Is the GTX 960 worth it for me?

[monkeylord]

So im planning on upgrading my ancient gpu. Currently I have gtx 275 running in SLI. My budget is $250 and I was looking into the gtx 960. I am aware that I can buy a r9 280x that will supposedly beat the gtx 960. However I am seeing so many mixed reviews about this. Also I am not a huge fan of AMD. From what I have been reading AMD drivers are not the best, AMD lacks physx, and their cards generally use more power and run more hot.

So, what do you guys think. Are AMD cads not as bad as I have been seeing? should I save up for a gtx 970? I primarily play games like League of Legends, CS:GO, Guild wars 2, and I plan on getting GTAV when it comes out which is the primary reason I want to upgrade my gpu.

i5 760@2.8ghz cpu
MSI USA P55-GD65 motherboard
2 GTX 275 running in SLI
1200w psu
8gb sniper g skill ram

Oh and also, I realize my cpu is a little old. If I got a 900 series gpu would any bottlenecking occur?
Thanks!

 

[spentshells]

well a 960 will work great, but it in no way comes close to the 280x's not the r9 280 in performance
This is coming from a LONG time ATI (AMD) user who has switched to NV for my last two builds.

The 960 should offer a great upgrade for you.

 

[eodeo]

280x runs hotter and uses more power then 960 easily, but still it is more efficient and will run cooler than your current setup.

As you've noticed, you really don't need a new card save for the upcoming gtav. For it, a console game port, your best blind bet would be AMD's 280x as the game was made for consoles primarily- where both ps4 and xbone use AMD hardware.

With that said, since you don't need a GPU right away, the surest thing to do is wait for gtav pc to be released and look at gaming benchmarks to see what's your beset bang for the buck GPU. Maybe next gen AMD GPU comes out and either it is your card or it will drive the price of 280x/960 down even further. No harm in waiting it out. It's very unlikely that the GPU prices start to come up in the mean time.

 

[renz496]

280x runs hotter and uses more power then 960 easily, but still it is more efficient and will run cooler than your current setup.

As you've noticed, you really don't need a new card save for the upcoming gtav. For it, a console game port, your best blind bet would be AMD's 280x as the game was made for consoles primarily- where both ps4 and xbone use AMD hardware.

With that said, since you don't need a GPU right away, the surest thing to do is wait for gtav pc to be released and look at gaming benchmarks to see what's your beset bang for the buck GPU. Maybe next gen AMD GPU comes out and either it is your card or it will drive the price of 280x/960 down even further. No harm in waiting it out. It's very unlikely that the GPU prices start to come up in the mean time.

the game was available to PS3 and 360. so i doubt the game was made specifically with AMD hardware in mind.

 

[renz496]

So im planning on upgrading my ancient gpu. Currently I have gtx 275 running in SLI. My budget is $250 and I was looking into the gtx 960. I am aware that I can buy a r9 280x that will supposedly beat the gtx 960. However I am seeing so many mixed reviews about this. Also I am not a huge fan of AMD. From what I have been reading AMD drivers are not the best, AMD lacks physx, and their cards generally use more power and run more hot.

So, what do you guys think. Are AMD cads not as bad as I have been seeing? should I save up for a gtx 970? I primarily play games like League of Legends, CS:GO, Guild wars 2, and I plan on getting GTAV when it comes out which is the primary reason I want to upgrade my gpu.

i5 760@2.8ghz cpu
MSI USA P55-GD65 motherboard
2 GTX 275 running in SLI
1200w psu
8gb sniper g skill ram

Oh and also, I realize my cpu is a little old. If I got a 900 series gpu would any bottlenecking occur?
Thanks!

probably you should wait until GTAV comes out before upgrading your GPU. while 280X is faster than 960 it is also a fact it was from first generation GCN. and i see some of the new feature that AMD come up recently did not applicable to cards like 280X.

 

[w3ass3l]

As an AMD fan i will give you my point of view.
1.You are correct and AMD usually sucks on drivers (meaning that they dont update so often) and the Catalyst Control Center is more or less useless.
2.Do not mistake physics with nvidia physics.Nvidia phusics is an overrated feature that you probably never notice in any game except a few ones,honestly only game so far i seen difference using nvdia physics is Borderlands 2 and the difference was minor.Also using AMD doesnt mean you CANT use nvidia physics it just means that you cant use your card for it and it will stress your cpu more.
3.Another reason i will stick with AMD is their new Mantle,believe it or not i tried to play Dragon Age Inquisition and i gained 17fps when i switched from directx to mantle
4.I hear all the time that AMD is not as stable as nvidia is but personaly i never ever had any issue using thier cards.Cpus are a different matter though.

Im not trying to promote AMD im just giving you my experience as an AMD user.

 

[renz496]

.Also using AMD doesnt mean you CANT use nvidia physics it just means that you cant use your card for it and it will stress your cpu more.

some people got it wrong with this thing. but before going further i will say that borderlands 2 was the only exception where the gpu physx portion of the game will be moved to the cpu if you don't have nvidia gpu. but for other games the option was simply disabled entirely. which means there is no option to turn it on unless the system running with nvidia gpu exclusively.

Another reason i will stick with AMD is their new Mantle,believe it or not i tried to play Dragon Age Inquisition and i gained 17fps when i switched from directx to mantle

there are huge gain going from DX11 to Mantle for AMD cards because AMD DX11 drivers have more overhead than nvidia DX11 drivers. mantle probably still faster but the gap between nvidia DX11 drivers and Mantle should be less than AMD DX11 to Mantle. also Mantle is exclusive to AMD right now and probably will continue being so in the future.

 

[w3ass3l]

.Also using AMD doesnt mean you CANT use nvidia physics it just means that you cant use your card for it and it will stress your cpu more.

some people got it wrong with this thing. but before going further i will say that borderlands 2 was the only exception where the gpu physx portion of the game will be moved to the cpu if you don't have nvidia gpu. but for other games the option was simply disabled entirely. which means there is no option to turn it on unless the system running with nvidia gpu exclusively.

Another reason i will stick with AMD is their new Mantle,believe it or not i tried to play Dragon Age Inquisition and i gained 17fps when i switched from directx to mantle

there are huge gain going from DX11 to Mantle for AMD cards because AMD DX11 drivers have more overhead than nvidia DX11 drivers. mantle probably still faster but the gap between nvidia DX11 drivers and Mantle should be less than AMD DX11 to Mantle. also Mantle is exclusive to AMD right now and probably will continue being so in the future.

Sorry to break it for you but there was not a single game so far that i played on an AMD card that i couldnt use Nvidia Physx only difference is that Nvdia has an option on their control panel to chose if you want it to work on your Cpu or Gpu Amd doesnt so its always either on your cpu or off if you disable it ingame or unistall the driver.
As for your mantle drivers comparison you might be right about the current state of the DX11 vs the Mantle drivers but if you check around you will find that Nvidia already asked AMD to let them use Mantle on their cards too so that probably means that Mantle is not going to be better only on AMD cards.
But the point is im only giving my opinion and my experience using AMD hardware and im satisfied with them.

 

[renz496]

orry to break it for you but there was not a single game so far that i played on an AMD card that i couldnt use Nvidia Physx only

what game did you play have gpu physx? for the record there are two type of PhysX. one is cpu based and the other are gpu based. the cpu based PhysX is the core component of the engine. regardless you have nvidia gpu or not it will run on CPU. there is no such thing all PhysX calculation will be done on nvidia gpu if you have nvidia gpu in your system.

Nvidia already asked AMD to let them use Mantle on their cards too so that probably means that Mantle is not going to be better only on AMD cards

actually both intel and nvidia already ask for the spec (since AMD said they were open). but it doesn't mean they were interested to make mantle work on their GPU. for nvidia part i think they already mention they have no interest to use mantle. and for intel they already specifically mention they want access to the API to investigate low level API and will committed to further improve their directx drivers. for AMD part they promised to release the spec before the end 2014 which is still not happening until now. and if i remember correctly AMD intends to be the sole controller of the API in the future despite claiming the API being Open Source API.

 

[spentshells]

If there is one thing I feel compelled to mention. AMD drivers are great, with almost all driver updates from AMD you see large gains, For the last 3 generations, the top tier amd cards have seen massive performance increases, BUT and this is a big but the amd 280x is at the end of it's life and these improvements may slow down or stop entirely as it is no longer top of the heap.

If you are interested to see this for yourself, look at recent benchmarks including the 7950/r9280 you can see that in a lot of cases it performs as good or better than the previous nvidia champ the GTX770 where as at release it was unable to compete directly with even the 660ti. That is a huge gain over 3 years of driver updates.

I feel (due to my own AMD cards and experiences) that the drivers have massively improved since the ATI 5xxx series black screen issues. This being said I won't be back to amd for some time, I've grown used to Nvidia now as the x70 versions of thei high endr cards offer such amazing value and performance even generation to generation. 570 going to 670 was downright impressive, With the exception of for performance in compute tasks, I now have an high end hyperthreaded cpu so it's no longer an issue.

 

[coozie7]

@ monkeylord: Overall the R9 280X beats the GTX960 in raw performance, remember plenty of games being released are optimised for either AMD or Nvidia so each card will shine in one game or the other, while the other card suffers in the same game.
All the available R9 280X cards have good coolers, so they're neither very hot running nor particularly loud, but the higher heat output of AMD designs means their Nvidia competitors are even cooler or quieter.
Without overclocking the current CPU you will see some restrictions, I had to push my i5 750 to 3.4GHz to keep my HD7950 at full usage (previous system) so if you cannot/will not overclock, don't expect an upgraded card to perform at its best.
If you can't/won't OC, go for the R9 280, it's a little too fast for the existing CPU but a little cheaper than the GTX960, if you can/will OC the GTX960 or R9 280X makes a bit more sense, but don't aim for a GTX970, it'll be savagely held back, no matter how far you OC the current i5 760.

As for drivers/software: The only problems I've had with either chipmaker were those I created myself, but bear in mind Nvidia DO have a few software tricks up their sleeve AMD lack: DSR, Shadowplay, PhysX and better Anti Aliasing options, for some these are deal breakers, for some they're not, it's your call here.

 

[ThanatosFX]

Not only the R9 280x is slightly ahead of the 960 but also features more vRam a game such as GTA V will need that 3GB of vRam as you all know The GTA world is filled with modding possibilities, HD texture packs and more so If I were you I would definitely go with an R9 280x.

However the best option is to wait a little bit and see how things go, there might be the release of the R9 3xx series this can cause prices to drop that will work on your favor.
There's nothing wrong with the 960 but the 280x si cheaper and slightly better which makes the clear winner, also saving for the 970 would be a much better option though.

Good luck!!

 

[w3ass3l]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_enabled.jpg

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.


I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu.As a matter of fact if you check for benchmarks on games that use mantle are made on intel cpus most of the time and some on amd just to see if there is any real gain using amd or intel processor.
But allow me to clarify the way i think.
We see a new generation of Gpus and then we always have the usual comparison "nvidia or amd"
Then we see benchmarks all over the place like gtx 960 vs r9 280x.
Then we see that the results on those benchmarks are minor differences like 960 has 5fps more on that game or 280x has 3 fps more on that game and so on.BUT if i chose AMD i also have the option to use Mantle that might give me a really better performance,for example i have 50 fps on a game using both cards on dx11 but using mantle i can get 55 or even 60 why would i not want that option too?

 

[spentshells]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_enabled.jpg

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.


I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu.As a matter of fact if you check for benchmarks on games that use mantle are made on intel cpus most of the time and some on amd just to see if there is any real gain using amd or intel processor.
But allow me to clarify the way i think.
We see a new generation of Gpus and then we always have the usual comparison "nvidia or amd"
Then we see benchmarks all over the place like gtx 960 vs r9 280x.
Then we see that the results on those benchmarks are minor differences like 960 has 5fps more on that game or 280x has 3 fps more on that game and so on.BUT if i chose AMD i also have the option to use Mantle that might give me a really better performance,for example i have 50 fps on a game using both cards on dx11 but using mantle i can get 55 or even 60 why would i not want that option too?

Where do you see the reviews that shows the 960 competing anywhere near the 280x? Not that I doubt it but I've not seen them anywhere.

 

[w3ass3l]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_enabled.jpg

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.


I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu.As a matter of fact if you check for benchmarks on games that use mantle are made on intel cpus most of the time and some on amd just to see if there is any real gain using amd or intel processor.
But allow me to clarify the way i think.
We see a new generation of Gpus and then we always have the usual comparison "nvidia or amd"
Then we see benchmarks all over the place like gtx 960 vs r9 280x.
Then we see that the results on those benchmarks are minor differences like 960 has 5fps more on that game or 280x has 3 fps more on that game and so on.BUT if i chose AMD i also have the option to use Mantle that might give me a really better performance,for example i have 50 fps on a game using both cards on dx11 but using mantle i can get 55 or even 60 why would i not want that option too?

Where do you see the reviews that shows the 960 competing anywhere near the 280x? Not that I doubt it but I've not seen them anywhere.

It was an example,im sorry if i used wrong cards for it but my point is there are always 2 cards on the same league from both sides.

 

[spentshells]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_enabled.jpg

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.


I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu.As a matter of fact if you check for benchmarks on games that use mantle are made on intel cpus most of the time and some on amd just to see if there is any real gain using amd or intel processor.
But allow me to clarify the way i think.
We see a new generation of Gpus and then we always have the usual comparison "nvidia or amd"
Then we see benchmarks all over the place like gtx 960 vs r9 280x.
Then we see that the results on those benchmarks are minor differences like 960 has 5fps more on that game or 280x has 3 fps more on that game and so on.BUT if i chose AMD i also have the option to use Mantle that might give me a really better performance,for example i have 50 fps on a game using both cards on dx11 but using mantle i can get 55 or even 60 why would i not want that option too?

Where do you see the reviews that shows the 960 competing anywhere near the 280x? Not that I doubt it but I've not seen them anywhere.

It was an example,im sorry if i used wrong cards for it but my point is there are always 2 cards on the same league from both sides.

10-4

 

[renz496]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_en...

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.

i forgot to mention that for games that use GPU PhysX the option to turn on or use norma(or low)/high PGU PhysX will have to be set in game. not in control panel. the control panel will only let you choose to use CPU or GPU as GPU PhysX accelerator. in game that you play that have gpu PhysX does such option exist? and for nvidia part they were actively blocking the GPU PhysX to work on system that did not have nvidia gpu exclusively in them. that's why hybrid PhysX solution (using AMD gpu as renderer and nvidia card as dedicated PhysX accelerator) no longer possible. if the GPU portion simply offload to CPU then nvidia will not going to actively blocking gpu PhysX working with system that has competitor gpu in them. because doing so will be useless if the task was offload to CPU anyway. also with assigning gpu PhysX to CPU the performance will be too slow. if that't the case we will see a lot of AMD user going to complain with every game that has GPU physx because it will be unplayable on their machine since the gpu portion of the physics calculation was forced to CPU with no option to turn it off.

I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu

because intel also have their own GPU. yes their integrated GPU inside their CPU.

 

[w3ass3l]

Nvidia Physx is a seperate driver that enables some extra features on some games,like more particles on explosions,small pieces of broken glasses poping up in the air etc.Once you install that driver you CAN use it no matter what card you use.Only difference is that Nvidia since its their own creation give you the option to chose if you want it to affect your gpu or cpu

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/852/physx_en...

Amd doesnt support it so automatically if the driver is installed it will be used by your cpu.

i forgot to mention that for games that use GPU PhysX the option to turn on or use norma(or low)/high PGU PhysX will have to be set in game. not in control panel. the control panel will only let you choose to use CPU or GPU as GPU PhysX accelerator. in game that you play that have gpu PhysX does such option exist? and for nvidia part they were actively blocking the GPU PhysX to work on system that did not have nvidia gpu exclusively in them. that's why hybrid PhysX solution (using AMD gpu as renderer and nvidia card as dedicated PhysX accelerator) no longer possible. if the GPU portion simply offload to CPU then nvidia will not going to actively blocking gpu PhysX working with system that has competitor gpu in them. because doing so will be useless if the task was offload to CPU anyway. also with assigning gpu PhysX to CPU the performance will be too slow. if that't the case we will see a lot of AMD user going to complain with every game that has GPU physx because it will be unplayable on their machine since the gpu portion of the physics calculation was forced to CPU with no option to turn it off.

I dont know why intel would ask for mantle since mantle can be used if you have intel cpu

because intel also have their own GPU. yes their integrated GPU inside their CPU.

True,you are correct,i always forget that intel has their own graphics too.

And yes thats the problem with Physyx and AMD cards,untill some point games hat used Nvidia Physx you had no option but let it be and that cause AMD builds to play slow.Then that changed and most games gave you the option to either install or not Physx and now we see that latest games gives us more control over the driver like borderlands 2 or batman arkham asylum.Newer games just give us the option to chose from low to high and in some cases if you are an AMD user you are restricted to low -medium because the cost in performance will be big.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyC8UeOMsj0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_VE5yqNbLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf2s4TdnH9w


But ok,physx doesnt work with AMD cards.