Nvidia GeForce GTX 900 Series MegaThread: FAQ and Resources

[rubix_1011]

Nvidia Graphics Card Forum Thread -- 900 Series Cards


Welcome to the Tom's Hardware Forum for Nvidia 900 Series Graphics Cards.

Within this thread, we will maintain an ongoing list and discussion for current GPUs for the moderate to high-end gaming system, links, benchmarks, specs, charts, multi-card configs, preferences, recommendations and rumors. As new data, information and content is made available, it will be added to the thread to allow on-going discussions and topics with the majority of the primary thread data being represented and updated on the first page's posts. Please feel free to update the thread curators with PM's with information to be added or contributed to this section.


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Nvidia Official GTX 980 page
Nvidia Official GTX 970 page





Tom's Hardware -- Nvidia Graphics Cards -- 700 Series
Tom's Hardware -- Nvidia Graphics Cards -- Titan Series


Wikipedia Nvidia 900 Series

Officia Nvidia Driver page (interactive/selective)

Tom's Hardware Nvidia News

Tom's Hardware 2014 VGA Charts/Comparisons

Tom's Hardware Best Graphic Cards for the Money; Nov. 2014

SLI // CrossFire FAQs - by Maziar




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rubix_1011

 

[Eggz]

Comparing to multi-card configurations would be helpful for people looking increase card counts as opposed to getting a single newer card.

So would historical data saying when the computer performance of Nvidia cards has doubled. Jumping from a 770 to a 970 won't double performance, but knowing what card would double performance would be a great way for people to simplify decisions.

More to come . . .

 

[rubix_1011]

This is definitely possible and would be good content to include. There are drawbacks when suggesting multi-card setups as an upgrade path to people with only a single card such as power supply capacity/ability and case airflow/cooling. While this might seem trivial, it would be a great idea to provide the information for users that adding a second card for SLI will improve performance, but they would need to assess existing hardware prior to doing so.

Simple things as, 'does your motherboard allow for an additional PCI-e card' or 'is your power supply rated to handle the extra draw' and 'does your power supply have additional 6 or 8 pin power cables for PCI-e cards'?

I am definitely open to ideas and information to include...if you have anything specific or content that you'd like to see added, feel free to send me anything in a PM; I'd be more than happy to go through and include quality data for everyone to benefit from.

 

[blue17echo]

It depends on what you qualify as "doubling" performance. If you're talking about doubled frame-rates, well, we're looking at some pretty big jumps. On the other hand, I'm pretty comfortable in saying that a single GTX 980 will offer similar performance to SLI GTX 770s.

On the other hand, my general rule of thumb is that Nvidia chips are typically pretty similar between chips seperated by 90s. e.g: GTX 580~= GTX 670~=GTX 760, at least on the pure performance ground.

 

[Daniel Coley]

When is the 960 coming out?

 

[alpacino2368]

When is the 960 coming out?

Rumors are saying mid January and it should be about $200-$250 US.

 

[iAboodz]

The 960M WILL come in january, and probably the 960. Don't ask how I know. It's classified.

 

[unknownofprob]

^ "probably" ... Not sure if that answer is confident. "WILL" sounds promising but it is expected to be released in Q1 of 2015. You have a 1/3 chance of being correct, otherwise it will be released in February/March.

 

[iAboodz]

^ "probably" ... Not sure if that answer is confident. "WILL" sounds promising but it is expected to be released in Q1 of 2015. You have a 1/3 chance of being correct, otherwise it will be released in February/March.

Ok let me re-say it. 960 WILL come on jan-feb. Unless they suddenly change plans, but last I know they will. I'm not 100% sure don't rely on me on anything, but I'm saying it will becuase of it's classified.

 

[Jason Bourne]

Hi guys,
So I'm building a desktop pc to play with my triple monitor racing sim. I have the racing sim. I just need a nice desktop pc to play it. I will be strictly playing racing games only like Assetta Corsa, iracing etc. Here's my current pc build list I finalized:

DESKTOP PC BUILD:

Motherboard: MSI X99S MPOWER LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor: Intel Core i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75820K

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card

Power Suppply: Thermaltake PS-TPD-0850MPCGUS-1 850W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Thermaltake PS-TPD-0850MPCGUS-1 Power Supply

Memory: 16 GB Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4-19200) Desktop Memory Model BLS2K8G4D240FSA

Hard Drive 1: Crucial MX100 CT256MX100SSD1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Hard Drive 2: WD SE WD2000F9YZ 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM

GFX/cpu Liquid cooling: need recommendation

PC shell: NZXT H440

Now, as I'm about to buy the GTX 970, I'm confused! There's maybe about 15 different version of it. How can I pick the most stable and best one? Can someone help? I was gonna go with MSI 970 to match mobo then I hear EVGA ones are pretty nice. Then I saw the thread about design flaw with EVGA 970 and bad reviews on gigabyte version on amazon (horrible noise) etc. I'm just lost. Can someone look at my need (just racing sim games with 3 monitors and use it for daily browsing/computing as it will be my desktop), can recommend which 970 I should buy? here are some links:

1. EVGA GTX 970

2. ASUS GTX 970

3. MSI GTX 970

4. Gigabyte GTX 970

and the list continues HERE

Thank you....

 

[iAboodz]

Hi guys,
So I'm building a desktop pc to play with my triple monitor racing sim. I have the racing sim. I just need a nice desktop pc to play it. I will be strictly playing racing games only like Assetta Corsa, iracing etc. Here's my current pc build list I finalized:

DESKTOP PC BUILD:

Motherboard: MSI X99S MPOWER LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor: Intel Core i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75820K

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card

Power Suppply: Thermaltake PS-TPD-0850MPCGUS-1 850W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Thermaltake PS-TPD-0850MPCGUS-1 Power Supply

Memory: 16 GB Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4-19200) Desktop Memory Model BLS2K8G4D240FSA

Hard Drive 1: Crucial MX100 CT256MX100SSD1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Hard Drive 2: WD SE WD2000F9YZ 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM

GFX/cpu Liquid cooling: need recommendation

PC shell: NZXT H440

Now, as I'm about to buy the GTX 970, I'm confused! There's maybe about 15 different version of it. How can I pick the most stable and best one? Can someone help? I was gonna go with MSI 970 to match mobo then I hear EVGA ones are pretty nice. Then I saw the thread about design flaw with EVGA 970 and bad reviews on gigabyte version on amazon (horrible noise) etc. I'm just lost. Can someone look at my need (just racing sim games with 3 monitors and use it for daily browsing/computing as it will be my desktop), can recommend which 970 I should buy? here are some links:

1. EVGA GTX 970

2. ASUS GTX 970

3. MSI GTX 970

4. Gigabyte GTX 970

and the list continues HERE

Thank you....

I think you should have made a new thread. But it's really up to you picking the one you like. People lean towards the Asus and MSI ones because they have the best feedback. I my self went with evga for the 980s because their service is excellent and also don't avoid warranty when removing the cooler to put a water block on it (which i'm doing). So yeah, up to you

 

[Jason Bourne]

Thank you. I have been trying to make a new thread but it won't let me. I don't know why. I don't even know who the moderators are here.

 

[unknownofprob]

^ Same happens with some of my megathread sublinks. Write up your question first, make a title, put a short sentence in the question box, post it then edit your question back in.

 

[Jason Bourne]

^ Same happens with some of my megathread sublinks. Write up your question first, make a title, put a short sentence in the question box, post it then edit your question back in.

Thank you!!!! that was it. newegg links I guess aren't allowed. fixed now

 

[KrissT]

How is 960s power compared to the previous 700 series?

 

[Aislini]

This is definitely possible and would be good content to include. There are drawbacks when suggesting multi-card setups as an upgrade path to people with only a single card such as power supply capacity/ability and case airflow/cooling. While this might seem trivial, it would be a great idea to provide the information for users that adding a second card for SLI will improve performance, but they would need to assess existing hardware prior to doing so.

Simple things as, 'does your motherboard allow for an additional PCI-e card' or 'is your power supply rated to handle the extra draw' and 'does your power supply have additional 6 or 8 pin power cables for PCI-e cards'?

I am definitely open to ideas and information to include...if you have anything specific or content that you'd like to see added, feel free to send me anything in a PM; I'd be more than happy to go through and include quality data for everyone to benefit from.

This is one of the reason when you are building your pc always have to have in mind future upgrades.

 

[GOM3RPLY3R]

Anyone notice anything weird with the Maxwell series? Specifically it's power usage and temperature?

I currently have a Gigabyte 970 that I am bench marking extensively. After running tests with the card over 1500 Mhz Core and 112% Power, it was only using ~70% power the whole time.

So I guess that Nvidia made the decision that, "these cores are really amazing cores that get too hot on air cooling so lets run them at 70%" producing results that are still great great compared to Kepler. Who knows, we might see a "Titan Max" or something, a water cooled Titan running on Maxwell that sells for *only* $5000, lol.

 

[iAboodz]

My cards differ on usage but it's mostly 100% on both when the game needs them. Only bf4 doesn't use the gpu to the max only to around 60-65% max on sli on all maps.

 

[LightSwordM]

GUYS NEW INFO! GTX 960 is going to come out this January 22, but the price has not been yet discovered. Since the website I visisted is in french, I'll traduce it myslef:
Documents signed Nvidia confirm the specfications of the upcoming GTX 960. This GPU will be adressed to the mainstream public by having a good performance to performance ratio and even follow its older sisters, with better power efficiency compared to the Kepler architecture.

The GTX 960 will be based of of the GM206 architecture 28 nm, with 1024 Cuda cores, 32 Rops and 64 TMU with a 128-bit bus with lossless data compression. This card features 2 Gb of GDDR5 VRam clocked at 7 GHZ, which makes the bandwith of about 112 Gb/s. The GPU clock is 1127 Mhz vs 1178 Mhz in GPU boost mode, which is a minimal increase. However, Nvidia is saying that GPU can be overclocked for clock speeds higher than 1500 MhZ.

Image(OC headroom, both the memory and the core): http://www.ginjfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-960-04.jpg

Comparaison is between the GTX 660 with much better performance and much better efficiency than the GTX 660. The release date should be January 22nd.

Other sources have stated that there could be a GTX 960Ti with 1280 Cuda Cores, a full GM206 GPU, 3Gb of Vram and 192-bit bus. Stay alert for more details.

Images vs GTX 660: http://www.ginjfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-960-02.jpg(Gaming at 60 FPS)
http://www.ginjfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-960-03.jpg(Power efficiency)

 

[maxtex]

Nice translation by "yourself", a.k.a. google translate.

 

[LightSwordM]

Naahh, don't worry I don't have any problem in French nor in English, so I don't have any problems for translate between English/French of the other way around( I live in Quebec, so don't doubt me).
Anyway, beyond this statement, what do you think about the real specs?

 

[amantes]

Hey guys, I made a budget build with a G1840 processor and a Cooler Master B500 PSU. I still need a gpu. Is there any hope for me to use the 900 series? I was originally going for a gtx 750, but now I'm interested in a 960 because of its low tdp and expected low price. What worries me is that Game-Debate predicts the psu requirement as "450 Watt & 33 Amps". There is a graph on my psu's page http://www.coolermaster.com/powersupply/b-series/b500/ where the highest Amp number is 24. Does that mean I could have trouble using the card in my current system? Thank you.

 

[LightSwordM]

You shouldn't worry about the usage: usually, this is the exaggerated. For example, I made a build with your pc parts that would equal the GTX 960 in it(r7 260x), and its total power consumption is 260 watts. Since we can count overclocking the GPU and upgrading the parts, always take a power supply with a 100w headroom. Using the Cooler Master Power Supply Calculator, the recommanded wattage should be... 360W. You shouldn't worry about the power supply, it can handle even an r9 280x easily, so it's even less of a problem with the GTX 960.

 

[amantes]

Thanks, Light! I was mostly worried about the 33 Amp requirement thinking my psu might be too low-tier to handle it. How come Game-Debates is the only site that even mentions such a requirement?

 

[LightSwordM]

It is because, when taking technical decisions, this can be very important, if you are a PC professional(like working). I don't want to get into too much technical details, but Amps is the intensity of the electrical current. But in your case, it shouldn't be a problem when gaming, this is not important. Because, if I remember well, older PC componenets needed a specific amount of energy to work, and depending on the number of electrons passing through the components, it could mess up.