NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Launch Date Revealed

[Rezist]

maybe 200$ is a little cheap for a 192bit/3GB model from nVidia but 200$ for a 128bit/2GB is a rip off. What did the regular 660 launch at? like 249$?

 

[Rezist]

Nvidia saw the 285, and matched a crap card with a crap card. 285 - all the great features of GCN 1.2... with 2nd tier performance from 3 years ago and 2GB of VRAM to make sure it's bottlenocked day 1. 960 all of the awesomeness of low power Maxwell... with MAYBE top tier performance from 3 years ago and 2GB of VRAM to make sure it's bottlenocked day 1.

Crap everywhere. Thank god for the 290 and 970. But if you want performance below that tier, you are left with ancient GCN 1.0 280x/280 or overpriced and no longer optimized for Kepler 770 / 760 4GB.

The 960 is not the droid you are looking for. Hopefully we will soon have a 960 Ti available in 3GB (for 1080 users) and 6GB (for 1440 users) for the budget oriented gamer. 2GB is a joke unless you only have a 1600x900 monitor, and buying a 2GB card in 2015 is just guarenteeing you will be a new card in 2016.

Pretty much this, there's 4 cards on the market, 280/280x/290/970......

 

[RussianSensation]

Honestly, TPU often posts very low quality speculation. The Zauba shipping manifest had 960 as a 4GB 256-bit 993/6008 clocked part:
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-...m-256bit-bus-preliminary-specs-993-mhz-clock/

Usually those shipping manifests are pretty accurate unless memory fails me. Now a 960 with 4GB, 256-bit bus and near 780 performance at $249 would definitely make a lot of people 2nd guess a $350 970.

 

[mindbomb]

if it has 8ghz memory on a 128 bit bus, that is like 4ghz on a 256 bit bus, which ain't too bad. With gddr5 speeds, we gotta re-examine the stigma associated with small memory interfaces.

 

[SPBHM]

if it has 8ghz memory on a 128 bit bus, that is like 4ghz on a 256 bit bus, which ain't too bad. With gddr5 speeds, we gotta re-examine the stigma associated with small memory interfaces.

4GHz 256bit is like an old GTX 460 or something, and 8GHz is to optimistic, more like 7.

but we know Maxwell is a lot more efficient with memory bandwidth, but not enough to compensate the difference to let's say the GTX 760 (6GHz 256bit) I would think...

 

[RaistlinZ]

At $200 you might as well just buy a used 770.

 

[Maxima1]

I seriously doubt Nvidia will screw people over that hard. 4K is going to keep crashing down in price. This card isn't even good for full HD!

 

[Haserath]

I think it would make sense to have GM206 as a 192bit chip, like GK106 was, maybe the 960 Ti would be the full chip, but not the 960.

They sold the GTX 770 as a 2GB card for $300 recently and this is two levels below that in the next generation(assuming Ti). It just wouldn't surprise me if the bus and price is true.

 

[Silverforce11]

Definitely smells like the 960ti will be a further cut-down GM204, falling into the sweetspot of ~$249.

GM206 should be great at 1080p gaming, except for a few games where it will lack the vram for ultra textures. It's a fair trade-off for most NV gamers looking at the low-midrange ~$200.

Edit: Performance should be between 770 & 780, at that segment, it really deserves 3-4GB vram because its got the grunt to handle Ultra Textures at 1080p. But it'll still sell like crazy given its a very affordable mid-range card from NV, which hasn't happened for a long time.

 

[tential]

I seriously doubt Nvidia will screw people over that hard. 4K is going to keep crashing down in price. This card isn't even good for full HD!

Lol they aren't screwing anyone. They're releasing the card before. 4k monitors start to really come out. The card will get benched at 1080p because of this primarily.
When 4k crashes down in price nvidia will have a new card for you to upgrade to.

They just did this with the 2gb gtx 770 where it benched well right before high vram requirement games came out.

This card will bench well at release which is what matters to nvidia.

They do what is best for themselves.

 

[HE-MAN24]

what i think is that gtx 970 in particular is selling very well, even nvidia was surprised by it ( i think ). and if they make gtx 960 roughly 15% - 20% slow then gtx 970 then, sales of gtx 970 will suffer. thats why this specifications makes sense to keep it away as far as possible from gtx 970 so gamers feel that they are getting substantial performance bump from gtx 960 to gtx 970 and hence the price premium..

 

[Silverforce11]

Nobody here was surprised the 970 did well. Every reviewer on launch praised it for delivering awesome perf/$, something NV hasn't done for generations. Almost everyone who contributed to the 970 thread here also reached the same conclusion.

 

[Maxima1]

Lol they aren't screwing anyone. They're releasing the card before. 4k monitors start to really come out. The card will get benched at 1080p because of this primarily.
When 4k crashes down in price nvidia will have a new card for you to upgrade to.

They just did this with the 2gb gtx 770 where it benched well right before high vram requirement games came out.

This card will bench well at release which is what matters to nvidia.

They do what is best for themselves.

Okay, it wasn't as bad as I thought (thinking it was $240 prior).

 

[Red Hawk]

The hang up for me isn't 2 GB. It would be nice to have 3 or 4 GB, but as a same-process successor to the 660 and 760, it's fine. What's not fine is 128 bit memory bus width. Really NV? Not even 192 bit? That just seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot with how this card can compete with AMD's 270 cards, or any upcoming successor to those. They better have GDDR5 memory clocked so fast it bends space and time if they want this card to be competitive.

Oh, and this does indicate that there's going to be a 960 Ti to fill the void left above this card.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Nobody here was surprised the 970 did well. Every reviewer on launch praised it for delivering awesome perf/$, something NV hasn't done for generations. Almost everyone who contributed to the 970 thread here also reached the same conclusion.

Lets just hope they could do this with their 960/960ti as well.The 970 does look spectacular.Haven't seen a gpu look that great since the gtx570 in that segment which has been a while.

Been quite a while since someone could upgrade a 2+ year old gpu to something cheaper that is overall faster,has lower power consumption and has double the vram.:thumbsup: The 580 to 680 movement wasn't nearly as dramatic i think.

 

[FX2000]

"b-but muh pwr efiensy!!11"

 

[SlickR12345]

WOW, talk about a garbage card, 128bit bus and only 2GB memory for $200? I mean that is absurd.

I can get an equivalent AMD card with 4GB and 256bit bus. I would consider this 960 only decent at $150, with a TI version with 256bit and 4GB for $250.

If this card is really $200 it would be an instant fail in my book, so we are okay with going back 5 years with 128bit memory busses and 2 years back to 2GB cards?

Any card over $400 should have 6GB+ memory, any card over $200 should have 4GB+ memory, any card over $120 should have 2GB+

Its basically 2015 in 2 days and we are still stuck with 2GB card and 128bit busses? I mean come on.

 

[SPBHM]

WOW, talk about a garbage card, 128bit bus and only 2GB memory for $200? I mean that is absurd.

I can get an equivalent AMD card with 4GB and 256bit bus. I would consider this 960 only decent at $150, with a TI version with 256bit and 4GB for $250.

If this card is really $200 it would be an instant fail in my book, so we are okay with going back 5 years with 128bit memory busses and 2 years back to 2GB cards?

Any card over $400 should have 6GB+ memory, any card over $200 should have 4GB+ memory, any card over $120 should have 2GB+

Its basically 2015 in 2 days and we are still stuck with 2GB card and 128bit busses? I mean come on.

AMD released the 285 not long ago targeting $250 with only 2GB of ram, their 4GB card is not an $200 card, even if people can find great deals and used around this price.

128bits with very high clocks and their memory bandwidth compression stuff, better caches and whatever could be OK...

 

[SlickR12345]

AMD released the 285 not long ago targeting $250 with only 2GB of ram, their 4GB card is not an $200 card, even if people can find great deals and used around this price.

128bits with very high clocks and their memory bandwidth compression stuff, better caches and whatever could be OK...

What? The AMD 285 is an undercloced 280, but more expensive with some new features, why are you comparing that to this 960?

A good 280 can be found for $200 with 3GB ram and 384bit memory

 

[96Firebird]

I love when people take rumors as truth.

 

[Denithor]

It really sounds like this should be the $150 950 Ti. 960 vanilla should be 192-bit/3GB and 960 Ti 256-bit/4GB.

But that would likely make too much sense...

 

[tviceman]

Honestly, TPU often posts very low quality speculation. The Zauba shipping manifest had 960 as a 4GB 256-bit 993/6008 clocked part:
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-...m-256bit-bus-preliminary-specs-993-mhz-clock/

Usually those shipping manifests are pretty accurate unless memory fails me. Now a 960 with 4GB, 256-bit bus and near 780 performance at $249 would definitely make a lot of people 2nd guess a $350 970.

If it's 256-bit, then I think it will use Kepler/GM107 memory controllers. 64 ROPs on a 10 SMM part would be way overkill. That, and going with the smaller 32-ROPs would save on die space and power consumption.

But anyways, either 192-bit with 48 ROPs (GM204 controllers) or 256-bit with 32 ROPs (Kepler/GM107 controllers). I'd personally rather see 48-ROPs and 3gb of vram for a ~$220 initial MSRP part would make the most sense with 3gb of VRAM.

I still think it will end up between a 770 and 780, but closer to a 770.

 

[SPBHM]

What? The AMD 285 is an undercloced 280, but more expensive with some new features, why are you comparing that to this 960?

A good 280 can be found for $200 with 3GB ram and 384bit memory

what? the 285 is a new GPU (Tonga) and its mission was to replace the 280.
with 256bit and 2GB.

I'm using it because it's probably whats going to remain on the market for a while (and the Tahiti based stuff should be going away soon), and it was a more recent release from AMD at this price/performance range...

 

[Phynaz]

I love when people take rumors as truth.

This.

Techspot throws all kinds of stuff out there hoping one post hits the target.

 

[DooKey]

I love when people take rumors as truth.

You also have to consider which people are taking these rumors as truth and then you'll completely understand.