NVIDIA launches GeForce GTX 950 card for MOBA gamers
NVIDIA has announced the GeForce GTX 950, an affordable card that intends to appeal to MOBA gamers with a combination of high-quality graphics, high frame rates, and low latencies.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 is designed to deliver competitive performance in MOBA games.
NVIDIA has announced the GeForce GTX 950 graphics card aimed at players of popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like Dota 2, League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm.
With the recent Dota 2 competition The International 5 boasting a US$18 million prize pool and over 20 million viewers, NVIDIA has rightly singled out MOBA games as a key driver of growth in the global PC gaming market. The GeForce GTX 950 has thus been designed to deliver performance in this highly competitive genre, where every millisecond literally counts.
The new card will feature a cutdown version of the GM206 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 960. Here’s a look at the specifications of both cards for easier comparison (NVIDIA doesn’t appear to be releasing a reference board, so we’ve used an ASUS card as a representative sample):
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[caption=GeForce GTX 950 and GeForce GTX 960 compared]
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According to NVIDIA, the new graphics card will deliver superior visual quality, high frame rates and reduced latency, crucial areas for performance in MOBA games.
In fact, we find NVIDIA’s emphasis on latency particularly promising. When you’re playing online against other players, performance is predicated on more than just high frame rates and smooth gameplay. It claims to have reduced input lag from 80ms on the GeForce GTX 650 to just 45ms on the GeForce GTX 950, when measuring the time taken for a mouse click to translate into an action on screen.
NVIDIA says it has managed to cut response time in games like Dota 2 by nearly half. (Image Source: NVIDIA)
Part of the reductions in input latency is brought about by reducing the number of pre-rendered frames, but NVIDIA has also tweaked other settings to further bring latencies down. What’s more, it’s made it easy to apply these settings via GeForce Experience, which can now automatically optimize settings for specific games with a single click. This is different from the existing optimization feature, which doesn’t tweak settings like pre-rendered frames or the refresh rate.
For instance, optimizing Dota 2 for low latency will now turn MFAA off, enable VSync, and set the refresh rate to 100Hz (you still need a compatible monitor). But if you’d rather have better graphics, you’ll also have the option to optimize the settings for the best possible visual quality.
A look at the optimized settings for Dota 2. (Image Source: NVIDIA)
As of now, GeForce Experience only supports optimization for Dota 2, League of Legends, and Heroes of the Storm on the GeForce GTX 950, but it plans to add support for more games and cards soon.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 will retail for US$159, with immediate availability from add-in card partners.
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