[ VideoCardz ] NVIDIA launches GeForce GTX 960

[Grooveriding]

The entire 9XX series lineup from nvidia has been a letdown in the performance metric compared to the cards they replaced from the 7XX series. The 960 being a stinker should not be surprising. GM200 based Maxwell cards will be the only ones to do anything to tangibly move performance forward.

The good of Maxwell so far has been power consumption and improved price/perf vs 7XX cards. Which is why the 970 is so popular after the $500 price point nvidia occupied that performance level with 780. Then you have the 980 bringing $700 780ti performance down to $500 and adding 10% performance. Those cards have improved price/perf making them popular.

The 960 does the same, but with much less savings and no more performance. It doesn't succeed nearly as well as where a card like the 970 did. There are already better options and a 660 owner is seeing nothing different than they saw in 760. Bad card. 2GB VRAM is also a major deal breaker for any new gaming card.

 

[RussianSensation]

You may say that but on other forums they aren't so down on the GTX 960.
Hey, even over on neogaf reception is quite positive. It's us who are critical, enthusiasts.

Nvidia's majority fan base doesn't really care where the competition falls. They want a card slower than a GTX 970 for $200. The GTX 960 is that card, even if it's not a good performance sell at $200. Many consumers buy one brand and only one brand.

This card may look bad, but it'll sell well.

Ya, that's the bad part. I really feel bad for AMD's engineers and management when their $250 R9 290 card lays a 45-50% performance smack down on a 960, when 960 runs like crap in VRAM limited games like Shadow of Mordor and so on but R9 290 has double, and it will still outsell the R9 290.

On SlickDeals.net, in the R9 290X @ $242 thread I see this crap:
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=73757332&postcount=42

or

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=73757882&postcount=48

I am hoping whatever % of gamers are out there that value price/performance and competition is enough to keep AMD afloat. Also, maybe some NV users will see how NV is looking at the PC gaming market now and switch sides to make a statement because never in the history of GPUs have I ever seen a case where $50 buys one 40-50% more performance and double the VRAM (R9 290) at the $250 level, and yet that was NOT recommended by reviewers or 95% of the forum.

Most of the reviewers really let down the mainstream crowd imo, instead focusing on the R9 285/760 and completely ignoring the overall market and where 960 sits vs. 970/980 vs. 560Ti vs. 570/580 historically or how the 960 looks if we take a step back at the $200-250 market segment. Also, most professional reviewers completely failed to address the 2GB of VRAM issue.

The 960 does the same, but with much less savings and no more performance.

Only in relation to the 760 though. In Canada, the 960 is a total rip-off. NV had to raise the price by almost 25% due to the USD:CDN FX which means $199 USD = $250 CDN but R9 290 prices are old AMD prices.

R9 290 = $249-310 CDN
GTX960 = $249-270 CDN

960 SLI vs. R9 290

The current market situation is reaching critical tipping point in the GPU industry when NV users are unwilling to pay $50 extra for a 45-50% faster AMD card with double the VRAM and when 2 of NV's mid-range cards at $400 USD are just 4% faster than a $250 AMD card.

If these trends don't reverse, AMD's GPU division is pretty much bankrupt.

 

[Morgoth780]

Ya, that's the bad part. I really feel bad for AMD's engineers and management when their $250 R9 290 card lays a 45-50% performance smack down on a 960, when 960 runs like crap in VRAM limited games like Shadow of Mordor and so on but R9 290 has double, and it will still outsell the R9 290.

On SlickDeals.net, in the R9 290X @ $242 thread I see this crap:
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=73757332&postcount=42

or

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=73757882&postcount=48

I am hoping whatever % of gamers are out there that values price/performance and competition is enough to keep AMD afloat. Also, maybe some NV users will see how NV is looking at the PC gaming market now and switch sides to make a statement because never in the history of GPUs have I ever seen a case where $50 buys one 40-50% more performance and double the VRAM (R9 290) at the $250 level, and yet that was NOT recommended by reviewers or 95% of the forum.

Most of the reviewers really let the mainstream crowd as usual, instead focusing on the R9 285/760 and completely ignoring the overall market and where 960 sits vs. 970/980 vs. 560Ti vs. 570/580 historically or how the 960 looks if we take a step back at the $200-250 market segment. Also, most professional reviewers completely failed to address the 2GB of VRAM issue.



Only in relation to the 760 though. In Canada, the 960 is a total rip-off. NV had to raise the price by almost 25% due to the USD:CDN FX which means $199 USD = $250 CDN but R9 290 prices are old AMD prices.

R9 290 = $249-310 CDN
GTX960 = $249-270 CDN

960 SLI vs. R9 290

Yeah I'm just sitting here watching/reading reviews... the 960 is good? like what?

I don't think the 960 is bad, I think it's pretty decent - for an entry-level card. This thing shouldn't be selling for more than $150 in my opinion, what with AMD having 3GB cards available to $200 or less for quite a while now. Heck, 7950s were available for $180 quite a while ago (1 year or so?) before bitcoin mining drove the price back up.

 

[RussianSensation]

Yeah I'm just sitting here watching/reading reviews... the 960 is good? like what?

Ya, remember when places like IGN and Gamespot and so on used to be when the industry first started. Now, you almost have look elsewhere for AngryJoe or TotalBiscuit, etc. unbiased game reviews. Most of the game journalists are marketing $ puppets, at least at the major firms because the employer dictates how they review the product. Remember when Jeff Gertsmann was fired from GameSpot for a 6.0/10 Kane and Lynch 2 review?

If you read on what's happening, the industry is being consolidated with buyouts. If you look at what the purpose of the parent company is for a site, you can tell a lot about what incentive a reviewer has.

"Purch’s industry-leading combination of high-quality content and integrated commerce experiences makes complex buying decisions easy for more than 100 million consumers and professionals monthly."

How many of the professionals review sites we "trust" like TechReport, TechSpot, TPU, AT, Tom's Hardware, HardOCP, LinusTechTips, Tech Report, Bit-Tech, Sweclockers, Computerbase.de, PCgameshardware, Hexus, are still providing us with unbiased reviews that truly help us to make a good buying decision?

A lot of the time, it's better to just look at the data, and make your own decision instead of trusting the authors to do a proper job.

At least some of the smaller sites like Hexus and TechSpot did call GTX960 overpriced.

"As we had pointed out earlier, the GTX 970 is just 18% slower than the GTX 980 but costs 40% less, making it an incredible bargain for high-end games. The GTX 960 is also 40% cheaper than the GTX 970 but it's 30% slower. For the GTX 960 to really impress and bring that next-gen sweet spot it should have been at least 10% faster than it is." ~ TechSpot

Then I read this pure garbage on Tom's - one of the biggest, most popular tech sites:

"The Radeon R9 285 sells on Newegg between $210 and $260, and the GeForce GTX 960’s MSRP of $200 is notably less. When you consider the fact that you can get a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 960 for $210, there's even less reason to look elsewhere." ~ Tom's Hardware

So Tom's took the time to look at Newegg for videocard prices, noticed R9 285 for $210-260, mentioned nothing about HD7950 for $140, R9 280 for $150-170, and nothing about $240-260 R9 290s. You can tell how truly independent some of these so called "professional" review sites are.

Sites like TechSpot may be small, but they are at least honest, and have not been corrupted by PR and marketing, for now.

 

[cmdrdredd]

They are looking at cards that are in the same performance segment, not price segment.

 

[Ranulf]

I got my 7870 in Dec. 2013 for $150 on a newegg sale. I could see these going for $175-200 but its just too much at $200+ for what you're getting and the ram is probably the biggest factor.

I'm more curious at this point why they didn't release it back in the fall. I would have been far more tempted then before the sales hit on the AMD cards as an upgrade to my 560ti. That Gigabyte G1 960 is quite impressive, except for the ram and price.

 

[SolMiester]

[Redacted]


You can have two days off for that unnecessary comment.

-Rvenger

 

[RussianSensation]

They are looking at cards that are in the same performance segment, not price segment.

Since when do professional reviews compare cards like that? That's a very narrow sighted way to look at the GPU market. According to this idea then no one should be comparing a $300 R9 290X with a $550 GTX980.

A professional reviewer who noted that R9 285 sells for $210-260 should have also looked for ANY NV or AMD alternatives that sell close to $210. $50 more buys a Sapphire Tri-X R9 290 with double the VRAM and 45-50% more performance. Tom's completely missed that despite reviewing such card and looking at Newegg for prices. If that's not bias/marketing $, that's total ignorance. In either case, complete lack of professionalism and inability to give good advice to PC gamers.

They could have said something like if you have a very strict budget, the 960 at $199 offers some good aspects such as
[list them], but in keeping in mind that VRAM and GPU demands are likely to increase in the next 2 years with newer waves of PS4 console ports, and more advanced PC games like Dying Light, Evolve and The Witcher 3, we recommend that if you can, spend the extra $50-60 for 45%+ more performance on an after-market cool and quiet R9 290, or wait until GTX960 settles at $150-160 with rebates.

Was anything of the sort mentioned in Tom's review? No, because sites like Tom's could care less about giving good advice.

Poor old AMD eh, perhap they should consider a new slogan for their GPUs, 2x the bang for buck...

Why stop? R9 390X with 50% more performance over 980 for $275. 50% faster for half the price! Not that NV-only buyers like you would buy one anyway. I bet you wouldn't buy a 390X for $100. Don't complain later when NV slows down GPU advancements and keeps prices high until they discontinue their product line (aka Apple style) should AMD go bankrupt.

About 2.5 years ago or so I said NV users won't consider switching until AMD cards are 50% faster for half the price. Well we got the 1st part almost there.

I wonder what would happen to R9 300 sales if someone put an Apple logo on them. It's becoming obvious the majority of PC gamers just flat out hate all AMD products, regardless of performance and features.

That Gigabyte G1 960 is quite impressive, except for the ram and price.

But those 2 things make or break a videocard for budget gamers where every % of performance matters since they have limited funds. If 960 sells well though it'll be 100% proof that the market is completely brainwashed by NV. (No trying to hate on NV but 285 2GB was just as crap and almost everyone universally ripped it online, minus the positive aspects of it serving as a test-bed for GCN 2.0 technologies/architectural improvements). Yet, 960 is getting defended by the very same people who looked down upon the 285.

 

[Vesku]

I did notice something kind of weird with Techreport's review. They did not use any games that they used in their R9 285 nor in their GTX 970 reviews. Not sure why they didn't keep Crysis 3 or BattleField 4 for their 960 review but it's pretty odd to use a completely new list with no overlap.

 

[preslove]

I'm not sure what all the hate is all about the MSRP. Do guys turn into ragemonkeys when you see $80 slacks in dillards? This MSRP is just the same, because this card will soon enough be showing up at $170, just like those slacks are gonna sell for $40 after a couple weeks.

This looks like a good card to turn a nice HTPC with a good i3 and no video card into a meh budget gaming rig. My first HTPC was a Ivy Bridge celeron/board combo that came with a free ddr 3 1600 8gig chip ($90 bucks for the board, processor and ram). I bought a crappy cooler master mini itx case (130, I think). The celeron had trouble with 1080p video and it couldn't even play new isometric rpgs, and after a year the coolermaster was full of dust (no dust screens).

So, I spent $300 on a good corsair MiniITX case (washable dust screens all over ), a haswell board and i3-4150. I cannibalized the ram, powersupply, dvd writer, and windows license (free windows 7 ultimate from work, btw .

I'm having fun playing isometric rps and indie titles like bastion and towerfall, but would like to play modern console titles and maybe elite dangerous. I don't care about raw performance, I just want something that will play console titles better than consoles and not be too big for the case, be too loud, or take too much power on idle. My HTPC is on whenever I'm home, so power is kind of important.

All the 750 ti hate had me looking at the R9 270. Now, I'm looking at the 960, since it should be around the current <$200 R9 270 price in not much time. I'm not in all that much of a hurry, so I might wait for whatever new low power meh card comes out from AMD.

Anybody heard any rumors of the R9 270's replacement?

 

[Rezist]

I see a card like this designed to get people to jump to the 970. Most people were expecting a 192b/3GB card somewhere between 770 and 780 performance for low to mid 200's.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Yeah I'm just sitting here watching/reading reviews... the 960 is good? like what?

I don't think the 960 is bad, I think it's pretty decent - for an entry-level card. This thing shouldn't be selling for more than $150 in my opinion, what with AMD having 3GB cards available to $200 or less for quite a while now. Heck, 7950s were available for $180 quite a while ago (1 year or so?) before bitcoin mining drove the price back up.

I have to say the 7950 looks a little overpriced right now honestly

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA67S2FP2448

 

[blake0812]

I have to say the 7950 looks a little overpriced right now honestly

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA67S2FP2448

That's hilarious

 

[Vesku]

Sold and Shipped by: <Not Newegg>

Should make a new post for humor, lest we be flooded with silly Amazon marketplace pricing images.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Around $200 at launch ($200-220 at newegg), 100 watts less than the Radeon 285, silent for 2D and very quiet for gaming.

Sure, if you don't care about power draw, heat or noise then a $250-300 AMD card is going to offer a better frames-per-dollar value. It depends on your budget and priorities.

Like the 750ti it sounds like a good living room card and a good mini-ITX card. Also good for an office / work PC that you want to use for gaming now and then but want to run quiet most of the time.

It's a side-grade from my 680 GTX for performance, but it's also only 40% of the cost and a massive improvement in efficiency. That's progress.

I have no reason to buy one now, but if I was setting up a shoebox tiny PC or a living room HTPC with gaming potential then I might.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Not sure why they didn't keep Crysis 3 or BattleField 4 for their 960 review but it's pretty odd to use a completely new list with no overlap.

Crysis 3 is one of the few games that performs rather "poorly" on 960. Of course, it may be not that reason. BF4 performs all right, though. 290 looks to be king here in this TPU benchmark. 980 is MIA. Funny.

FC4 looks to be well Maxwell optimized. Beating 770 in style, not bad. But still, all things considered, this card represents a poor choice for modern 2015-2017 gaming. The chance that you might lack VRAM in some future games is very real.

GTX 970 or R9 290 would be my choice instead. Much more balanced GPUs.

Of course, this graph doesn't take into consideration special offers, mail-in rebates and human errors. But even without, AMD cards have a healthy lead. So, what's left? Power efficiency and brand name. Make your pick

 

[atticus14]

I'm more curious at this point why they didn't release it back in the fall. I would have been far more tempted then before the sales hit on the AMD cards as an upgrade to my 560ti. That Gigabyte G1 960 is quite impressive, except for the ram and price.

Still the same reason, it would have hurt 970 sales. For the people who get caught in the hype as long as it's new and green it could have wedged into their $350 sales, so for those who got the hype fever they had to spend 350 instead of satisfying themselves with a $200 purchase.

 

[Morgoth780]

Ya, remember when places like IGN and Gamespot and so on used to be when the industry first started. Now, you almost have look elsewhere for AngryJoe or TotalBiscuit, etc. unbiased game reviews. Most of the game journalists are marketing $ puppets, at least at the major firms because the employer dictates how they review the product. Remember when Jeff Gertsmann was fired from GameSpot for a 6.0/10 Kane and Lynch 2 review?

If you read on what's happening, the industry is being consolidated with buyouts. If you look at what the purpose of the parent company is for a site, you can tell a lot about what incentive a reviewer has.

"Purch’s industry-leading combination of high-quality content and integrated commerce experiences makes complex buying decisions easy for more than 100 million consumers and professionals monthly."

How many of the professionals review sites we "trust" like TechReport, TechSpot, TPU, AT, Tom's Hardware, HardOCP, LinusTechTips, Tech Report, Bit-Tech, Sweclockers, Computerbase.de, PCgameshardware, Hexus, are still providing us with unbiased reviews that truly help us to make a good buying decision?

A lot of the time, it's better to just look at the data, and make your own decision instead of trusting the authors to do a proper job.

At least some of the smaller sites like Hexus and TechSpot did call GTX960 overpriced.

"As we had pointed out earlier, the GTX 970 is just 18% slower than the GTX 980 but costs 40% less, making it an incredible bargain for high-end games. The GTX 960 is also 40% cheaper than the GTX 970 but it's 30% slower. For the GTX 960 to really impress and bring that next-gen sweet spot it should have been at least 10% faster than it is." ~ TechSpot

Then I read this pure garbage on Tom's - one of the biggest, most popular tech sites:

"The Radeon R9 285 sells on Newegg between $210 and $260, and the GeForce GTX 960’s MSRP of $200 is notably less. When you consider the fact that you can get a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 960 for $210, there's even less reason to look elsewhere." ~ Tom's Hardware

So Tom's took the time to look at Newegg for videocard prices, noticed R9 285 for $210-260, mentioned nothing about HD7950 for $140, R9 280 for $150-170, and nothing about $240-260 R9 290s. You can tell how truly independent some of these so called "professional" review sites are.

Sites like TechSpot may be small, but they are at least honest, and have not been corrupted by PR and marketing, for now.

Toms was the site that really first introduced me to computer hardware four years ago. I still read it, but with a huge grain of salt - that specific passage you picked out especially stood out to me as a sign of corporate shilling. I do try to look at smaller reviewers - I'm a fan of teksyndicate, and I find that their reviews are generally pretty good. Although, they once did a video on i5 vs i7 vs FX 8350 performance and their numbers were in direct opposition to what most other sites had. They obviously aren't perfect, but I doubt that was AMD paying them off.

Anyway, that's all a bit off topic.

Back OT:

I think the $200 price point is in anticipation of the R9 300 series launch. I'm betting a 300 series card will deliver better performance than a 980 for ~$400-450. Obviously, nvidia will have to drop prices to stay relevant, which I'm sure they're expecting - They must be making a huge profit off of the $550 980. Anyway, I'm expecting the 970 to drop maybe $50 to a maximum of $100, while the 980 comes down to $400 or so. Meanwhile, the 960 drops to ~$125-150, and a 960 Ti is launched to help with the gap between 960 and 970 with that pricing.

But then, that might seriously annoy people who bought the 960 for $200. Who knows.

 

[RussianSensation]

All the 750 ti hate had me looking at the R9 270. Now, I'm looking at the 960, since it should be around the current <$200 R9 270 price in not much time. I'm not in all that much of a hurry, so I might wait for whatever new low power meh card comes out from AMD.

R9 270 is not around $200. You can find one for $130, and frankly that card has been down to $100-110. If you are not in a hurry, just keep waiting for a 960Ti at $249 or for better value for either when AMD lowers prices on R9 280/280X/290 further or releases R9 370/370X cards by Q2 2015.

I have to say the 7950 looks a little overpriced right now honestly

:thumbsup: Look at that demand for 3-year-old AMD cards!

100 watts less than the Radeon 285, silent for 2D and very quiet for gaming.

Not seeing what you are seeing.

280/280X power usage vs. 960

67W in Bioshock, 56W/57W in Metro, 67W/69W in TR.
http://www.techspot.com/review/946-nvidia-geforce-gtx-960/page7.html

There are plenty of cool & quiet R9 280X cards like MSI Gaming or HIS IceQ
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_r9_280x_iceq_x2_turbo_review,10.html

And plenty of cool & quiet R9 290, I mean whisper quiet at load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYxmW4JiJs8

But then, that might seriously annoy people who bought the 960 for $200. Who knows.

TekSyndicate is fun to watch sometimes. I like their discussions outside of CPU/GPUs like explaining how DAC/AMP helps PC sound quality over sound cards or focusing on price/performance a lot and they love beer

I think unbiased reviewers should be able to take a step-back and look at the overall market. Just like when they recommend to spend a bit more and not get a $100 card and instead spend $30-50 more for a $130-150 card to get exponentially more performance. There is nothing wrong with calling the entire $200 market segment today poor value, because it is, but I guess the editor would get in trouble for calling the entire market segment overpriced since marketing $ and review samples would stop coming. There are still ways around wording this same idea.

Who many times have you seen/read a car review where the professional publications actually states, "in this case we'd recommend you step up to the more powerful and smoother XYZ-sized engine". Sometimes, cheaper products are really much worse than the small savings in price to warrant the small savings. 285/960 2GB at $200 is one of those times.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Ya, remember when places like IGN and Gamespot and so on used to be when the industry first started. Now, you almost have look elsewhere for AngryJoe or TotalBiscuit, etc. unbiased game reviews. Most of the game journalists are marketing $ puppets, at least at the major firms because the employer dictates how they review the product. Remember when Jeff Gertsmann was fired from GameSpot for a 6.0/10 Kane and Lynch 2 review?

If you read on what's happening, the industry is being consolidated with buyouts. If you look at what the purpose of the parent company is for a site, you can tell a lot about what incentive a reviewer has.

"Purch’s industry-leading combination of high-quality content and integrated commerce experiences makes complex buying decisions easy for more than 100 million consumers and professionals monthly."

How many of the professionals review sites we "trust" like TechReport, TechSpot, TPU, AT, Tom's Hardware, HardOCP, LinusTechTips, Tech Report, Bit-Tech, Sweclockers, Computerbase.de, PCgameshardware, Hexus, are still providing us with unbiased reviews that truly help us to make a good buying decision?

A lot of the time, it's better to just look at the data, and make your own decision instead of trusting the authors to do a proper job.

At least some of the smaller sites like Hexus and TechSpot did call GTX960 overpriced.

"As we had pointed out earlier, the GTX 970 is just 18% slower than the GTX 980 but costs 40% less, making it an incredible bargain for high-end games. The GTX 960 is also 40% cheaper than the GTX 970 but it's 30% slower. For the GTX 960 to really impress and bring that next-gen sweet spot it should have been at least 10% faster than it is." ~ TechSpot

Then I read this pure garbage on Tom's - one of the biggest, most popular tech sites:

"The Radeon R9 285 sells on Newegg between $210 and $260, and the GeForce GTX 960’s MSRP of $200 is notably less. When you consider the fact that you can get a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 960 for $210, there's even less reason to look elsewhere." ~ Tom's Hardware

So Tom's took the time to look at Newegg for videocard prices, noticed R9 285 for $210-260, mentioned nothing about HD7950 for $140, R9 280 for $150-170, and nothing about $240-260 R9 290s. You can tell how truly independent some of these so called "professional" review sites are.

Sites like TechSpot may be small, but they are at least honest, and have not been corrupted by PR and marketing, for now.

Tom's Hardware is such a joke now. I'm not sure I trust Anandtech so much either. For instance, in their GPU bench they use what was at the time the best 970 out the box, the EVGA FTW, while using a reference 290. The only site I really like for reviews is Eurogamer since DigitalFoundry does those great FCAT reviews. They seemed like the first to tell the truth about the Pentium G3258 back when everyone else was cherry-picking CPU light games and saying it was like an i7. But I love Digital Foundry because you can see the actual benchmark, the actual frame times, and so on.

 

[Abwx]

I did notice something kind of weird with Techreport's review. They did not use any games that they used in their R9 285 nor in their GTX 970 reviews. Not sure why they didn't keep Crysis 3 or BattleField 4 for their 960 review but it's pretty odd to use a completely new list with no overlap.

You understand that Techreport credibility is zero when they state things like this :

We sometimes use a tool called FCAT to capture exactly when each frame was delivered to the display, but that's usually not necessary in order to get good data with single-GPU setups.

Of course, it s usefull only when bashing AMD, probability is that Nvidia refused to see their own viral marketing tools used with their new line...


http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/3

You can read about their arranged protocol...

 

[Silverforce11]

The current market situation is reaching critical tipping point in the GPU industry when NV users are unwilling to pay $50 extra for a 45-50% faster AMD card with double the VRAM and when 2 of NV's mid-range cards at $400 USD are just 4% faster than a $250 AMD card.

If these trends don't reverse, AMD's GPU division is pretty much bankrupt.

One thing AMD has never done consistently or by large margins is hold the performance crown. They can't shake the "cheap/value" status when they are 2nd best so often. Because they are stuck with that perception of cheap/value hardware, lots of folks who aren't tech savy (and some who are!) happily pay extra for NV stuff.

Also, 960 threads should be merged, its annoying as hell reading multiple threads on the same topic!!

Edit: Reading Computerbase.de's review, its spot on, the 960 is fine at ~$200 the only problem is the 2gb vram, which they did noted. So if users want extra vram, they will folk out more for the 970 or AMD's R280X or R290. Otherwise, its price where it needs to be, it carries a NV tax and because its power efficient, it doesn't have to be as "price efficient". Fair enough.

 

[Vesku]

You understand that Techreport credibility is zero when they state things like this :



Of course, it s usefull only when bashing AMD, probability is that Nvidia refused to see their own viral marketing tools used with their new line...


http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/3

You can read about their arranged protocol...

Missed that considering they left the FCAT paragraph still in at the bottom. They also don't seem to indicate if they used FCAT 0 times or for 1 game or what. Went back to the 970+980 review and same thing. Their R9 285 lists FCAT with no FRAPs notice. So yeah, yet another oddity. Guru3D does some in depth FCAT analysis so perhaps this is a time saving choice by TechReport?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Tom's Hardware is such a joke now. I'm not sure I trust Anandtech so much either. For instance, in their GPU bench they use what was at the time the best 970 out the box, the EVGA FTW, while using a reference 290. The only site I really like for reviews is Eurogamer since DigitalFoundry does those great FCAT reviews. They seemed like the first to tell the truth about the Pentium G3258 back when everyone else was cherry-picking CPU light games and saying it was like an i7. But I love Digital Foundry because you can see the actual benchmark, the actual frame times, and so on.

Maybe that's because EVGA stepped up and shipped their top card for the review? I don't think they actually buy the hardware they review for the most part.

 

[RussianSensation]

Of course, it s usefull only when bashing AMD, probability is that Nvidia refused to see their own viral marketing tools used with their new line...

http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/3

You can read about their arranged protocol...

There is 0 mention of 960's poor frame times in the conclusion at TechReport but yet a smaller site like TechSpot is all over it with graphs. Notice how amazing the frame times are for R9 280X / 7970Ghz CF but how many years did TechReport bash cross-fire for and even after it was fixed, did they do follow-up articles to talk about just how much CF has improved in the last 12-15 months? Look at the frame times of 280X CF vs. 980....TechReport -- silence.

TechReport also excluded BF4, where 960 and 960 SLI perform poorly against R9 280X and R9 280X CF. :sneaky:

http://www.techspot.com/review/948-geforce-gtx-960-sli-performance/

TechReport's conclusion: "What's not to like?"

^ I guess FCAT doesn't matter anymore now that 960 does so much worse than a 280X in frame times.

One thing AMD has never done consistently or by large margins is hold the performance crown. They can't shake the "cheap/value" status when they are 2nd best so often. Because they are stuck with that perception of cheap/value hardware, lots of folks who aren't tech savy (and some who are!) happily pay extra for NV stuff.

I never understood that logic. The 2015 Corvette Z06 is an amazing performance machine for the $, but does that make a Chevy Cruze or Malibu good products/cars?

Alternatively, the 2016 Acura NSX is a more advanced and will be a better sports car than anything BMW makes but does mean Acura makes better cars than BMW?

Are consumers really that blind that they compare 1 brand to another and assume everything in that brand is automatically GREAT because the top product is great?