Nvidia Launches The Incredibly Efficient GeForce GTX 960

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Nvidia's new GTX 960 is aimed at the masses, but will it be appealing enough to be a hit?

Nvidia Launches The Incredibly Efficient GeForce GTX 960 : Read more

 

[Xivilain]

This should finally beat a GTX 580. Its crazy to see the improvements over the years.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

 

[dovah-chan]

Well there goes that hole in the market

 

[beoza]

I like the look of the all black cooler.

 

[game junky]

good sign - I think we all want to see pricing and a ti variant but I am glad they're finally giving us a teaser. I feel bad for folks that are wanting to build their rig soon and want an Nvidia card without spending for the 970 because this is the natural go to option

 

[damric]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 280 3GB TurboDuo Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $149.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-22 10:37 EST-0500

 

[PreyTheSun]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 280 3GB TurboDuo Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $149.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-22 10:37 EST-0500

I take it that the PowerColor Radeon R9 280 3GB TurboDuo for $149.99-$169.99 on Newegg, is a better card and deal for your money than the GTX 960?

 

[fkr]

i have read a couple of benchmarks so far and it appears that this is about the same as a 7970/ r9 280x.

at 1080p this card performs really well and at 1440p or higher an old 7950 will win by a margin in some games.

I still need some of the better reviewers to get some info out and for me to read it but i think the AMD is allot better just because it has the option to CF and I would not SLI this 960 with it limited mem and mem buffer

 

[fkr]

I think it is a good upgrade, personally I would get a used 7950 for $100 as performance will be similar. If you wanted to buy new and you are not ever planning on getting a higher than 1080p monitor then go for it.

In the end I think that the r9 280/280x/285 and the gtx960 are all in the same performance boat and I would buy whatever is cheapest but if you wanted to go with nvidia then do it as the purchase will probably make you happier.

here is a good review and they are giving away 7 gtx960's in about three minutes

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-960-2GB-Review-GM206-199

 

[PreyTheSun]

I wish I had enough money to drop on the GTX 970, but then I'd just get a PS4 at that point, at least for now. I'll probably wait for the 960TI. Probably best not to jump the gun on this one.

Thanks for all the advice and tips, guys!

 

[elbert]

This card gets beat by the 280/285. It only matches the 2 in 1080p and then gets left behind in 1440 and 4k. Give the ref models sale about $20 higher than 280 they are bad deal. The 8 pin versions sale near $240ish which again is about $20 higher than 285 make then a bad deal. Also the fact that the 8pin oc version are nearing gtx960ti price OC isn't worth the price. Possible Nvidia will line out the gtx960 prices with the 4gb version at some point.

 

[PreyTheSun]

Many people are saying that the 960 it's even worth $150, so I'm just going to forget about it and ride out my HD 6950, since it's still kicking. Once it dies (which hopefully isn't soon, 4 years strong!) I'll go to Nvidia and get a new, up-to-date card.

 

[damric]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 280 3GB TurboDuo Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $149.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-22 10:37 EST-0500

I take it that the PowerColor Radeon R9 280 3GB TurboDuo for $149.99-$169.99 on Newegg, is a better card and deal for your money than the GTX 960?

At this moment in time the 280 is the best deal. I have a feeling that R9 280 stock is dwindling, so get them while you can.

A month from now there might not be any 280s left and we might see some rebates for sub-$200 GTX 960.

Really $200 is not a bad price considering the beloved GTX 460 was like $260. It's just that there is a lot of good Radeons at that price bracket right now.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

This should finally beat a GTX 580. Its crazy to see the improvements over the years.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Um ya, the 760 outperforms the 580.

 

[photonboy]

Benchmarks:

I believe the GTX960 has exactly HALF the processing units (and memory bandwidth) of the GTX980 thus it should perform almost exactly HALF as well in games.

So just look at GTX980 benchmarks and cut the FPS in half (assuming no CPU bottleneck).

 

[dragonsqrrl]

Benchmarks:

I believe the GTX960 has exactly HALF the processing units (and memory bandwidth) of the GTX980 thus it should perform almost exactly HALF as well in games.

So just look at GTX980 benchmarks and cut the FPS in half (assuming no CPU bottleneck).

That would make sense, but the benchmarks I've seen show it performing quite a bit better than that, at least at 1080p. This is probably attributable to higher stock clocks on the 960, and the fact that practically every launch 960 is overclocked on top of that. The 980 seems to be ~70% faster on average.

 

[photonboy]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Palit/GeForce_GTX_960_Super_JetStream/29.html

56% the performance of a GTX980 (stock vs stock) at 1080p

 

[photonboy]

Update:
The above 56% result is an average of 20 games so it's quite accurate.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

I see what you're getting at, although that's still 12% faster than "almost exactly half". And the gap only widens for overclocked cards (which are most cards) to ~20%. Would you say the clocks might have something to do with that discrepancy? The average for their overclocked card seems to be pretty close to the estimate I gave in my previous comment, so I think it's pretty safe to say the 980 is ~65-70% faster on average.

 

[loki1944]

Pretty underwhelming considering the price/performance of 280/295/280x. If I was strapped for cash I wouldn't buy a 960 and if I wanted best perchance for my money I'd go AMD or 970.

 

[Ninjawithagun]

The GTX960 isn't that efficient if it still requires a dual-slot cooling solution.

 

[g-unit1111]

After doing some research on GTX 960 SLI vs. GTX 970, SlI 960 might seem like a good idea in the short run but does not compare favorably to a GTX 970 or 980. In some tests that I saw the GTX 960 SLI beat out the 780 TI but the reviews said that it wasn't really a viable option when you consider the cost of the 970. After that I went with the Gigabyte Windforce 970.

 

[Brian Blair]

BS! It used to be the price performance cards had the same V-ram as the high end cards, do you could run ultra settings on demanding games plying at lower resolution! Now they are saying screw you unless you buy our expensive GPU! THIS IS BS! The 960 has the power to handle at'least up to 3GB, But they made sure to fix that too, Because if they ever come out with a 4GB version, It will not be crippled from the cards GPU power, It will be crippled from the 128bit bus!

 

[Angelus de Mortiel]

Considering my GTX 650 Ti Boost ran 2 GB or RAM on a 192-bit bus (which is the bus used by the GTX 660), it seems odd that nVidia did not opt for a 192-bit bus for the GTX 960. While obviously the Maxwell GPU will blow my 650's Kepler out of the water in performance, it's odd to me that with games and higher resolution monitors eating more and more vRAM that nVidia would go this route.

I'm hoping the GTX 960 Ti will have a 192-bit bus and 3 or 4 GB of vRAM. Otherwise, the GTX 970 is still the best nVidia card for the money, offering 4 GB of vRAM on a 256-bit bus.

 

[LastTulare]

I already ordered the EVGA variant GTX 960. Its replacing an EVGA GTX 460 SE. Naturally Ill see a damn good improvement. Im after the efficiency mostly, my computer never shuts off. I run a small minecraft server and play minecraft mostly.