Asus GeForce GTX 950 Strix Review

[turkey3_scratch]

I will say it once and I will even say it twice, the best value in video cards today is the AMD R9 280x, it trounces all of the cards listed here with a price under $200. I actually got mine for $175 with discounts. If you are hard up for money, you can buy a refurbished card from gpushack.com which comes with solid 2 year warranty.

hard to get hold of new now - if you can theyre overpriced.
second hand you really really have to watch out for ex bitcoin minig cards that havent been looked after well

Yes, I don't see why jeremymau is downvoting you for no reason. It is true, just look at all these 280X's on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Computer-Corp-280X-GAMING/dp/B00FR6XPL8

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Version-PCI-Express-Graphics-11221-00-20G/dp/B00FLMKNE0/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440104715&sr=1-1&keywords=280x

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GDDR5-3GB-Graphics-GV-R928XOC-3GD-REV2/dp/B00H34J64M/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440104715&sr=1-5&keywords=280x

Most are about $240.

 

[CRITICALThinker]

Disappointed at the launch price of around $220-$240 CAD. Nothing video card related here has any good price.

 

[Vesalius1]

So what does this mean for the price of the 960 2gb? There have been lots on sale in the 169-179 range? I got a 4gb for 209, will prices be going up, or is this just a very close divide?

 

[joex444]

This is an excellent article to dispel the argument that one can switch to an SLI configuration down the road as an upgrade. Look at the GTX 650. If you had that a couple years ago and were now itching to upgrade your choices are a GTX 650 to run in SLI or a GTX 950. A 650 today costs about $115, while a 950 is apparently $160. Going for the former should get you performance that is inferior to the 950 and uses 3x as much power and generating much more heat. Meanwhile opting for a replacement of the GTX 650 with a GTX 950 costs $45 more, but you could resell the GTX 650 for at least $45 making it an overall cheaper upgrade which nets more power and actually saves energy overall (from the figure about, GTX 950 = 100W, GTX650 = 150W, SLI GTX 650 = 300W).

 

[Onus]

Joex, the GTX650, 650Ti, 750, and 750Ti do not support SLI.

 

[littleleo]

Nvidia has moved the 750ti to the lower price point, but keeping it on the market. The 950 isn't being positioned by Nvidia as an upgrade from the 750ti, as the performance isn't a big enough jump for most consumers to make the change.

It is however a notable improvement in performance over a 750ti..

What!? It isn't a big enough jump for consumers but it is a notable improvement?

 

[Vosgy]

Ha, read this article, went to my Favourite Australian online PC store to have a look at r7 370, r9 380 and GTX 960 prices, while looking over 10mins a new section poped up with GTX 950
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1788&products_id=33064
First AUS price I have found.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1788&products_id=33067
Has now been added as well

 

[InvalidError]

That's the sad thing, a GPU as old as the R9 380 is still most relevant for its price.
4GB is a must at this point of time btw. Every game engine maker is doing massive rich texture games, due to the 4-5GB available in consoles and their slower GPUs.

Having more memory and higher resolution textures won't help a GPU with only a 128bits memory interface which lacks both the memory bandwidth and compute power to actually use higher resolution textures in the first place.

It is however a notable improvement in performance over a 750ti..

What!? It isn't a big enough jump for consumers but it is a notable improvement?

Big enough to recommend the GTX950 instead of 750Ti but not large enough to make people who already own a 750Ti upgrade to a GTX950.

 

[cd000]

Wow your pricing tool must have been having a bad day. The R7 370 can be had for a lot less than the $190 version listed. Here are some from the egg:

This one is $179 and has 4GB of ram to boot - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127884

And there are 5 2GB cards priced at $149 like this Sapphire - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202153

 

[Julian Galicia Thomas]

This just further proves that the 960 was terrible card.

 

[Brian Blair]

My god! AMD WTF? Now Nvidia's x50 series card is beating your x80 series card? This is what happens when you re-brand old tech for three generations! Something does not seem right about this review! I think Tom's messed this one up bad!

 

[Brian Blair]

So how does this compare in price to the GTX 960? If it's lower by about $20 - $30 I would think this card would be selling like hot cakes.

Oh c'mon! Anyone unless they are brainless would just pay the $20-30 more for the 960! The 950 looks like a nice card! But it's a x50 series card! It's supposed to be priced around $125! If anyone pays over $130 for this card they need their head examined! Even if this card cost $150, It would still be smarter just pay the extra for the 960. Besides Something seems very off about this review! I think they mixed the results with a older 960 review! There is no way the 950 should be so close to the 960 AMP edition!

 

[InvalidError]

Oh c'mon! Anyone unless they are brainless would just pay the $20-30 more for the 960!

The 960 performs only 10-15% better than the 950 despite having 33% more shaders, 10% faster clock and 6% faster memory, so as far as performance per buck is concerned the 960 is only worth it if it costs less than 10-15% extra. The 950 is already giving you pretty close to the maximum performance Maxwell can dredge out of 128bits worth of GDDR5.

 

[jeffredo]

"It delivers incredible performance per dollar, and nearly renders the GTX 960 obsolete."

That's just ridiculous. Its about 12% slower than a GTX 960 and costs only about $20-$30 less. I own a GTX 960 for a PC with a 1680x1050 monitor. There's no way I'd want one any slower especially for such a small savings.

 

[royalcrown]

Funny...you forgot the power draw of the 750ti on that last chart, yet the 750 is in all the other charts.

 

[Guest]

For the GPU's in this price point I think the reviewers should run them in systems that the end user would run them in, like with an i3 4160 (Or similar performing) on an H97 board. An i7 should really only be paired with a $300 or above GPU and sort of misrepresents what budget GPU's are capable of in real world scenarios.

 

[spentshells]

Looks like a nice card, but the price seems a little high. This is one of those cards that will slowly come down in price like the 650 ti boost.

I'm a little disappointed the real 380 wasn't used, the mini itx version is down clocked a fair amount. I am also surprised at how poorly the 960 performed considering how much it has in additional resources, this leaves me to believe the 960 ti(s?) are just around the corner and will use whatever resources are on the 960 a little more wisely unless it comes out a gutted 970,

 

[InvalidError]

For the GPU's in this price point I think the reviewers should run them in systems that the end user would run them in, like with an i3 4160 (Or similar performing) on an H97 board.

The i3 might be aiming a little far on the low side when a low-end i5 is only $50 extra over a high-end i3. I would much prefer having 4C with 6MB cache than 2C4T with 3MB cache if the budget and typical use can justify the extra $50.

But the point of the review is to show the relative performance under something close to the best possible conditions in a normalized environment to produce comparable numbers between reviews and hopefully between writers too.

 

[monsta]

It's good to see this isn't a rebadged 750ti , great card for its price at 1080

 

[Daren_Hunt]

Well,lets wait for TI version with higher memory amount (i hope that Nvidia will make 4gb versions too)

P.S SLI support for this card ? Really ? Is it confirmed by Nvidia ?

 

[MayuraDeSilva]

How does this compare to GTX 660? Worthy upgrade?

 

[FormatC]

P.S SLI support for this card ? Really ? Is it confirmed by Nvidia ?

It was tested by me But it is not worth to think about it. Good FPS, but stuttering.

 

[Sakkura]

370x, it's It's incoming, thought it was launched. 380 4gb should be wiping the floor with 960 and 950...seems off. Of course they use the slowest smallest 380 2gb they could find.

As the 380 is little more than a tweaked 7950, it's difficult to believe that you expected more from a GPU that's nearly four years old.

That's the sad thing, a GPU as old as the R9 380 is still most relevant for its price.
4GB is a must at this point of time btw. Every game engine maker is doing massive rich texture games, due to the 4-5GB available in consoles and their slower GPUs. This paradigm will not change anytime soon - it is much cheaper to make massive fast memory today, and future console RD will have even larger memory, i.e. which means larger rich texture emphasized game engines....NVidia should not cheap out on memory, but they do, and target their GPUs toward online casual gamers. This is a GPU dedicated to MMOG as Leage of Legends.

The R9 380 is not that old, it's Tonga. Much, much newer than the R7 370. Less than a year old, in fact, where the R7 370 is 3½ years old.

 

[Sakkura]

"It delivers incredible performance per dollar, and nearly renders the GTX 960 obsolete."

That's just ridiculous. Its about 12% slower than a GTX 960 and costs only about $20-$30 less. I own a GTX 960 for a PC with a 1680x1050 monitor. There's no way I'd want one any slower especially for such a small savings.

Around here, the GTX 960 costs about 25-30% more than the GTX 950. It's nowhere near 25-30% faster, so the GTX 950 is better value for money.

That depends on local pricing though.

 

[Tem B]

370x, it's It's incoming, thought it was launched. 380 4gb should be wiping the floor with 960 and 950...seems off. Of course they use the slowest smallest 380 2gb they could find.

Never heard of a 370x.

The 380 that was tested is the one we had. simple as that. we didn't go buy this card for the review.
Also, why would we test a 4GB 380 against this group of cards? they are all 2GB in this roundup.

If a company is selling a 4GB card at a price similar to 2GB cards, that means it is fair to include it. It's also fair to be clear that you are using an ITX card which may not properly reflect the performance of a full card with higher factory OC. If you're going to say the 950 approaches matches etc. the 380 then to be fair, you have to add those disclaimers. "Don't generalize to all 380s"

http://wccftech.com/sapphire-radeon-r9-370x-toxic-reviewed-trinidad-xt-clocked-1150-mhz-surprising-dual-crossfirex-connectors/