Nvidia offers free SSDs with GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 graphics cards

Nvidia and select partners are offering free Kingston SSDs alongside purchases of GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 graphics cards, effectively knocking around 15 per cent off their purchase price.

Right now, it looks like the deals apply to EVGA and MSI models, highlighted on Nvidia's site but fulfilled by UK retailers like Scan and Ebuyer. By our reckoning, the GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 are already the best value graphics cards on the market, so throwing in a free SSD makes them even more alluring for anyone building (or upgrading) a rig for 1080p PC gaming.

The GTX 1050 Ti models included in this promotion come with a 120GB Kingston A400 SSD, while the GTX 1060 comes with a 240GB Kingston A400 SSD. These aren't the fastest SSDs on the planet, but they're still way faster than mechanical hard drives. That can make a big difference when it comes to reducing game load times and even preventing hitches in games that heavily utilise background streaming.

If you haven't yet upgraded to an SSD or you want more space to install games, this is a nifty upgrade that effectively knocks between £27 and £42 from the cost of your graphics card. Considering that GPUs are more commonly bundled with free games of varying quality, getting free hardware is a much better deal.

To save time, here are direct links to all of the GPUs that are currently part of this promotion:

• MSI GTX 1050 Ti + 120GB SSD - £158.99
• EVGA GTX 1050 Ti + 120GB SSD - £182.99
• MSI GTX 1060 6GB + 240GB SSD - £249.96
• MSI GTX 1060 6GB + 240GB SSD - £259.99
• EVGA GTX 1060 6GB + 240GB SSD - £279.98

Given the relatively small variance between the performance of third-party cards, we'd recommend the two cheapest models - the £159 MSI GTX 1050 Ti and £250 MSI GTX 1060 - but all are reasonable deals and it might be worth paying a little more for a card that receives slightly higher clock speeds or a nicer fan design. It's good to see that all of the GTX 1060 cards offered here are the superior 6GB models as well.

To get an idea of the relative performance of the GTX 1050 Ti and the GTX 1060 6GB, you can check out our GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 benchmarks. Here's an excerpt, showing how the cards perform in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Of course, instead of buying a graphics card now you might prefer to wait for Nvidia's next-generation models, which were recently rumoured to launch this autumn. Specifically, an email leaked by Gamer Meld suggests that we'd see the GTX 1180 launched on August 30th, a mysterious GTX 1180+ and GTX 1170 on September 30th, and the GTX 1160 on October 30th. Presumably, retail availability for third-party cards would follow in the weeks or months after these launch dates. It's not yet clear how much of a performance boost these new cards will bring, nor what price they will launch at, so you've a decision to make: go for a discounted mid-range card now or hold out for a potentially better but more expensive card towards the end of the year.

If you are looking towards an upgrade sooner rather than later, then these GPU/SSD bundles might be worth thinking about.