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GTX 960 specs officially announced, 2.3Tflops, 2GB, 128-bit

Performance and price gaps between this and the 970 is huge. Incoming 960Ti soon, I bet.

If they could have squeezed out a little more performance to get it to 770 levels it would have been better.
 
blastprocessor said:
I've got the 660 and this card is certainly not worth the upgrade. Waiting for 20nm or below.
Click to expand...
Well how much of an improvement you want before you upgrade is totally up to you, but its still a ~40% increase over the 660, so perhaps worth it for some.

And actually, looking at prices, I see you can find 280X's for under £200, so I think that would probably be my recommendation in this price range.
 
It might just be me but in most third party games I don't see a difference between High and Ultra textures and effects, I don't see a 2GB card that is meant for 1080p gaming to be much of an issue running everything at High detail.

I don't think the kind of people who don't want to spend £250-500 on a GPU will care about not being able to run every game on Ultra in 1080p. Hell I can't even do it on my 3GB 7950.
 
TheLegendOfMart said:
It might just be me but in most third party games I don't see a difference between High and Ultra textures and effects, I don't see a 2GB card that is meant for 1080p gaming to be much of an issue running everything at High detail.
Click to expand...
2GB wont even be enough for High texture settings in many games, though. Especially moving forward. I agree there isn't usually much of a difference between High and Ultra, but moving down to Medium and you often start to get into more noticeable territory. Depends on the game, of course.
 
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Gefor...503599&token=2C044C54241509C9DC19675598D6AAD0

PCGH's benches. Average over 15 games:

Radeon R9 280X @ 1.000/3.000 MHz: 66,1 FPS
Geforce GTX 960 OC @ 1.354/3.506 MHz: 60,8 FPS
Radeon R9 280 @ 933/2.500 MHz: 56,0 FPS
Radeon R9 285 @ 918/2.750 Mhz: 53,7 FPS
Geforce GTX 960 @ Typical Boost 1.178/3.506 MHz: 53,3 FPS
Geforce GTX 760 @ 1.033/3.004 MHz 49,4 FPS

The 280X is old technology, but it is still extremely capable. You're totally right that buying a 3 year old card feels bad at this point but it's a testament to how fucked the market is, that nobody is releasing anything else compelling in the space (not even AMD themselves, screw the 285). And you're right, you shouldn't buy a midrange card for the future. You should buy one for now, and right now 2GB feels bad.

This card changes nothing. It doesn't move anything forward, it's not even a significant shift from the 760.

Hell, if it at least had 4GB it would have had a niche as "a 770 that can run higher texture quality" but it doesn't even have that
 
GHG said:
If 4gb versions ever exist then it could be an ok card for 1080p. But you can see at any resolution above that it clearly struggles.

It's not a card built for the future, it barely gets by now as it is,
Click to expand...

No discrete desktop GPUs are "built for the future", please wake up from this fever dream. If a design has gone without a direct replacement for 15 months, then you can bet it's just about time to take it behind the shed with a shotgun.
This card (designed for 1920x1080 at best btw) will work in the future with future games and you'll just have to adjust visuals to compensate for its abilities. NVIDIA aren't going to give this design 8GB VRAM so you can run it coughing and wheezing into 2019. It doesn't make sense for their business or for the industry as a whole.

I really wish people would stop trying to twist this market into something it's not and never has been, by constantly banging on about how vendors don't give the designs enough memory to last for 5 years. It makes any thread about GPUs desperately dull very quickly.
 
The 960 only has 8 SMM compared to 13 in the 970 and 16 in the 980.

They could probably do a Ti version with 10 SMM bringing the CUDA cores up to 1280 compared to 1024 in non-Ti and 1664 in the 970.

Give it 4GB of ram and price it at £200 and it would sell like hotcakes. I'd probably upgrade my 7950 for one if the price was right.

The only reason there isn't one just yet is because AMD is in dire straights, if they had a more up to date, competitive lineup you'd see Nvidia being a bit more aggressive.
 
Seanspeed said:
Well how much of an improvement you want before you upgrade is totally up to you, but its still a ~40% increase over the 660, so perhaps worth it for some.

And actually, looking at prices, I see you can find 280X's for under £200, so I think that would probably be my recommendation in this price range.
Click to expand...

100% and TDP of 130
 
riflen said:
No discrete desktop GPUs are "built for the future", please wake up from this fever dream. If a design has gone without a direct replacement for 15 months, then you can bet it's just about time to take it behind the shed with a shotgun.
This card (designed for 1920x1080 at best btw) will work in the future with future games and you'll just have to adjust visuals to compensate for its abilities. NVIDIA aren't going to give this design 8GB VRAM so you can run it coughing and wheezing into 2019. It doesn't make sense for their business or for the industry as a whole.

I really wish people would stop trying to twist this market into something it's not and never has been, by constantly banging on about how vendors don't give the designs enough memory to last for 5 years. It makes any thread about GPUs desperately dull very quickly.
Click to expand...

Totally disagree with this notion.

If you are buying a new card you want to be able to max out games now and also for the next 2/3 years at your selected resolution. This card can't even max out everything now due to VRAM issues and therefore it's a poor purchase as you will inevitably be scrambling around for another upgrade in the next 12 months as games become increasingly demanding.

If you buy a 970 or 980 now then you will be good for the rest of the generation at 1080p and will likely be able to max everything throughout the generation at that res.

In January 2013 I was in the process of upgrading my PC and obviously came here for advice. I had budgeted £300-£350 for a new GPU(s) and was advised to get a 2gb 670 or 2gb 680. Instead I ignored everybody and got 2 3gb 660s because of the extra VRAM and the fact that they have proven to be 30-40% stronger in the cast majority of games compared to a single 680. Best decision of my PC building life. These cards are still going very strong and there is not a single game I can't completely max at 1080p with respectable framerates. Meanwhile, many a 670/680 owner has been forced to upgrade due to lack of power or VRAM limitations. I spent £330 once and many others spent £330 then and then about the same amount again in the last 12 months to upgrade. Of course in my situation sli was also a factor and I respect that many people prefer to not have to go that route.

The best piece of advice I can give to people looking to upgrade is to not just get a card because it is 'ok' for now if you are looking to keep it for a while. You are better off spending £260 on a 970 now than spending £160 on a 960 now and then another £160 in 12/18 months because your card was a poor choice and ran out of legs mid generation.

All the signs are there that indicate the 2gb variant of card will be worthless in a year or 2s time as far as new games are concerned so I really don't understand how anyone can say this is a good buy for anyone.
 
GHG said:
If you buy a 970 or 980 now then you will be good for the rest of the generation at 1080p and will likely be able to max everything throughout the generation at that res.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt that. I also disagree with your comment that a GPU should be able to blast its way through the latest and future games, max settings is not well defined by the way.

It's completely unrealistic considering we don't even know what devs will ask of our rigs in the next 18 months.
 
As someone who plays on smaller resolutions (1440x900 monitor), this card will be a perfect replacement for my HD6850...once I have the money for it...
 
GHG said:
Totally disagree with this notion.

If you are buying a new card you want to be able to max out games now and also for the next 2/3 years at your selected resolution. This card can't even max out everything now due to VRAM issues and therefore it's a poor purchase as you will inevitably be scrambling around for another upgrade in the next 12 months as games become increasingly demanding.

If you buy a 970 or 980 now then you will be good for the rest of the generation at 1080p and will likely be able to max everything throughout the generation at that res.

In January 2013 I was in the process of upgrading my PC and obviously came here for advice. I had budgeted £300-£350 for a new GPU(s) and was advised to get a 2gb 670 or 2gb 680. Instead I ignored everybody and got 2 3gb 660s because of the extra VRAM and the fact that they have proven to be 30-40% stronger in the cast majority of games compared to a single 680. Best decision of my PC building life. These cards are still going very strong and there is not a single game I can't completely max at 1080p with respectable framerates. Meanwhile, many a 670/680 owner has been forced to upgrade due to lack of power or VRAM limitations. I spent £330 once and many others spent £330 then and then about the same amount again in the last 12 months to upgrade. Of course in my situation sli was also a factor and I respect that many people prefer to not have to go that route.

The best piece of advice I can give to people looking to upgrade is to not just get a card because it is 'ok' for now if you are looking to keep it for a while. You are better off spending £260 on a 970 now than spending £160 on a 960 now and then another £160 in 12/18 months because your card was a poor choice and ran out of legs mid generation.

All the signs are there that indicate the 2gb variant of card will be worthless in a year or 2s time as far as new games are concerned so I really don't understand how anyone can say this is a good buy for anyone.
Click to expand...

I could agree with you if you said next "1 year" - but "2-3 years"? Ha. C'mon man. You're talking about MAXING games in a thread about a damn budget GPU, btw.
 
Jessie.Bristol said:
The 750 Ti has been doing a pretty good job against the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. I expect the 960 to do even better.
Click to expand...

Performance wise perhaps but the problem is the low amount of VRAM. You will assuredly need to drop textures down a notch (compared to x86 consoles) because of that.
Otherwise, it punches above its weight considering the specs, I can't believe I'm speaking of a PC part in those terms. Usually this kind of talk is reserved to consoles but now we do have a lower specced GPU trading blows with them. (°_°).
 
GHG said:
Totally disagree with this notion.

If you are buying a new card you want to be able to max out games now and also for the next 2/3 years at your selected resolution. This card can't even max out everything now due to VRAM issues and therefore it's a poor purchase as you will inevitably be scrambling around for another upgrade in the next 12 months as games become increasingly demanding.

If you buy a 970 or 980 now then you will be good for the rest of the generation at 1080p and will likely be able to max everything throughout the generation at that res.

In January 2013 I was in the process of upgrading my PC and obviously came here for advice. I had budgeted £300-£350 for a new GPU(s) and was advised to get a 2gb 670 or 2gb 680. Instead I ignored everybody and got 2 3gb 660s because of the extra VRAM and the fact that they have proven to be 30-40% stronger in the cast majority of games compared to a single 680. Best decision of my PC building life. These cards are still going very strong and there is not a single game I can't completely max at 1080p with respectable framerates. Meanwhile, many a 670/680 owner has been forced to upgrade due to lack of power or VRAM limitations. I spent £330 once and many others spent £330 then and then about the same amount again in the last 12 months to upgrade. Of course in my situation sli was also a factor and I respect that many people prefer to not have to go that route.

The best piece of advice I can give to people looking to upgrade is to not just get a card because it is 'ok' for now if you are looking to keep it for a while. You are better off spending £260 on a 970 now than spending £160 on a 960 now and then another £160 in 12/18 months because your card was a poor choice and ran out of legs mid generation.

All the signs are there that indicate the 2gb variant of card will be worthless in a year or 2s time as far as new games are concerned so I really don't understand how anyone can say this is a good buy for anyone.
Click to expand...

Can you really not see how myopic your comment is? People may WANT to max out (a term which is meaningless btw, when speaking so broadly about all games) games with the same GPU for 3 years, but this is unrealistic for a million reasons that are too obvious to explain. Your assertion is even more ludicrous when you consider we're specifically discussing a $200 GPU.
This product targets a specific market segment and that market segment is probably playing LoL on fixed income.

I'm very pleased that you consider not replacing a GPU for years to be some kind of virtue, but the fact is that improvements in this market are swift to appear and tangible and the second-hand GPU market is very healthy. Those people "forced" to sell their 680 on and pick up an improved design are probably benefiting from lower power consumption, improved performance and better thermal and noise design, not to mention more features born from supporting software.
 
I have a GTX 660. I don't really care about maxing everything as long as the games look good and I play at 1080p, so I may pick this one when any of the manufacturers releases a 3GB version (it'll happen at some point, right?).

Otherwise I may just continue to save money and pick a 970 when it gets closer to 300€ (looks like it's still around 350€ here in Spain).
 
So nearly the same performance as a GTX 760 and at a similar price. I just don't get it???

Am I missing something here?
 
This card seems a real waste money for people with a 760. The upgrade is far too conservative, and the fact they are comparing this card to cards from two generations ago shows they know this card is whack. The 970 was a decent upgrade from a 770 compared to 960 from 760. My 760 even has more memory (3Gb)!

Nvidia suggesting users overclock it - http://youtu.be/2Ya9Ymbc6tc

I'm glad AMD will be showcasing their new cards running on new architecture soon. I hope they blow Nvidia out of the water.
 
Kezen said:
It's much more powerful than the 760, check the benchmarks.

New drivers ready as well :
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/geforce-347-25-whql-driver-released
Click to expand...

Yep. GTX 760 (GK104) will likely not be manufactured for much longer (if they haven't stopped already), so stock will disappear before long. Maxwell also supports MFAA, although that's not much of a draw considering the card's ability and the lack of support MFAA has right now.
The design performs better and uses less power than GK104. Obviously it's a better prospect if you're on a 660 than a 760 though. I do agree it's slightly overpriced at the moment too.
 
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