneck Civ 6? That's not going to necessarily be the determining factor, but just something to consider. I generally lag behind a few years on games unless one really catches my interest (which Civ 6 hasn't done yet).

 

Yes, but it seems like there not much of a difference, at least not right now.

I'd stick to the i5.

 

Ok, so now HP has a 25% off coupon (too bad it's not 30%, that would be nice). Unfortunately, it seems like i5 / 1050 Ti combo would be best, but no laptops offer that combo. In addition, my wife would like a DVD drive, but I figure we can still do a 15.6" and buy an external DVD for less than the $50 bucks (or $37.50 since the 25% off should apply to that as well) that HP wants for it, or even upgrade to Blu Ray for about $70. Everything else is pretty much the same as far as the other specs go: 8 GB RAM, 1TB HDD (7200 rpm) + 128 GB M.2 SSD (except the Pavilion 15t has a 256gb NVMe SSD instead), so I will only highlight the differences. I haven't actually tested to make sure the coupon works for each of these (my calculation is just 75% of the listed price), but I'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Either way, here are my 4 options for HP right now:

1) Pavilion 15t

• i5
• 1050 4GB
• 256 GB NVMe SSD instead of 1 TB HDD/128GB SSD combo
• $960 ($720 after coupon) + cost of optical drive

2) Pavilion 17t

• i5
• 1050 4GB
• $1030 ($772.50 after coupon)

3) Omen 15t

• i7
• 1050 Ti
• $1150 ($862.50 after coupon) + cost of optical drive

4) Omen 17t

• i7
• 1050 Ti
• $1270 ($952.50 after coupon)

Technically all these are within budget (although the Omen 17t is cutting it close), and obviously the farther down the list I go the better the computer is, but I still want to find that balance between getting what I need without spending extra on things I don't need. I feel I don't need the i7, but I don't know how much I would lose going to the 1050 rather than the Ti (it's really too bad the Omen doesn't offer an i5). So, between these options, what are other things I should be aware of? I'm guessing the Omen has much better build quality, but is the difference between the Omen and Pavilion stark enough that it should be a major consideration? Based on the games I play, would I regret getting the Pavilion (or to word it better, would the Pavilion have issues trying to play similar games 3-4 years from now)? On the other hand, would the Omen be overkill? Thanks.

 

Can you make a precise list of ALL the games you are playing?

Technically the i5 and 1050 can last a lifetime if you do not intend to max games.

The 1050 (not TI) is stil a strong card: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1050-Notebook.178614.0.html

Go for whatever you heart desires

 

I pretty much summed it up here:

I believe any "new" game I play is listed. I currently play Starcraft 2.

I do like to max games, though.

However, by the sounds of it any of these laptops would do fine. Is build quality an issue, or not really? My previous Pavilion lasted nearly 5 years, but my understanding is that HP's build quality isn't like it was in 2011 when I bought it.

 

Can you provide me with the links to the laptops? The ones I find have alternative specs.

There are different i5 and i7 cards, just want to compare which are which. I saw a Intel Core i5-5200U on the Pavillion, not what you really want for gaming since it is a "Ultra-low power" CPU.

 

If you can afford the 1050 ti equipped machine, you buy that one, because the card you buy is what you're stuck with forever.

What you need right now is irrelevant, because needs can change as time goes by, and longevity is worth gold.

 

Pavilion 15t
Pavilion 17t
Omen 15t
Omen 17t

The only upgrades I did were GPU and storage (I don't think the links store upgrade selections).

Good point. It's really too bad that they don't have an option with i5 and 1050 Ti (either by putting Ti's in the Pavilion or i5's in the Omen). I actually might hold off until the next similar coupon comes around (HP does these so often, but hopefully I will get lucky enough to grab a 30% off), probably around April or so, in which case there might be that combination available. Plus, I'd have more of a savings buffer, helping me feel better about pulling the trigger for $950 rather than $780 (just called wife, she says she wants the bigger screen too and doesn't like the inconvenience of an external optical drive, although I don't think there's a problem with it).

 

Buy the Pavilion 17t for $699 - great price and you save too much to buy anything else.

Also if you'd like to install a SSD later yourself do that, otherwise pay the $80 for 128GB M.2 SSD - the speed contrary to a HDD is light and day.

If you'd like a bigger discount, possible call Dell and say you simply are looking for something a bit more affordable, at rare times, they give out larger coupons to be nice I got a 30% coupon for my M1530 when I called them!

 

Nice idea, and I'm not opposed to Dell necessarily (in fact I liked the idea of their popular Inspiron laptop that had the 1050 Ti), but the main issues with them is they have no 17" laptop with a 1050 or better that gets anywhere near the specs HP offers (the only ones I'm aware of are the Alienware line, and that would be a huuuuge discount to get a 17" AW below $1k), and their 15" Inspiron I was looking at has a terrible display, by the sounds of it.

I've heard that HP also works with you when you call looking for a deal, maybe I should try that. However, they might not with how often they have these 15% - 30% off coupons so often.

 

Ah yes I'm being daft, call HP directly too - trying to juggle homework while being on the forums... doesn't really work tbh

 

I tried using they live chat version on both HP and dell websites, and didn't got a discount... is more of a phone call kind of thing?

 

later is always better bro.

 

I don't know, that's a really good question. But like I said, 25% off is pretty good, I don't see them discounting more than that while the coupon is still going. After it expired might be better to get a discount.

Yes, but if I always waited for later then I'd never end up getting a laptop. Do you have a particular time in the future in mind as being a great time to buy a laptop? If so, please do share.

 

What I mean bro is the GTX 1050ti 4GB is a later version so it's better than the previous two, same goes with the processor, i7-7820HK is a later version and definitely better than the previous i7-6820HK, sorry if I didn't make myself clear.

Also I don't think that there will be a newer class of GPU for this year (maybe) and if the GTX 1180 is ever going to come its probably next year (maybe).

 

Ok, yeah I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to my possibly postponing the laptop purchase until later. So you are referring to versions? Is the Ti a later version of the 1050 or is it a separate card altogether like the 1060 is separate?

 

Yes bro, the GTX 1050ti is definitely better and yes the GTX 1050ti is a later version of GTX 1050 or should I say "an upgraded version of GTX 1050".

Take a look at this bro: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html

I also took a quick read at your previous post I suggest don't get 4K bro, GTX 1050ti is not ready for 4K gaming. It will pretty much suffer a huge FPS drops and nearly unplayable even in low settings my advice is to get a 1920x1080 instead if you want to game at a stable 55-60 if not more FPS depending on the game and game settings.

I will also refer you to this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gaming-laptop-guide-pascal-edition.796958/

@Galm seems to put a decent amount of time in finding a gaming laptop for each budget.

If only you can up your budget to around $1500 you will get a much better specs but I wouldn't blame you, I've been in the same boat before (looking for a budget gaming laptop).

 

Phone calling makes it more personal but preference aside, 25% is a good discount too.

 

If you are spending 1200, go for the Clevo P650RP.. Its a much better choice then the Hps..

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

I thought that was only true for desktop processors. I have seen 2 core with HT i5s and i7s for laptops

 

I concur

 

But I'm looking to spend less than $1000, and hoping for 17". That really limits my options right now. I probably won't buy until April or so (my understanding is that prices drop in April).

 

I kinda wish laptop pricing just for specific parts wasn't that ridiculous. Desktop variations of the 1050 and 1050ti have a $20-30 difference. This is what makes gaming laptops have such a bad rep in the PC Gaming community, so sad. I'm not hating on gaming laptops, but that's a bit too much to ask for on a laptop. I seriously don't want to see gaming laptops get worse with this, I hope it does grow despite me getting into building a desktop soon.

 

I've always wanted to know the difference between the laptop 1050 gtx 2gb and the 1050 gtx 4gb (both non-Ti versions). As this forum thread is the first result in a google search for "1050 gtx 2gb vs 4gb", I thought this comparison from a polish website would fit perfectly in here:

https://www.purepc.pl/notebooki/test_geforce_gtx_1050_2gb_vs_gtx_1050_4gb_w_laptopach_msi?page=0,7

Plenty of benchmarks in there...

 

I like it when sites bench the different vRAM version of cards. These days though 2GB is simply too small. 1050 is by no means a major performer, but it's still decent and 2GB will only cripple its performance even more. With the low cost of vRAM these day, slower and less capacity especially, I don't understand why any manufacturer would go with 2GB over 4GB. I'd even venture to say 6GB is minimum these days.

 

Yeah, the 2gb is really borderline. 4gb should be standard by now.

Btw. here is also a video of a laptop 1050 4gb vs 4gb Ti. It's almost always 10 fps slower than the Ti (or the exact 20% due to 640 cores vs 768 cores).


Unfortunately we have no test showing all 3 cards (2gb, 4gb, 4gb Ti) side by side. One can only guess based on the polish website that the 2gb is an additional 3-8 frames less than the 4gb non-Ti.