GeForce GTX 760 Review: GK104 Shows Up (And Off) At $250

[17seconds]

Of course, if you don't like the overclocking results on one review, you can always find another.

Anandtech quote:
"In practice GTX 760 ended up exceeding our expectations. In fact it even ended up exceeding GTX 770 with regard to the size of the overclock and the highest boost bin we reached. Altogether we were able to increase the core clock by 150MHz on our GTX 760 sample, going from a base clock of 980MHz to 1130MHz. At the same time our max boost clock went from 1149MHz to 1306MHz, making this the first Kepler we’ve seen to surpass 1300MHz. The end result is that core overclocking ends up being more potent than we were expecting."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7103/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-review/17

 

[dalmvern]

While I seriously dislike the fact that they are basically relabeling old GPUs and calling it another number, there is no doubt that nVidia is definitely making these cards desirable due to their price/performance ratio. It now makes my 660ti irrelevant.

 

[TheBigTroll]

I still don't think that the 760 is better over the hd 7950 as of right now. The HD 7950 comes with 4 games, while the 760 comes with none, so the 50 dollars you save isn't as much as the amount of money in games you get buying the HD 7950.

it isnt better. its just cheaper and performs the same.

and no, the 760 does come with metro last light and 75 dollars of in game cash that may or may not be useful

 

[damian86]

you missed the noise test :-( but heard this card is really quiet.

 

[slicedtoad]

If you go by straight maths, then a 25% increase in performance for 30% increase in price is not efficient. That is going by the $200 GTX660 on sale at my microcenter right now, and the $60 increase you claim with average 760 cards.

No, this is flawed thinking. There are almost always diminishing returns as you climb the performance ladder. In the end it's subjective and up to you, but most people will buy the best they can afford or try to hit a target performance mark. If it was completely up to value, you would look at the System Builder Marathon and decide that a $650 pc is better than a $2500 pc. In reality, it depends on your needs and budget. And a 25% increase for 30% more money really isn't bad as far as diminishing returns go.

Note: I'm not actually checking your numbers or anything, just commenting on your "going by the maths" logic.

 

[FormatC]

Of course, if you don't like the overclocking results on one review, you can always find another.

This is cherry-picking. I've tested the OC stability in long runs and not for a single benchmark.

I have 3 here cards with a workig boost over 1300 MHz, but not one card is able to run more than 1 or 2 hours really stable. It works only for short-time benches but not for long runs. And a lot of cards is not able to reach the 1300 MHz barrier and please note, that a lot of reviewer cards are so-called golden samples for press only.

I've proofed my results with "normal" retail cards from a shop and I see no reason to fall into OC euphoria 😀

 

[TheBigTroll]

I still don't think that the 760 is better over the hd 7950 as of right now. The HD 7950 comes with 4 games, while the 760 comes with none, so the 50 dollars you save isn't as much as the amount of money in games you get buying the HD 7950.

it isnt better. its just cheaper and performs the same.

and no, the 760 does come with metro last light and 75 dollars of in game cash that may or may not be useful

On newegg, no.

just so happens that others are giving it away

 

[omgoblins]

I still don't think that the 760 is better over the hd 7950 as of right now. The HD 7950 comes with 4 games, while the 760 comes with none, so the 50 dollars you save isn't as much as the amount of money in games you get buying the HD 7950.

it isnt better. its just cheaper and performs the same.

and no, the 760 does come with metro last light and 75 dollars of in game cash that may or may not be useful

On newegg, no.

just so happens that others are giving it away

Yes, but in game cash for free to play games is different from 4 actual games. I can still play those f2p games for free if I wanted to, while you can't just pick up tomb raider, Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite or far cry blood dragon for free. Also, the AMD bundle is worth a full 25 dollars more than the nVidia bundle. Lastly, if you don't like any of the games, you can sell the codes to someone who does for some cash so, AMD wins for now. But once these bundles are over, the gtx 760 should be good. Though some may argue that you can overclock the 7950 to be a lot more than you pay for it, up to almost 680 level performance, but I haven't done that myself. Ive just gotten 670 level performance which is still amazing considering the 670 is 100 bucks more.

Yeah, if you can overclock your 7950 to 1200Mhz core 1525Mhz memory you will be over 680 level performance, even over 7970 Ghz Ed performance (stock speeds for both obviously). Here: this is from techpowerup http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/images/perf_oc.gif This IS back from February with I believe the 12.11 drivers, so both have newer drivers out I'm sure, but AMD has been doing very well in drivers this generation and they are up to 13.6 right now.

7950 is all the card you really need if price is an issue. It's incredible you can get one for $250 nowadays, especially with the 4 game bundle!

 

[jrstriker12]

I still don't think that the 760 is better over the hd 7950 as of right now. The HD 7950 comes with 4 games, while the 760 comes with none, so the 50 dollars you save isn't as much as the amount of money in games you get buying the HD 7950.

it isnt better. its just cheaper and performs the same.

and no, the 760 does come with metro last light and 75 dollars of in game cash that may or may not be useful

On newegg, no.

just so happens that others are giving it away

Yes, but in game cash for free to play games is different from 4 actual games. I can still play those f2p games for free if I wanted to, while you can't just pick up tomb raider, Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite or far cry blood dragon for free. Also, the AMD bundle is worth a full 25 dollars more than the nVidia bundle. Lastly, if you don't like any of the games, you can sell the codes to someone who does for some cash so, AMD wins for now. But once these bundles are over, the gtx 760 should be good. Though some may argue that you can overclock the 7950 to be a lot more than you pay for it, up to almost 680 level performance, but I haven't done that myself. Ive just gotten 670 level performance which is still amazing considering the 670 is 100 bucks more.

Yeah, if you can overclock your 7950 to 1200Mhz core 1525Mhz memory you will be over 680 level performance, even over 7970 Ghz Ed performance (stock speeds for both obviously). Here: this is from techpowerup http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/images/perf_oc.gif This IS back from February with I believe the 12.11 drivers, so both have newer drivers out I'm sure, but AMD has been doing very well in drivers this generation and they are up to 13.6 right now.

7950 is all the card you really need if price is an issue. It's incredible you can get one for $250 nowadays, especially with the 4 game bundle!

Just wondering, how stable is that OC on the 7950, also what type of cooling was used?

I might look into OC'ing that card, but I've never done over clocking before.

 

[Novuake]

I had actually overclocked my 7950 to 1200 mhz and 1575 mhz before, and it was fine for a week. I played Crysis 3 oh so happily, no artifacts, nothing. Then, I started playing Bioshock Infinite (notice how both are titles from the free game bundle) and I was seeing green flashes. That's when I had to tone it down... A LOT! Now it's at an okay 1125 core clock mhz 1575 mem clock mhz. What was odd was that the temps were really low, too, never going above 70 C. Now they don't go above 65 C. I love the 7950.

Shoudl be better now that the game has been out for a while.

 

[Novuake]

Just wondering, how stable is that OC on the 7950, also what type of cooling was used?

I might look into OC'ing that card, but I've never done over clocking before.

I have 2 of these : http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&lid=1&pid=1450&leg=0

Got one up and stable to 1280MHz/1615MHz, a little on the hot side though, the other can reach 1200MHz/1575MHz, both on the dual-x stock cooler.
However in xfire they only at 1180MHz/1575MHz fully stable, I am assuming its due to power delivery, I have a single rail PSU and it jitters a bit when I start getting the 2 HD7950s above 1200MHz.

 

[kmelaza]

I Wish i waited a bit to buy the GTX 760 instead of my GTX 660 which i payed 230$ for lol and has been sitting in a box for months lol. The GTX 760 is only 30$ more than what i payed for my GTX 660, the price/performance difference is so worth an extra 30$. But overall the gTX 660 seems to perform really well at High- ultra presets in games at 1080p, aslong as i get a minimum of 35-30FPS im happy, and you can always lower AA to get a boost in frames if necesary.

 

[jrstriker12]

Just wondering, how stable is that OC on the 7950, also what type of cooling was used?

I might look into OC'ing that card, but I've never done over clocking before.

I have 2 of these : http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&lid=1&pid=1450&leg=0

Got one up and stable to 1280MHz/1615MHz, a little on the hot side though, the other can reach 1200MHz/1575MHz, both on the dual-x stock cooler.
However in xfire they only at 1180MHz/1575MHz fully stable, I am assuming its due to power delivery, I have a single rail PSU and it jitters a bit when I start getting the 2 HD7950s above 1200MHz.

Thanks.

 

[omgoblins]

Just wondering, how stable is that OC on the 7950, also what type of cooling was used?

I might look into OC'ing that card, but I've never done over clocking before.

Very stable for me. I have the MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III 3GB. It's more expensive than the Sapphire Dual-X version (which I hear is just as good and capable as the MSI) but it was actually the cheapest ($309 AR + 3 games) when I got it like 6 months back or so. I always prefer MSI and Twin Frozr coolers because I have had unrivaled stability and overclocking performance compared to the other brands I've tried.

I was able to hit 1200 Mhz Core, 1700 Mhz memory overclock on my card very easily, with stock cooler settings and stock voltage, just using MSI Afterburner. This was stable in most games I played like Total War Shogun 2 and Battlefield 3 plus some other games that weren't as demanding at 1200p. When I went to play Skyrim (verrrrry heavily modified to be super demanding) I started getting the green artifact errors, what I discovered is that Skyrim didn't like a memory overclock of higher than 1525Mhz (effective 6100mhz). After I toned that down I had no problems. This was soon after I got the card, like 6 months ago which was with way older drivers, probably the early 12.x ones.

I haven't tried raising the memory speeds since (haven't had a need to) as that's the game I mostly play thats the most texture demanding and I haven't noticed much if any performance difference in Shogun 2 or Battlefield 3 or anything else. So I would focus firstmost on core clock speeds because memory isn't as important to most FPS in games.

Now my card seems to be quite well (which has been my experience with MSI) I know some other people who cannot get to 1200 Mhz / 1525Mhz at stock voltage. But you should be able to get to 1100Mhz - that's considered quite standard. If you want to raise the voltage then you should definitely be able to hit 1200 or higher. I have pushed mine up to 1300 Mhz by adding voltage, but I don't need the power so I just prefer to keep all my voltages stock on overclocks (GPU, CPU, RAM).

You really cannot go wrong with a 7950. The most important thing to remember is to choose a solid card. Right now the cheapest is $250 + 4 AAA game combo, which is the Sapphire Dual-X 7950. Another good option for reliability is the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 (this will be as quiet and cool as the Twin Frozr III or better I have heard) but the revision 2 of this card is voltage locked meaning you cannot overvolt it so you will only be able to overclock up to whatever at stock voltage (1100Mhz is considered the standard, 1200Mhz is considered to be a very good card). I have never had much of an opinion on ASUS, but their cooler and reliability is well respected. I still have to say the top rated card in my mind is the MSI R7950 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667. I like it because it has a great cooling solution and a quiet cooling solution, it looks good, and it used a 7970 PCB which I believe helps attribute to it's overclocking power (I have seen multiple people hit 1200Mhz at stock voltage on this card and more! I just stopped at 1200Mhz because I like the even number and don't want to push for every extra 5 Mhz, etc.)

Hope this helps anyone interested in finding the best power and performance for the price. You have to be willing to overclock, but if you are than there is no option better than the 7950. For anyone who hasn't overclocked its really so simple. The MSI Afterburner program is free to download and simple to use, you simply move a few sliders to select your speed and press a button to apply the settings. Then you run a program like FurMark11 (free) to make sure your settings are okay, if they aren't the program will crash or your computer will restart. Then you lower your overclock (or increase voltage) and try again until you find something stable. It's very easy and there are plenty of guides and resources, including this sites forums.

 

[viewgamer]

The Far Cry 3 Benchmark is unfair, HBAO ambient occlusion was used for the nvidia cards & HDAO was used for the AMD cards.
HDAO is of higher quality & is significantly more demanding that HBAO, they should have used the default SSAO.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/12/17/far_cry_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/7#.Ucmw3G00-Fg
This is another blow to tom's hardware credibility.

Chris is here, but if I may chime in one last time....

We discussed this when adding FC3 to our bench suite and agreed this was the way to go. Do you only play with SSAO even with cards that allow way more? Doubtful!

We test both ways, but at highest details prefer to test as folks would game, which is HDAO for AMD and HBAO with NVidia. There is nothing shady going on when it is presented clearly (not hidden), and consistent from story to story.

Well Chris, that would make perfect sense ONLY if HDAO was AMD exclusive and/or HBAO was Nvidia exclusive, but you can use either of those settings on both AMD & Nvidia graphics cards.

If I had an AMD or an Nvidia card I won't just automatically go ahead and use HDAO or HBAO based on which card I have, I will try both & use the one I like more, so not all AMD users will use HDAO & not all Nvidia users will use HBAO.

So it is in fact an unfair test because HDAO & HBAO aren't the same setting & they will negatively affect performance with a different degree of severity.

The point of a benchmark is to asses the performance of different GPUs when they are tasked equally, tasking a GPU more than the others defeats the purpose.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Atlas T]

Just a quick question: Would a Core i5-2310 2.9GHz (factory locked) bottleneck a fully overclocked GTX 760?

@Review
This is indeed a great GPU, and a potential buy for me - assuming the launch price isn't offensively absurd here in Brazil eg 550 dollars.

 

[Novuake]

Just a quick question: Would a Core i5-2310 2.9GHz (factory locked) bottleneck a fully overclocked GTX 760?

No...

 

[Paul Greer]

evga has a 4 gb version for about 279 is that the best choice for around 300 budget or should I wait for the 3 gb super clocked to come back it . I will be running two monitors off it and I use it for gaming

 

[jrstriker12]

I still don't think that the 760 is better over the hd 7950 as of right now. The HD 7950 comes with 4 games, while the 760 comes with none, so the 50 dollars you save isn't as much as the amount of money in games you get buying the HD 7950.

Just wondering, how stable is that OC on the 7950, also what type of cooling was used?

I might look into OC'ing that card, but I've never done over clocking before.

Very stable for me. I have the MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III 3GB. It's more expensive than the Sapphire Dual-X version (which I hear is just as good and capable as the MSI) but it was actually the cheapest ($309 AR + 3 games) when I got it like 6 months back or so. I always prefer MSI and Twin Frozr coolers because I have had unrivaled stability and overclocking performance compared to the other brands I've tried.

I was able to hit 1200 Mhz Core, 1700 Mhz memory overclock on my card very easily, with stock cooler settings and stock voltage, just using MSI Afterburner. This was stable in most games I played like Total War Shogun 2 and Battlefield 3 plus some other games that weren't as demanding at 1200p. When I went to play Skyrim (verrrrry heavily modified to be super demanding) I started getting the green artifact errors, what I discovered is that Skyrim didn't like a memory overclock of higher than 1525Mhz (effective 6100mhz). After I toned that down I had no problems. This was soon after I got the card, like 6 months ago which was with way older drivers, probably the early 12.x ones.

I haven't tried raising the memory speeds since (haven't had a need to) as that's the game I mostly play thats the most texture demanding and I haven't noticed much if any performance difference in Shogun 2 or Battlefield 3 or anything else. So I would focus firstmost on core clock speeds because memory isn't as important to most FPS in games.

Now my card seems to be quite well (which has been my experience with MSI) I know some other people who cannot get to 1200 Mhz / 1525Mhz at stock voltage. But you should be able to get to 1100Mhz - that's considered quite standard. If you want to raise the voltage then you should definitely be able to hit 1200 or higher. I have pushed mine up to 1300 Mhz by adding voltage, but I don't need the power so I just prefer to keep all my voltages stock on overclocks (GPU, CPU, RAM).

You really cannot go wrong with a 7950. The most important thing to remember is to choose a solid card. Right now the cheapest is $250 + 4 AAA game combo, which is the Sapphire Dual-X 7950. Another good option for reliability is the Gigabyte Windforce 7950 (this will be as quiet and cool as the Twin Frozr III or better I have heard) but the revision 2 of this card is voltage locked meaning you cannot overvolt it so you will only be able to overclock up to whatever at stock voltage (1100Mhz is considered the standard, 1200Mhz is considered to be a very good card). I have never had much of an opinion on ASUS, but their cooler and reliability is well respected. I still have to say the top rated card in my mind is the MSI R7950 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667. I like it because it has a great cooling solution and a quiet cooling solution, it looks good, and it used a 7970 PCB which I believe helps attribute to it's overclocking power (I have seen multiple people hit 1200Mhz at stock voltage on this card and more! I just stopped at 1200Mhz because I like the even number and don't want to push for every extra 5 Mhz, etc.)

Hope this helps anyone interested in finding the best power and performance for the price. You have to be willing to overclock, but if you are than there is no option better than the 7950. For anyone who hasn't overclocked its really so simple. The MSI Afterburner program is free to download and simple to use, you simply move a few sliders to select your speed and press a button to apply the settings. Then you run a program like FurMark11 (free) to make sure your settings are okay, if they aren't the program will crash or your computer will restart. Then you lower your overclock (or increase voltage) and try again until you find something stable. It's very easy and there are plenty of guides and resources, including this sites forums.

Good info, thanks!

 

[Novuake]

Only thing about the MSI TF coolers that I really do not like and kill them for me is the "whine" they have when the fans spin up, I think its the metal design that does it, that specific noise is just so annoying. Otherwise, great cards.

 

[TheBigTroll]

Only thing about the MSI TF coolers that I really do not like and kill them for me is the "whine" they have when the fans spin up, I think its the metal design that does it, that specific noise is just so annoying. Otherwise, great cards.

they spin backwards to kick out dust @100% before returning to normal

 

[Novuake]

Only thing about the MSI TF coolers that I really do not like and kill them for me is the "whine" they have when the fans spin up, I think its the metal design that does it, that specific noise is just so annoying. Otherwise, great cards.

they spin backwards to kick out dust @100% before returning to normal

Interesting... Source?

 

[JJ1217]

Only thing about the MSI TF coolers that I really do not like and kill them for me is the "whine" they have when the fans spin up, I think its the metal design that does it, that specific noise is just so annoying. Otherwise, great cards.

they spin backwards to kick out dust @100% before returning to normal

Depends on which one you're talking about. TFIV I believe has that technology, with bigger fans and a beefier heatsink. The TFIII ones, on most of their TwinFrozr Cards, doesn't have it, and has tiny fans and a smaller heatsink. The only cards I've seen people complain about regarding TwinFrozr, is the TFIII coolers, especially on the very popular 7950 one for the 8+6 pin PCB.

 

[Novuake]

Only thing about the MSI TF coolers that I really do not like and kill them for me is the "whine" they have when the fans spin up, I think its the metal design that does it, that specific noise is just so annoying. Otherwise, great cards.

they spin backwards to kick out dust @100% before returning to normal

Depends on which one you're talking about. TFIV I believe has that technology, with bigger fans and a beefier heatsink. The TFIII ones, on most of their TwinFrozr Cards, doesn't have it, and has tiny fans and a smaller heatsink. The only cards I've seen people complain about regarding TwinFrozr, is the TFIII coolers, especially on the very popular 7950 one for the 8+6 pin PCB.

Yeah I was referring to the TFIII's, think Toms had a roundup of HD7950s a while back with a video that illustrated the sound quite well.

 

[mapesdhs]

You seem to think that I want or need your help, I don't I just dispute your claims that SLi'd 560Ti's are faster than a 670 and 680 and I'm not the only one it seems.

You can 'dispute' all you like, you're wrong, period. 😀 Beats me why you're
so insistent, but feel free, doesn't bother me. I know the results I have and
referred to earlier, which of course you've completely ignored. What makes me
laugh is the blatantly lame way you deliberately cherry pick words; have you
considered a career in politics? You'd be ideal. 😀 I said they can be, and I
quite clearly clarified it with with references to the clock range of available
560Tis; stock models won't, good ones can, oc'd good ones definitely will.
Your continued denial must be some kind of mental issue, since I can't think
of any other cause.

I posted the proof; if you don't like it, go fish.

Ian.