Nvidia has introduced the GTX950, a less-expensive model of its latest 900 series GeForce graphic processing unit (GPU), targeting gamers. The GeForce GTX950, which is $159, will be an affordable option for gamers who have used an outdated GPU. It is based on Nvidia's most advanced Maxwell architecture, supports up-to-date graphic technologies such as DirectX 12 and offers three times higher graphic processing capability and twice the energy efficiency of the GTX650, which has been one of Nvidia's most popular GPU products.

As yet another GM206 SKU there are no big surprises here – we’re already familiar with GM206 – but this brings GM206’s performance and features down to a lower price point of $159.

Compared to GTX 960, GTX 950 loses one-quarter of its SMMs – going from 8 to 6 – bringing the CUDA core count down from 1024 to 768. Otherwise the memory bus/ROP clusters are left intact, with 32 ROPs connected to a 128-bit GDDR5 memory bus.

As for clockspeeds, the GTX 950 ships with a much wider delta between the base clock and boost clock than GTX 960, with a 1024MHz base and 1188MHz boost. Meanwhile memory clockspeeds have also taken a haircut from 7GHz to 6.6GHz. This mostly seems to be for the purpose of creating an artificial distinction, as no one supplies a 6.6GHz GDDR5 speed grade as far as we’re aware.

In any case this puts the theoretical performance of the GTX 950 at anywhere between 101% and 68% of the performance of GTX 960, depending on the workload.

The final major shift for the GTX 950 is TDP. GTX 960 was a 120W TDP part, but for GTX 950 NVIDIA is dropping the TDP to 90W.

The GTX 950 will be launching at $159 – NVIDIA seemingly going $10 over the more typical price point because they can – $40 below the GTX 960 and $40 above the GTX 750 Ti, which remains on the market and retails for around $119. The GTX 950’s direct competition from AMD will be the Radeon R7 370, AMD’s latest cut-down Pitcairn GPU, which launched back in June at $149.

Nvidia also introduced major updates scheduled for the GeForce Experience, software that optimizes a computer system's graphic settings for games and video performance.

Users can record their game play in video clips and upload them to YouTube. They also can stream the game play through the Twitch service to share it. Nvidia says GeForce Experience users can connect one-on-one to stream the game play without latency or invite a friend to the game play to delegate control of it.