Asus GeForce GTX 950 Strix Review

[Sakkura]

I diagree with you, TDP itself won't tell you how much power the chip consumes, even belonging to the same family might all share the same TDP, but still the higher clocked version will consume more power when fully stressed.
Besides, do you really think that this is a completely ordinary GTX 970? :http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-970-maxwell,3941-5.html
Just look at GPU and boot's speeds.even higher than a reference GTX980.

TDP is how much power they say the card will draw, at most, for extended periods of time during normal usage. That's what TDP is for. Now, TDP isn't an exact measure (there's no single standard for how to measure it), but it pretty much should fall in line this way. The thing is, earlier Nvidia cards did match the numbers pretty well, but not the GTX 970 and 980.

And yes it is a regular 970. Bear in mind there really aren't any reference 970s, so everyone is comparing non-reference 970s anyway. When performance comparisons are based on non-reference 970s it's only fair that power consumption comparisons are also based on non-reference 970s.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Is the extra power draw what concerns to me( I just said EXTRA cause NVIDIA offers the same or better performance sometimes with almost the half of TDP). the ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix 4GB performs even BETTER than MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G on BF4 at 1080P and 1440P :http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1633&page=3

is only inferior at 2160p ONLY BY 1-2 FPS once again, ironic.

if you can deal with extra strain to your PSU then go ahead, it is your opinion and way off thinking, I do not.
In my country for instance the R9 390 and the GTX970 cost just the same with some minor 10-20 difference.

400 cuc - MSI GAMING R9 390 OC 8GB GDDR5 512-Bit banda 390Gb/s DirectX12 pciexp 3.0 newwww 5339 2858
400 cuc - Shappire//MSI R9 390 8GB GDDR5 512-bits direcX12 --389Gb/s banda pasante 76433210*//54152504 Todo nuevo/Transporte Negociable Todo 0km NEW.
400 cuc - EVGA GeForce GTX970 SSC ACX 2.0 CoolerGPU 1342M DirectX12 4GB Backplate New caja 53547283

Then 390 TDP 275W against 145W from GTX970 is just CRAZY.

Nvidia's TDP ratings for the GTX 970 and 980 are essentially fake. The cards draw significantly more power in the real world. There's still an efficiency advantage, even against AMDs more efficient cards (285, 380, Fury/X), but it's not as big as Nvidia wants to make it look.

Really? I have a power meter that says otherwise,

 

[RedJaron]

In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD Radeon R9 280X Gigabyte 3GB OC Edition are very slightly better than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 Gigabyte G1 Gaming 2GB Edition.

As Sak already said, the conclusions on that site are very misleading as they only look at paper specs. Comparing clock speed and memory bandwidth alone doesn't reveal the whole picture when two products have very different architectures and implementations. But if you doubt that, check the original 960 review. A 10 fps advantage isn't just "slightly better." It's a significant advantage. And that advantage gets only better at higher resolutions. Now they only test 1920x1080 and 3840x2160, but anyone on 2560x1080, 2560x1440, or 3440x1440 will be much better off with a 280X than a 960.

Both GPUs exhibit very powerful performance, so it probably isn't worth upgrading from one to the other, as both are capable of running even the most demanding games at the highest settings.

This is total strawman they bring up since no one is suggesting upgrading from one to the other.

The GeForce GTX 960 Gigabyte G1 Gaming 2GB Edition requires 120 Watts to run and the Radeon R9 280X Gigabyte 3GB OC Edition requires 250 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 400 Watts for the GTX 960 and a PSU with at least 600 Watts for the R9 280X. The R9 280X requires 130 Watts more than the GTX 960 to run. The difference is significant enough that the R9 280X may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the GTX 960.

They're dead wrong on this. I'm running a 290X with an OC'd i7, which is much more power hungry, on a 500W PSU with no problem.

Take into account that the FPS at 2160p resolution with 280X in Battlefield 4 are 18,62 FPS(ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II), so you can not play at all with that FPS anyway.

True, but the 280X also gets 10fps faster at 1080 Ultra. The 280X can still get playable rates at 1440, something the 960 struggles to do.

So, the GTX960 is a 1080P card not above, wich is the most common resolution nowedays, and the extra 1-2FPS performance from 280X at higer resolutions does not matter to me(at least for now as I just said before).

It's usually more than a single frame or two, but just because it doesn't matter to you, doesn't mean it doesn't matter to others.

When GTX960 Ti and GTX965Ti come, then you have your compelling GPU between the GTX960 and GTX970.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If and when those come, and we test the actual performance, not just paper specs, then we'll see. But by that time, a lot of people will already have purchased a 280X, 290, or 390, so NVidia will have a hard time convincing them to re-buy another GPU so soon.

 

[JQB45]

Shoop, Wooop... AMD won one, and no one cares.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

If I look at the TDP rating for graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia, and then look at the max power draw charts on Tomshardware and some other reputable sights, it's always much higher than the rated TDP.

 

[Sakkura]

If I look at the TDP rating for graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia, and then look at the max power draw charts on Tomshardware and some other reputable sights, it's always much higher than the rated TDP.

I don't know about always, but it certainly happens. In Tom's launch review of the 390X, 380, and 370, the three cards landed on +19W, -5W, -7W compared to TDP. Or +7%, -3%, -2%. The GTX 970 and 980 hit +33W and +21W, or +23% and +13%. Those much bigger deviations on the 980 and 970 are why I'm critical of the claimed TDPs for those cards. It doesn't apply to other Nvidia cards, not even Maxwell-based ones like the 980 Ti and GTX 960. And this article doesn't even list a TDP for the GTX 950.

 

[JQB45]

A generic base nVIDIA 950 should be about 90W TDP