Upgrading from gtx 760 to 960

[Draydince]

The title can be a bit misleading. I know that purely on their own merits, there is no justification to upgrade from a 760 to a 960. However, my question is moreso is there "any" performance increase at all? Even a 1%.

The reason that I ask is because my friend is playing with an old hd 4850, and we're in the process of arranging for him to buy my 760 for relatively cheap. I was planning on buying a 960 as a replacement - frankly, I don't need any improvement at all - i can play everything just fine. 90% of the reason i'm doing this is just so he has a better card, and I have someone to game with.

I've seen answers pointing that the 960 is better (Albeit marginally - which I'm frankly ok with, since I was happy enough with my 760) but then I've also seen people stating that the 960 was actually WORSE than the 760. As I said, I'm doing this mostly as a favor to a friend. I'm not looking for a night and day increase in performance, however I'd really hate to end up with something worse. Even if only marginally.

One of my biggest concerns is the memory bus, being that my 760 was 256 while the 960 is 128? (I don't have the numbers in front of me offhand, but you get the idea) how much of an issue would this be, if any?

I have one last, separate question: Would I be able to power an R9 280x with this setup?
r9 280x
Intel i5-4690
8 gigs of ram
1tb hd
5 case fans (Including one huge side one)
and corsair cx 600w psu? <Obviously this is my biggest concern with the possibility of running this card. Upgrading my psu at this point in time isn't an option because it's all wired/tied behind my computer, and frankly... Well, I'm just too lazy to deal with un cabling everything ha.

I appreciate any and all input. Thanks in advance.

 

[Deyadissa]

I bought the 960 because I had a 760, without doing any research. I had simply figured that since it was 2 generations ahead, it had to be better, especially hearing all the crave with the 900 series cards.

Oh man was I dissapointed, I play Guild Wars 2 mostly... the only change it allowed me to do was shaders for the most part. Instead of using medium shaders to get high framerate, I could use max shaders and it worked... but the FPS only went up like 5fps.

I returned it and got the next in line, the 970. It was literally night and day. I went from 30-50fps on max settings to 60+ and 40fps on 4k resolution.

The new cards use *less* power than the older cards, so if it runs right now you're fine. The only concern you should have is the CPU, it may be too weak but I am not sure on that.

I run a SLI 970 seyup on a 750w power supply.

This website is great for finding out how much power you need, my rig only uses 500w of power even if it was overclocked:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

 

[i7Baby]

"is there "any" performance increase at all? " - Of course - http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960-vs-GeForce-GTX-760

But per - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

" I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel, and you may not even notice any worthwhile difference in performance."

 

[Draydince]

Thanks for the responses. I'm not really looking to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. I'm selling my current 760 to my friend and was planning on buying a 960 as a personal replacement to get a slightly better card, and was just wondering what sort of difference it would be. I figured as a collective entirety it would be a 'little' better, but my concern lies within the higher memory bus of the older 760 vs lower 960. If it delivers similar, or slightly better performance - then i'm ok with it not necessarily being an "upgrade" I would just hate for it to be a downgrade, since the whole ordeal is mostly done as a favor to get a friend a better card.

 

[loki1944]

According to Tom's review, the 960 is better in most games they tested: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-4.html. Though it probably depends on which version of the 760 you have how much better it will be. Yes 600W should be plenty for your i5+R9 280X; and a 280X will be better than the 960 overall in games, also has more VRAM and bigger bus.

 

[theunliked]

"is there "any" performance increase at all? " - Of course - http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960-vs-GeForce-GTX-760

But per - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

" I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel, and you may not even notice any worthwhile difference in performance."

Wow, I must say that is not a very big difference according to gpuboss. Makes me feel better because I thought I had made a mistake getting the GTX 760.

 

[Draydince]

This is my current card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127772

This is the one I was thinking about getting: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487093&cm_re=gtx_960-_-14-487-093-_-Product

I know there are better options in the 960 variety, however due to an oversight on my computers side panel fan I'm somewhat limited to ITX cards because of the way the 6/8pin connectors are located With a small card they fit perfectly right under the fan without hitting the blades, but unfortunately full cards lead to the power connector grinding right up against the blades. Unless you're aware of any 960's or even r9 280x's that have their power connectors located more towards the middle of the card, rather than the edge. I'd much rather have a full sized card with a better cooling solution.

 

[theunliked]

According to Tom's review, the 960 is better in most games they tested: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-4.html. Though it probably depends on which version of the 760 you have how much better it will be. Yes 600W should be plenty for your i5+R9 280X; and a 280X will be better than the 960 overall in games, also has more VRAM and bigger bus.

Ah...that looks a bit more like what I normally hear.

 

[loki1944]

comment deleted

 

[Draydince]

Thanks, loki. How detrimental do you think it would be to have a smaller memory bus and lower cuda cores? Not entirely sure how important of a factor those are

 

[loki1944]

Thanks, loki. How detrimental do you think it would be to have a smaller memory bus and lower cuda cores? Not entirely sure how important of a factor those are

I think it will matter, but less so at 1080p. I would go for a 280X personally if I had to choose between that and a 960. There are some games that will go over 2GB of VRAM at 1080p. This discussion of the issue may interest you: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2498323/gtx-960-128bit-gtx-760-256bit.html

 

[holyrage]

go with the R9 280X it is on par with the 770 and is better than the 960 overall

however in 2 months amd will release the R9 3XX which will have full support for DX12

 

[Draydince]

Thanks, loki. How detrimental do you think it would be to have a smaller memory bus and lower cuda cores? Not entirely sure how important of a factor those are

I think it will matter, but less so at 1080p. I would go for a 280X personally if I had to choose between that and a 960. There are some games that will go over 2GB of VRAM at 1080p. This discussion of the issue may interest you: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2498323/gtx-960-128bit-gtx-760-256bit.html

That article put my mind at ease, since I doubt I'll be exceeding 1080 anytime soon.

I would love to get an r9 280x, however I'm in kind of a weird situation where I require a card is either a small itx with the pin connectors at the end, or a full length card with the connectors in the middle of the card (Making it the equivlant of a half lengths card positioning) otherwise having them at the end of a full length card, the cords stick out just a bit too much and rub against my side panels fan blades. You wouldn't happen to know of any 280x's that have the pin connectors in the middle of the card? Or better yet, in itx form factor

Here's an example of what i mean by a full length card with the connectors in the middle, rather than at the end http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487091 (Sorry I couldn't link to the direct picture, but it's the 5th picture in the gallery that shows my example)

It was really hard to get a picture of my problem, because I know I didn't do a very good job of explaining it - but basically a half sized itx card fits perfectly right on the "circle" of the back part of the fan, where no blades touch - and anything longer rubs against the blade. It's not a super clear picture but hopefully it helps explain what my words couldn't