Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Game Tests
Battlefield 4
The first test I ran was Battlefield 4 at 1080p. Before graphing the results, it wasn’t immediately apparent just how well Asus’ GeForce GTX 950 performed. At this resolution, the 950 easily outperforms its competition and even nips the heels of Nvidia’s higher-tier GPU.
In Battlefield 4, Asus’ GTX 950 Strix offers an amazing experience running on a lower-res display. At no point did the frame rate dip below 60, all while running the highest available detail settings. AMD’s R7 370 just can’t keep up, and even the higher-end R9 380 delivers similar performance.
Far Cry 4
Far Cry 4 was tested next. It's one of the more demanding titles available today, and it is also one of the easiest to notice dips in performance. At 1080p, the GTX 950 Strix manages good performance, and again trails the more expensive 960 closely. The game remains fairly smooth, maintaining frame rates above 40. The R9 380, which we tested twice to be sure, isn't nearly as enjoyable. It often dipped into the low 30s.
You’d probably want to lower the settings a little bit for smoother game play, but you can easily get away with leaving the graphics maxed out like this.
Dropping the resolution to 1366x768 has predictable results. With maxed-out graphics settings, the GTX 950 Strix is able to keep the frame rate above 60 at all times, generally landing in the 80 FPS range.
Grand Theft Auto V
For the Grand Theft Auto V tests, I decided to lower the graphics settings somewhat. Even though the in-game slider bar isn't particularly precise, it was clear that our settings were going to blow past the GTX 950's available 2GB.
The average frame rate ended up in the 90s. The GTX 750 Ti was left in the dust again, but AMD’s R7 370 proved to be more competitive in this game. A GeForce GTX 960 delivers a decent advantage over the 950 in Grand Theft Auto V, too.
If you are gaming at 1366x768, you’ll want to boost the settings higher than I had them. The game was running at easily double the average refresh rate of a monitor that size. Interestingly, the GTX 750 Ti offered similar performance at these settings.
Metro: Last Light
Asus’ GTX 950 Strix maintains an average frame rate around 60 FPS. It dips as low as 38, which is too low for many gamers, so dropping the settings slightly in Metro: Last Light would likely be a favorable decision. To be fair, owning a GeForce GTX 960 wouldn’t change the situation; you'd still need to relax the detail preset. An R7 370 offers a similar level of performance in this game.
For gamers running lower-resolution panels, an Asus GTX 950 Strix offers excellent performance. With graphics quality maxed out, Metro: Last Light never dipped below 60 FPS. Meanwhile, a GeForce GTX 650 has no hope of running the game smoothly, making a GTX 950 a major upgrade.
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Shadow of Mordor is the other game in our benchmark suite that required altered settings (Very High, rather than the Ultra preset). This yielded performance numbers more than twice what we saw from the Ultra option.
At Very High, the Asus GTX 950 again performs well. Before overclocking, the card outpaced AMD’s R7 370 by a slight margin. And after overclocking it, the average frame rate remained above 60 FPS.
Because of the way that Shadow of Mordor scales resolution, without a 1366x768 panel, it lets you set 70% of 1080p, which ends up being 1344x756. With even fewer pixels to push, the game remains in the 60 FPS range at even its lowest point.
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider was tested with maxed-out settings, but it could have used a reduction in quality for this class of GPU. While the average is within acceptable frame rates, the minimum drops way too low. A GeForce GTX 950 still delivers similar performance to the GTX 960, and again displays a significant lead over AMD’s R7 370.
Maxed-out settings work well at the lower 1366x768 resolution, yet we still encounter drops to 40 FPS in some cases. A GTX 950 just isn’t enough to run this game at its most demanding quality levels without seeing unacceptable minimum performance results.
Alarming amount of Texas Instrument chips found in Russian-based weapons in Ukraine — Russian military using third parties to purchase U.S-made chips
Aoostar AG02 eGPU dock with OCuLink support and 500W PSU announced for $219
China levels anti-trust charges against Nvidia – country accuses chipmaker of violating anti-monopoly regulations, examining the $7 billion Mellanox acquisition
