Best GTX 1050 Ti Overclocking Settings Guide
If you’re looking to get more performance out of the GTX 1050 Ti, this guide walks through the exact overclocking steps and benchmarks that show how much extra speed this classic mid range card can still deliver. The GTX 1050 Ti has a reputation for limited overclocking headroom, but with the right tuning you can still squeeze out meaningful gains in 1080p gaming:
This is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and we’re going to overclock and benchmark it.
This legendary mid range card offered an incredible price to performance ratio when it was first released in late 2016. The GTX 1050 Ti is the full on version of the scaled down GTX 1050 we previously tested. We should have no problem running at full 1080p performance on medium and possibly high settings depending on how the overclocking goes.
Now this card is not known to be a particularly great overclocker, especially versions that don’t feature an additional power connector. However, I’m thinking can we maybe push an additional 10 percent out of this card without much hassle. Stick around because we’re about to find out.
So what are we dealing with here. GTX 1050 Ti is based on the GP107 graphics processor, has 768 CUDA cores, and supports DirectX 12. This card runs at 1291 MHz core clock and 1752 MHz memory clock. The card comes in both low profile and full height versions and features one, two, or three cooling fans. The GTX 1050 Ti comes with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. Versions of this card can be powered either solely through the PCI slot or feature an additional 6 pin power connection.
The example card we have here is the Asus Phoenix GTX 1050 Ti. It doesn’t have an additional power connector, so our overclocking prospects are going to be a bit limited here. We’re certainly not going to let that stop us however.
So let’s get ready to overclock and benchmark this bad boy and see what kind of performance we can push out of it. The first thing we’re going to want to do is update the drivers. Let’s pop over to Nvidia real quick and grab the latest ones.
Now that our drivers are nice and freshly updated, the next step is to install an overclocking program called MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner is a completely free tool that gives you a high level of control and monitoring over your graphics card. It’s made by the company MSI, but in no way do you have to use it with an MSI brand of card or anything like that.
Now that MSI Afterburner is installed, let’s run through the key settings we’ll be using for this card. We’ll be focusing on the voltage, clock values, and fan settings. We can see that the fan speed is currently set to Auto. You can flip this off and manually select the fan speed, but for this video we’re just going to leave it on Auto.
We can change both the core clock and memory clock values from the middle section here. For voltage, you can see that the setting is grayed out by default. If you’d like to change the voltage, you’ll first need to go to Properties and then check the box labeled “Unlock Voltage Control”. Warning, I’d recommend being very careful when changing the voltage and only doing it in small increments.
You can always reset your settings back to default by clicking the reverse arrow at the bottom. Once you’re satisfied with your changes, you can click the check button to apply them. You can save your current settings to a profile by clicking the Save button and then clicking on one of the profiles along the right hand side. Finally, you can have the current settings automatically apply at Windows startup by clicking the Windows icon in the upper right corner.
Now I’m going to put a list of successful GTX 1050 Ti overclocks on the screen and in the video description. Every card is different, but this should give you a nice starting point for potential overclock values that may work for you.
Now that we’ve locked in some potential overclock settings, we’re going to want to test them. We’ll be running through five programs with benchmarks to test our overclock for stability and performance.
What I’ll do first is run through all five benchmarks using stock settings to measure base level performance numbers. Then I’ll select a minor initial increase in both core clock and memory clock values. I’ll then run through the Unigine benchmark tool over and over while increasing the overclock values slightly each time.
Once the settings have been pushed too far and I start seeing crashing, graphical glitches, degraded performance, or any type of odd behavior, I’ll dial the settings back to what they were just previously when everything was still running smooth. At this point I now have a solid idea of where the sweet spot is for overclocking my particular card. I can either stick with those settings or try tweaking things just a little further.
After a number of tests, this particular card was able to reach a solid overclock of 210 MHz core clock and 290 MHz memory clock. This is certainly a bit disappointing but not really surprising seeing how this example card didn’t have a separate 6 pin power connector on it. The 210 MHz core clock increase is respectable however.
So let’s run through each of the five benchmarks to see how our GTX 1050 Ti performed. First up is Unigine Superposition benchmark tool. Running at the 1080p High preset, the base score came in at 37.02. After overclocking, the score improved to 40.31. This represents an increase of 8.9 percent. Not quite the 10 percent we’re looking for, but let’s see how the other tests go.
Next up we’ve got Final Fantasy 15 benchmark. Running at the 1080p High preset, the initial test achieved an overall score of 2829 or Slightly Low. After overclock, the score increased to 3102 or Standard. That’s an increase of 9.7 percent. Nothing spectacular, but I’ll take it.
Benchmark number three is Grand Theft Auto 5 benchmark. Running at 1080p, 100 percent resolution scaling, and the highest possible settings, our initial average FPS was 30.3. After overclock, average FPS increased to 33.0. That’s an increase of 8.9 percent. Looks like a similar improvement to be had here.
Test number four is Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark. Running at 1080p in the High preset, the initial number of frames rendered was 6320. After overclock, frames rendered increased to 6948. That’s an increase of 9.9 percent. Nothing major, but a decent increase to be had here.
For benchmark five we have Borderlands 3 benchmark. Running at 1080p, 100 percent resolution scaling, and a quality setting of High, the initial average FPS came out to 26.3. After overclocking, average FPS increased to 29.3. That’s an increase of 11.4 percent. A decent improvement to be had here and finally something over 10 percent.
So that’s the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti in all its glory. Certainly a solid performer, but perhaps a card more suited to medium settings rather than high settings. If you’re looking at getting one of these cards, I’d also recommend trying to find one with an additional power connector on it if you’re looking to do any significant overclocking.
If you have experience with one of these cards, let us know in the video comments!
MSI Afterburner download page:
