NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti vs NVIDIA RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation Comparison

# The Verdict

The data here is unusually lopsided. The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti are separated by roughly seven years of architecture development, and the benchmark results reflect that gap clearly.

The GTX 1050 Ti is an end-of-life product from the GeForce 10-series, built on the Pascal architecture. It was released in late 2016 and sits at the 25th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 4193. The nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon R5 M330 (0.6% ahead), the NVIDIA Quadro K3000M (1.1% ahead), and the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (1% behind). The GTX 1050 Ti is, in other words, a modest performer that competes with entry-level mobile and older workstation parts.

The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is a completely different animal. It is an active product from the Ada-MW generation, launched in March 2023. It carries the AD103 chip, 76 ray tracing cores, and 304 tensor cores. However, the database currently has only one recorded benchmark for this card: the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, where it scores 3596. This puts it at the 21st percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals being the NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 (0.1% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (0.9% behind), and the AMD Radeon HD 6770 (1.5% behind). That percentile figure looks low, but it is based on a single test, and that test is a modern DX12 workload where the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation delivers a score nearly 12 times higher than the GTX 1050 Ti.

Who should pick which? For anyone running modern DX12 workloads, the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is the only sensible choice. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result is 3596 versus 305, a 91.5% difference in favor of the newer card. The GTX 1050 Ti is simply not competitive in that test. For legacy applications, older API workloads, or systems where the GTX 1050 Ti is already installed, the older card still holds value, but the data does not support choosing it for new builds in any scenario where the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is available.

# Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different foundries, different process nodes, and different design philosophies.

The GTX 1050 Ti uses the GP107 chip, built on a 14 nm process at Samsung. It packs 3,300 million transistors into a 132 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 25.0 million transistors per mm². The architecture is Pascal, which was NVIDIA's mainstream gaming architecture for the GeForce 10-series. Pascal did not include dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores, and the GTX 1050 Ti reflects that: it has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. Its FP32 performance is 2.138 TFLOPS, and its FP16 performance is just 33.41 GFLOPS, a 1:64 ratio that shows FP16 was not a priority for this chip.

The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation uses the AD103 chip, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It contains 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die, for a transistor density of 121.1 million transistors per mm². The architecture is Ada Lovelace, and it is a completely different design. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has 9,728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. It also includes 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores, hardware that the GTX 1050 Ti simply does not have. FP32 performance is 41.15 TFLOPS, and FP16 performance is also 41.15 TFLOPS, a 1:1 ratio that indicates full-rate FP16 compute.

The process node difference alone is striking: 14 nm versus 5 nm. That is a massive reduction in feature size, and it allows the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation to pack roughly 14 times more transistors into less than three times the die area. The transistor density figures tell the story: 25.0 million transistors per mm² for the GTX 1050 Ti versus 121.1 million per mm² for the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation.

The API support also differs. The GTX 1050 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The DirectX 12 Ultimate feature level on the Ada card reflects the presence of ray tracing and mesh shaders, features tied to the RT and tensor core hardware.

# Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records only one direct head-to-head benchmark between these two cards: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12.

In that test, the GTX 1050 Ti scores 305. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation scores 3596. The delta is 91.5% in favor of the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation, which is recorded as the winner of the single head-to-head comparison. The wins tally is 0 for the GTX 1050 Ti and 1 for the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation.

That is an enormous performance gap. A score of 305 versus 3596 means the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation delivers roughly 11.8 times the performance of the GTX 1050 Ti in this workload. The 3DMark Steel Nomad test is a modern DX12 benchmark, and it is precisely the kind of workload where the architectural differences matter most. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has 9,728 shading units against 768, 304 TMUs against 48, 112 ROPs against 32, and it has dedicated ray tracing and tensor hardware. The GTX 1050 Ti is running a 2016 architecture with no hardware support for ray tracing or tensor operations, and it shows.

It is importantly the GTX 1050 Ti has a much broader benchmark record in the database. It has recorded scores in Geekbench Metal (7834), Geekbench OpenCL (18129), Geekbench Vulkan (10001), and multiple Passmark tests (DirectX 9: 104, DirectX 10: 31, DirectX 11: 45, DirectX 12: 26, G2D: 651, G3D: 6340, GPU Compute: 2652). The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has only the single Steel Nomad result. The average benchmark score for the GTX 1050 Ti is 4193, while the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation's average is 3596, but that comparison is misleading because the averages are computed over different test sets. The only directly comparable data point is the Steel Nomad DX12 test, and there the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation wins decisively.

# FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12?

A: The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation scores 3596, while the GTX 1050 Ti scores 305. The newer card is 91.5% ahead in this test.

Q: Does the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation support ray tracing?

A: Yes. It has 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores. The GTX 1050 Ti has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores.

Q: What is the memory configuration of each card?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128 bit bus, with 112.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus, with 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: How do the two cards compare in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti has an average benchmark score of 4193 across its recorded tests, while the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has an average of 3596. However, the GTX 1050 Ti has many more recorded benchmarks, so the averages are not directly comparable.

Q: What is the production status of each card?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti is end-of-life. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is active and still in production.

Q: What is the TDP difference?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti has a TDP of 75 W, while the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has a TDP of 120 W.

# Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation wins the only recorded head-to-head benchmark, and it wins it by a massive margin. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result shows a 91.5% performance advantage. This is a modern DX12 workload, and it is the kind of test that benefits from the Ada Lovelace architecture's high shading unit count, dedicated ray tracing cores, tensor cores, and full-rate FP16 compute. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation also has substantially more memory bandwidth (576.0 GB/s versus 112.1 GB/s) and four times the memory capacity (16 GB versus 4 GB), which matters for modern textures and datasets. For any current or near-future game, compute workload, or graphics application that uses DX12 Ultimate features, this card is the clear winner.

The GTX 1050 Ti does not win any recorded head-to-head benchmark. Its only advantage in the data is the breadth of its benchmark coverage, which is not a performance win. It has recorded scores across Geekbench Metal, Geekbench OpenCL, Geekbench Vulkan, and multiple Passmark tests, while the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has only the Steel Nomad result. In terms of raw performance, the GTX 1050 Ti is competitive with entry-level mobile GPUs like the AMD Radeon R5 M330 (0.6% behind in average score) and the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (1% ahead), but those are comparisons within its own performance class, not against the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation.

The GTX 1050 Ti also has a much lower TDP at 75 W versus 120 W, and it uses no external power connectors. That makes it easier to integrate into small systems, but the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) form factor, so both are designed for compact integration.

For use cases, the split is clear: the RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation is for anyone who needs modern graphics performance, ray tracing, tensor compute, or large memory capacity. The GTX 1050 Ti is for legacy systems, older API workloads, or situations where the lower power draw and the existing ecosystem of drivers and tests matter more than raw performance.

# Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every specification category.

Process and die: The GTX 1050 Ti uses a 14 nm Samsung process with 3,300 million transistors on a 132 mm² die. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation uses a 5 nm TSMC process with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. Transistor density is 25.0M per mm² versus 121.1M per mm².

Clocks: The GTX 1050 Ti has a base clock of 1291 MHz and a boost clock of 1392 MHz, with memory clocked at 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective). The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has a base clock of 1425 MHz and a boost clock of 2115 MHz, with memory clocked at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective).

Memory: The GTX 1050 Ti has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128 bit bus with 112.1 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Compute units: The GTX 1050 Ti has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has 9,728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation also has 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores; the GTX 1050 Ti has none.

Performance rates: The GTX 1050 Ti delivers 44.54 GPixel/s pixel rate, 66.82 GTexel/s texture rate, 2.138 TFLOPS FP32, and 33.41 GFLOPS FP16 (1:64). The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation delivers 236.9 GPixel/s pixel rate, 643.0 GTexel/s texture rate, 41.15 TFLOPS FP32, and 41.15 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1).

Power and cooling: The GTX 1050 Ti has a TDP of 75 W, is a dual-slot card, uses no power connectors, and suggests a 250 W PSU. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has a TDP of 120 W, is an IGP, uses no power connectors, and has no suggested PSU listed.

Interface and outputs: The GTX 1050 Ti uses PCIe 3.0 x16 and has 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation uses PCIe 4.0 x16 and has portable device dependent outputs.

API support: Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The GTX 1050 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1). The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2).

Physical dimensions: The GTX 1050 Ti measures 145 mm (5.7 inches) in length and 111 mm (4.4 inches) in height. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation has no recorded dimensions.

Release and status: The GTX 1050 Ti was released in October 2016, is end-of-life, and had a launch MSRP of 139 USD. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation was released in March 2023, is active, and has no recorded launch MSRP. The GTX 1050 Ti's predecessor is the GeForce 900 series and its successor is the GeForce 20 series. The RTX 5000 Mobile Ada Generation's predecessor is Ampere-MW and its successor is Blackwell-MW.