Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: Maxwell In The Middle

[cleeve]

The GeForce GTX 760 has had to hold it's ground for a long time, but today Nvidia replaces it's last Kepler-powered GTX card with the GeForce GTX 960.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: Maxwell In The Middle : Read more

 

[Novuake]

This seems meh... Impressive but not phenomenal power consumption to performance numbers. Especially compared the GTX970/980.

Would have liked to see two more things.

1. More extensive AA. post processing and memory bandwidth testing. Pretty sure Nvidia hamstrung the card a bit in some scenarios with a 1280bit interface. I had to read it 4 times before I believed it and still am skeptical.

2. Overclocking benchies.


So otherwise I guess we are back to the "old" ti-designation setup where the GTX960ti SHOULD be based on GM206 and vanilla GTX960 is not.

 

[sconzen]

I may be blind, but I don't see the Zotax Amp! edition in the temperature and noise tests. Confirm?

 

[damric]

The R9 280 is the fast and cheap elephant in the room that was never mentioned in this review,

 

[Grognak]

Well, I'm not saying a 10% improvement on top of a reduced power consumption isn't nice, because it really is, however we're still quite far away from the 770. I suppose Nvidia has a card planned to fill the massive performance gap between the 960 and 970, one at 4Gb of VRAM maybe?

 

[ykki]

The damn arrows are STILL blocking the charts!

 

[sconzen]

I may be blind, but I don't see the Zotax Amp! edition in the temperature and noise tests. Confirm?

 

[ykki]

Great review.
Now AMD, time to bust out the 270x!

 

[ykki]

Lol I meant the 370x!

 

[Novuake]

[quotemsg=15117694,0,1427918]The damn arrows are STILL blocking the charts![/quotemsg]

I am not the only one! Thank you!

 

[ykki]

Novoake, I am very sorry but I stole your comment from an earlier review.
But seriously, those arrows can block out the sun if tom's put 'em right.

 

[ImDaBaron]

The Gainward version of this card has to be the ugliest video card I've ever seen

 

[maestro0428]

Yes, the arrows on the charts bug me too. I am a bit let down by the performance here. Sure, the efficiency is great, but bandwidth is just to low to play above 1080p. I was hoping to put two of these in SLI, but I am afraid it won't do my Surround set up justice. Looks like I may be going with a single 980 or eventually two 970s. Bummer.

 

[Novuake]

[quotemsg=15117783,0,1427918]Novoake, I am very sorry but I stole your comment from an earlier review.
But seriously, those arrows can block out the sun if tom's put 'em right.[/quotemsg]

I do not recall posting such a comment? But I may have been frustrated that day. Hehe I am quite outspoken.

 

[silverblue]

Not bad at all. R9 285 or better performance for 2/3 the power (or better), and for a little cheaper as well - a great 1080p card.

 

[xXComputer_Nerd1625Xx]

Honestly I'm a little let down by the specs. I know specs aren't everything, but I really would've liked to see a beefier GPU compared to the last-gen 760 (which on paper looks better) and that also surpassed the last-gen 770, which this card can hardly do. I've got to admit though, at $200 it still is a great card, and maybe I'm asking for too much.

 

[gudomlig]

power charts seem questionable to me. 10 minutes running furmark drew an average of 280 watts with my sapphire 7950 boost and draws about 330 watts with my MSI gaming gtx 970. the power consumption torture charts show GTX 970 running at less watts than a 7950...I call BS. Even the older reviews here on Tom's show GTX 970 draws more power than 7950 boost so not sure where they pulled these numbers and makes me question the integrity of the entire article

 

[Agera One]

Why don't you always put the Anti-aliasing GIF on a screen with no moving objects? That would be more accurate to see what changes !!

 

[cmi86]

I appreciate what this card was able to do in regards to the lower TDP and slightly higher performance than the 760. That said I don't think this card did enough to win my vote. I am currently shopping for a new GPU and was really looking forward to this release thinking it would be a huge game changer like the 760 but it just wasn't. Now I'll be waiting for the 3XX release before making a decision.

 

[mapesdhs]

Where are the EVGA ACX 2.0 960 results?

Ian.

 

[elbert]

It requires an overclock to match the 280/285 in 1080p and totally gets crushed in 4k. While costing more than 280. Most of the gtx960 8 pin overclocking versions are more than the 285. The power saving may offset one disadvantage but costing more while under performing lol.

I was planing on buy two but this so bad ill wait and check out GTX960ti 1280sp.

 

[salgado18]

And why did you use the Asus Strix overclocked card for performance benchmarks, but for power you use Gainwards, which can be downclocked to reference specs? That's heavy bias on the numbers, and saying "A reference-clocked GeForce GTX 960 would have been slower than Asus' specimen..." is no excuse, when you did make one! Come on, great review and writing, but that is one major slip!

 

[logainofhades]

Really disappointed with this card. Hopefully a 960ti will be released to be what this card should have been. Guess I am going to buy a GTX 770, from a friend of mine instead. Odd to see that all the sudden the HD 7970/R9 280x is faster than the GTX 770 now. First time I have really seen that.

 

[cleeve]

[quotemsg=15118078,0,120171]And why did you use the Asus Strix overclocked card for performance benchmarks, but for power you use Gainwards, which can be downclocked to reference specs? That's heavy bias on the numbers, and saying "A reference-clocked GeForce GTX 960 would have been slower than Asus' specimen..." is no excuse, when you did make one! Come on, great review and writing, but that is one major slip![/quotemsg]

The answer is timing.

Game benchmarks were don in our Canadian lab. The Asus card was the only one sent early enough for us to get game benchmarks in time.

Power tests are done at the German lab, where the Asus card arrived later than the other samples. Unfortunately, it was unavoidable.

 

[fw1374]

At page 9 three times it is written GeForce GTX 690 instead of 960. Just a typo but it is there