Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: Maxwell In The Middle

[Bezzell]

Maybe the 960ti will be more impressive. Meh.

 

[ericjohn004]

I haven't been in the comments at Tom's in a while, lately I've read Eurogamer and IGN a couple times and looked at the comments which are normally filled with teens bitching at eachother over trivial things while never being impressed by anything, as if it's cool if you don't like something and demand more for less.

While Tom's will certainly never devolve to that, I get a small sense of that in these comments. The 960 is 50$ cheaper than the 760, it's 10-20% faster, uses a lot less power, and is cooler and more silent while most likely having better overclocking like the 970 and 980.

Yes some of you are just outright upset with the cards performance.

Exactly what were you expecting from this 200$ card? It beat AMD's performance at the target resolution, it beat AMD's price point, and it's more cool, quiet, and uses less power. That's what this card was meant to do.

If AMD releases a cheaper card with better performance, as I'm expecting them to do, then this 960 will drop to 160-170$. Which I'm also expecting.

We are getting GTX770 performance for nearly GTX750Ti money. That's freaking amazing!

Look at the big picture.

 

[phxrider]

Did you maybe accidentally swap the 760 and 770 scores in the ACU benchmark?

 

[cmi86]

Guys, this is Tom's Hardware. Aren't you suppose to be very knowledgable tech lovers?

I don't get some of your comments.

From these benchmarks we see that the GTX960 and 285 are pretty much identical in performance. The 960 actually averages a slightly higher frame rate at 1080p.

The 960 is also about 20$ less expensive, uses a LOT less power, and doesn't make as much noise. Less power and less noise seem like trivial things to some, but this is hard to actually accomplish, which is why AMD's card tend to run a little more warm.

I see some of you saying "This card can't run games at 4k! It's memory is too slow!". Really? REALLY? A 200$ GPU is suppose to run games at 4k? And don't tell me you wanted them in SLI, because two 960's in SLI only equal 1 980, so just get a 980, it doesn't make since.

Why do the specs of the card even matter? The only thing you should be looking at is performance because that's all that counts in the end.

I also see comments stating that the 960 is "Slightly" faster than the 760. Really? Slightly? Depending on the game, the GTX960 is 10-20% faster than the 760. While it uses 10% less cores and half the bandwidth. That's impressive, IDC who you are.

I'm getting one of these for my brother to replace his GTX660Ti, he's going to love it.

I think you may have missed that the 285 used was a reference board at stock clocks. Seems a bit unfair as these 960's are factory OC versions with aftermarket coolers and that an equally OC'd 285 would have been faster and its 3rd party cooler would have performed cooler and quieter than the reference version tested. That said the 285 should not be regarded as the 960's main competitor. I think that title needs to go to the R9-280. It costs less than the 960 ($170-$200) and when overclocked (remember all 960's today were OC'd) is right on par if not a bit ahead of the 960. It should be noted that nvidia is still trying to take down the 3 yr old 7950.. There is the power consumption aspect and I'll nod my head to the 960's achievement in that regard but the honest reality is that the vast majority of people shopping in this price range will not give up performance for power savings making the 960's TDP somewhat of a null point for all minus the mini-itx crowd where this card would be a great option.

 

[ananke]

Base card equals R9 270X, but for 50% more price. Overclocked cards barely equal R9285.
This thing should be $149 MSRP and around $130 on sale today. As usual greedy NVidia launch of underwhelming hardware. I recall I bought GT96 or sth similar NVidia many years ago - same type of launch: it was 64-bit when everybody was on 128-bit memory for average money though. Big purchase mistake, which I will never do again.

 

[zeppast]

Not a bad card by any means but honestly I'm a bit disappointed I was expecting the 960 to be much faster. It would have made more sense if the performance was in between the Gtx 770 and 780 but like others have said I'm pretty sure there's a 960ti in the works because the gap between the 970 is pretty huge here.

 

[Onus]

I don't think there is anything wrong with having high expectations. Based on the GTX970, such would be reasonable. So no, it isn't a bad card, but it could have been so much more. This looks like a slightly overpriced GTX950Ti; drop the price to around $160-$170, and it makes much more sense. "There are no longer any bad cards, just bad prices." The market will fix this.

 

[Eggz]

Looks like a power-efficient GTX 680 to me, based on the performance charts

People still sitting on the 680 at least know where their card stands, several years since its release as the flagship.

 

[zeppast]

Not a bad card by any means but honestly I'm a bit disappointed I was expecting the 960 to be much faster. It would have made more sense if the performance was in between the Gtx 770 and 780 but like others have said I'm pretty sure there's a 960ti in the works because the gap between the 970 is pretty huge here.

 

[logainofhades]

I have seen something about there is going to be two GTX 960ti variants. Nvida better not do another stupid naming scheme like it has in the past. 960ti and 965 wold make so much more sense.

http://wccftech.com/gtx-960-ti-benchmarks-specs-revealed/

 

[InvalidError]

Base card equals R9 270X, but for 50% more price. Overclocked cards barely equal R9285.
This thing should be $149 MSRP and around $130 on sale today.

Most listings for the R9-270X are $180 and up while the R9-285 is mostly $210 and up. Around $200 for the GTX960 seems about right to me based on regular retail prices.

While the performance may "barely match" the R9-285, the GTX960 does so using half as much power. With the two priced about the same, twice the power-efficiency would be the tie-breaker for me if I wanted to spend $200 on a GPU.

 

[zeppast]

Not a bad card by any means but honestly I'm a bit disappointed I was expecting the 960 to be much faster. It would have made more sense if the performance was in between the Gtx 770 and 780 but like others have said I'm pretty sure there's a 960ti in the works because the gap between the 970 is pretty huge here.

 

[littleleo]

The card runs from $218 to $250 if your paying $280 for it you are being ripped off. For the low $200s it seems like a good card.

 

[nostall]

After reading this, I feel relieved that I stretched for a GTX970. I suspect that a 960Ti will turn out to be what I hoped this card would be, but right now I'd probably be a little irritated if I'd waited for this.
I have to wonder though, if its performance in SLI would be a redeeming feature, although limitations on amount and bandwidth of memory may hurt there too.
I will agree with those who are looking at the potential of that single-fan Gigabyte model in a mini-ITX rig. It seems to me that single-fan coolers ought to be a lot more common on cards only needing a single 6-pin PCIe connector; additional fans and huge heat sinks appear to add a lot of cost, but not much benefit except perhaps a few dbA of noise reduction. As much as I like quiet, I don't think it is worth it.

I waited for it.. now I am stuck waiting for the 3XX launch before pulling the trigger on something new. Why would one consider SLI 960's ? "Theoretically" same speed as a 970 but costs more and uses more power kind of defeats the purpose, no ?

At Newegg, the 980's are selling for $700 down to $445. Making the assumption that two 960's (assuming because I haven't had any time to find tests of SLI 960 cards, as they just arrived) will equal or exceed the frame rates of a 980 - in 1080-1200 (1920X1200 on my monitor), then the cost to performance ratio is better. Others may feel the same way.
If running 4K, then obviously, from the results of this article, there are better cards.

 

[logainofhades]

SLI data on the Asus 960 Strix.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_960_strix_2_way_sli_review,14.html

 

[hannibal]

The memory bandwidth "cap" does suggest that this is not so good sli card if you are planning to use higher resolution than 1080p.
But for light gaming htpc this is quite good candidate.

 

[sicom]

Overclock the GTX 970 and it would be ~180% on that chart. For only an additional $140 it is far more impressive and even better performance/dollar.

 

[TallestJon96]

Interesting pricing. If this was $250 it'd kinda suck.

If it had a 256 bit bus it would be compelling, but as is it just rounds out the maxwell selection.

750 ti for lower power, low end systems
960 for budget systems
970 for higher end, value systems
980 for high end
980 ti (hopefully in the near future) for highest end/non-sli 4k

As it is the 970 is the star of this generation

I worry that a 960 with a 128 bit bus might be LESS future proof than a 770, 670 or even 760.

 

[cmi86]

Why does no one acknowledge the R9 280 currently @ $179.99 ? It's $30 cheaper and faster than the 960 when OC'd (just like all these 960's were today) My thought is the REFERENCE 285 was specifically selected over a 3rd party R9 280 for these comparisons to make the 960 look good. Reference stock clocks on the R9 285 allow the 960 to be a hair faster most of the time where as comparable 3rd party OC R9 285/280 cards would have been faster than the 960. The 3rd party R9 285/280 cards would have also had a better showing in the thermal/acoustic metrics compared to the reference cooler shown. The last reason the reference R9 285 was selected over a 3rd party R9-280 was price. This allowed them to tout the 960 as the "less expensive" card of the 2, where as using the R9-280 would have allowed no such statement because the 280 is less expensive than the 960 by $30. My guess as to why no reference 960's is Nvidia didn't want people to see just how low a vanilla 960 stacked up against the competition.

I swear to the tech gods I am not trying to be a troll here or start anything I am just seriously disappointed in this release and cant shake the feeling this card has intentionally been launched and reviewed in a way to appear better than it is in reality.

I do realize my ranting is probably getting annoying tho so I will stop, my bad been one of those days lol.

 

[logainofhades]

I do not disagree with you, cmi86. Guru3d includes a reference 960 in their reviews of overclocked 960's.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_960_gaming_oc_review,12.html

 

[Onus]

No, cmi86, those are all valid points. It doesn't mean the card selection was nefarious, or that any lies were told, but as usual, it is always necessary to read between the lines and look at more data points than only those presented in one article.
I think as more reviews and actual usage reports come out, this card will likely settle to a $175 price, and/or 3GB versions will come out.

 

[cmi86]

No, cmi86, those are all valid points. It doesn't mean the card selection was nefarious, or that any lies were told, but as usual, it is always necessary to read between the lines and look at more data points than only those presented in one article.
I think as more reviews and actual usage reports come out, this card will likely settle to a $175 price, and/or 3GB versions will come out.

That would be a more realistic price point for the 960. I would love to see a 2GB/256Bit/1280sp/GM 204 960Ti come along at the current $200-$210 price point and be what this release should have been.

 

[nostall]

SLI data on the Asus 960 Strix.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_960_strix_2_way_sli_review,14.html

Thank you.

 

[cmi86]

I do not disagree with you, cmi86. Guru3d includes a reference 960 in their reviews of overclocked 960's.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_960_gaming_oc_review,12.html

Thanks. Looks like the vanilla isn't really too far behind. Makes me wonder how much OC headroom these 960's might have once users start tweaking them.

 

[Onus]

The guru3d article didn't seem to show much benefit to overclocking. If a game wasn't playable, an OC didn't seem likely to change that. At the settings and resolutions for which this card seems intended, it does well enough, but outside that, it looks like there's not much help for it; which is probably true of a great many cards.