[ VideoCardz ] NVIDIA launches GeForce GTX 960

[flexy]

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Should NV users go for the 960 or skip ahead to the 970?
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What a question! That 960 is basically not better than my overclocked 660 Ti which is a card from two gens before. Except that I can get another 660 TI for like $40 or $50 if I just look around. I wouldn't know one single reason why to get a 960, but 1000 reasons why to get a 970.

 

[cmdrdredd]

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?

People see the top performing brand and they want it. That's how it works.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

People see the top performing brand and they want it. That's how it works.

I agree that having the performance crown is important. People will say Oh man I want this GTX 980, but hey, this 960 is only x-percent slower for $200.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I agree that having the performance crown is important. People will say Oh man I want this GTX 980, but hey, this 960 is only x-percent slower for $200.

It would work similarly for AMD too in that regard. If they had the fastest card people would likely say "Hey AMD makes the fastest cards, my next one should be AMD"

 

[Silverforce11]

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.

Damn, TR did a complete 180 on smoothness and latency... what a trashy site.

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?

For tech? Yes.

I know for a fact most buyers have no clue and just go for whatever they are told is the best, either from marketing or from friends who are also as clueless.

I swear one time I had customer who ordered Titan SLI for a gaming build (on a 1080p setup!), when I told him he could save a lot of $ going with 780ti SLI or even better savings by going with R290X CF, he said "I heard Titan was good.. it's the most expensive, it must be good. I want the best, cost is not an issue."... I literally face-palmed.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Damn, TR did a complete 180 on smoothness and latency... what a trashy site.



For tech? Yes.

I know for a fact most buyers have no clue and just go for whatever they are told is the best, either from marketing or from friends who are also as clueless.

I swear one time I had customer who ordered Titan SLI for a gaming build (on a 1080p setup!), when I told him he could save a lot of $ going with 780ti SLI or even better savings by going with R290X CF, he said "I heard Titan was good.. it's the most expensive, it must be good. I want the best, cost is not an issue."... I literally face-palmed.

Haha. You didn't try to sell him a 4k monitor then?

 

[SPBHM]

the price does seem a little high compared to some older Radeons, but this card is probably going to sell well, for most games it's good for 1080p high, it's a clear upgrade for older cards owners like GTX 560, it's a new "60" card and the price is clearly lower than the launch price of the previous one.

it also shows once again how disappointing the 285 is, even if the 280 is a solid option against this cad, there is an undeniable efficiency gap, with over 50W wasted, requirements for bigger cooler and PCB, and probably reduced compatibility with DX12, but those 3GB are a very good argument; it's just that, I don't expect Tahiti to remain available for long?

I like the more compact cards like this

I just don't see a 280 or even 285x being suitable for this kind of inexpensive and compact designs

 

[Leyawiin]

the price does seem a little high compared to some older Radeons, but this card is probably going to sell well, for most games it's good for 1080p high, it's a clear upgrade for older cards owners like GTX 560, it's a new "60" card and the price is clearly lower than the launch price of the previous one.

it also shows once again how disappointing the 285 is, even if the 280 is a solid option against this cad, there is an undeniable efficiency gap, with over 50W wasted, requirements for bigger cooler and PCB, and probably reduced compatibility with DX12, but those 3GB are a very good argument; it's just that, I don't expect Tahiti to remain available for long?

I like the more compact cards like this

I just don't see a 280 or even 285x being suitable for this kind of inexpensive and compact designs

That HSF is noisy as hell (well, at least on the GTX 970 - might working less hard here).

 

[SPBHM]

That HSF is noisy as hell (well, at least on the GTX 970 - might working less hard here).

well, there are probably other cooler options with the same PCB size, and yes, GTX 970 is using 50W more power, should be less work for the cooler

 

[crisium]

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.

That's why it is so infuriating. I have been avoiding Neogaf for a while, because they are Nvidia zealots. They recommended so many 760s and 770s in the day, even in the face of cheaper and faster 280/280x. 970 is gods gift to gaming for them, and people actually think 970 SLI is better than 290 Crossfire - hell, people buy 980 SLI for over a grand and don't you dare mention that they get more stuttering than 290x Crossfire despite paying many hundreds more! They feel Nvidia is a superior brand, and when I try to point out otherwise, they say they will gladly pay more money for worse performance because "power consumption" and "drivers". I tried to argue that the recent Kepler performance drop in 2014 games should garner more attention, but I was told that Kepler is old, who cares. They must be eating up the 960 like the happy zealots they are to have an offering from their gods. Damn neogaf. Might as well be sponsored by green team.
/rant on neogaf

I wish it were called the 950Ti and priced at $179 - I'd actually have no more complaints. A name is a name, but the problem is the uninformed see the 960 as simply 1 step down from the 970. It is not. The uniformed see it as the next best choice for cheaper Nvidia performance. Which it technically is, but only because Maxwell left a grand canyon sized 60% gap between 960 and 970... bleh.

 

[Enigmoid]

That's why it is so infuriating. I have been avoiding Neogaf for a while, because they are Nvidia zealots. They recommended so many 760s and 770s in the day, even in the face of cheaper and faster 280/280x. 970 is gods gift to gaming for them, and people actually think 970 SLI is better than 290 Crossfire - hell, people buy 980 SLI for over a grand and don't you dare mention that they get more stuttering than 290x Crossfire despite paying many hundreds more! They feel Nvidia is a superior brand, and when I try to point out otherwise, they say they will gladly pay more money for worse performance because "power consumption" and "drivers". I tried to argue that the recent Kepler performance drop in 2014 games should garner more attention, but I was told that Kepler is old, who cares. They must be eating up the 960 like the happy zealots they are to have an offering from their gods. Damn neogaf. Might as well be sponsored by green team.
/rant on neogaf

With more mature Maxwell drivers the two are relatively similar in terms of 'smoothness'. AMD may have a small edge but it really depends on whether that is noticeable (depending on the person and game). Maxwell certainty is better than Kepler. Not to mention that 970/980 SLI use about 300W less power than 290/290X CF.

446W vs. 746W and the heat and noise involved means Nvidia can and will charge a premium.

The 960 is meh. Its not terrible and its not great. Compared to the 760 at its previous price it moves perf/$ foreward. It is underequipped with 2 GB Vram (you will have to play around with settings).

Its a new chip on the same process competing with older established chips. The R&D and tapeout costs must be recouped. Furthermore, being a lower end chip margins are not so great and the price is lower. Therefore, it is much harder to (and AMD or Nvidia are less willing to) price it at a much lower price as margins will take a hit (and if that's happening why bother with the card in the first place).

Its not great. It should have been a 950 Ti @ $175.

 

[redzo]

Unless they are severely obsessed with power consumption, I will recommend a 280x against this anytime, to everyone.

 

[iiiankiii]

Unless they are severely obsessed with power consumption, I will recommend a 280x against this anytime, to everyone.

Pssst.

In order of importances:
Power consumption > performance/watt > " features" > performance > price > frametimes
New goal post; new standards. Get with the program.

 

[redzo]

I don't get it. Is this irony? 960 OC versions are priced almost the same as a stock r9 280x, which is a little faster overall than a 960 OC. If you are comfortable with the 280x being power hungry, I don't see any good reason why not choosing it. Are 280x's "features" and frametimes realy that bad?

 

[raghu78]

I don't get it. Is this irony? 960 OC versions are priced almost the same as a stock r9 280x, which is a little faster overall than a 960 OC. If you are comfortable with the 280x being power hungry, I don't see any good reason why not choosing it. Are 280x's "features" and frametimes realy that bad?

No. Unless you are a gamer who wants a card to fit a SFF box or running a 300 - 350w PSU the GTX 960 is not really appealing. R9 280X is 15 - 20% faster than GTX 960. Once overclocked the gap widens with the R9 280X scaling much better.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/29.html
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/19925-geforce-gtx-960-fran-asus-gigabyte-och-msi/17#pagehead

But the more important fact is even for 1080p gaming, 3GB is becoming a minimum with games like Shadow of Mordor, AC Unity running very slow on 2GB cards with max quality textures.

Shadow of Mordor

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/79726-asus-strix-gtx-960-directcu-ii/?page=8
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/22.html
http://adrenaline.uol.com.br/2015/01/22/31687/msi-geforce-gtx-960-gaming-2g

Assassins Creed Unity

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/8.html
http://www.purepc.pl/karty_graficzn...est_kart_graficznych_za_1000_zlotych?page=0,7

Frankly anybody who knows a bit about the latest trend in PC games will stay away from a 2GB card for 1080p gaming. :thumbsup:

 

[skipsneeky2]

I've had to learn to turn settings down on my 2gb 770 and its a obviously better card over the 960,so just do it on the 960 as well.

When the 4gb cards come out and they will trust me,test with one of those and i would most likely guarantee performance is going to be so lackluster with settings in the newest of games that push pass 2gb,you mind as well stick to a 2gb version.

 

[Silverforce11]

Textures don't actually impact GPUs as much as MSAA or HDAO or Soft Shadows etc. But Texture quality is the major factor in overall IQ for games.

A R280X can run WD at 1080p with Ultra textures with good fps but 2gb cards can't. With extra vram on mid-range cards, you have a choice, you can give up MSAA/AO/SS and run with Ultra Textures for better IQ.. without the required vram, you have no choice.

 

[raghu78]

Textures don't actually impact GPUs as much as MSAA or HDAO or Soft Shadows etc. But Texture quality is the major factor in overall IQ for games.

A R280X can run WD at 1080p with Ultra textures with good fps but 2gb cards can't. With extra vram on mid-range cards, you have a choice, you can give up MSAA/AO/SS and run with Ultra Textures for better IQ.. without the required vram, you have no choice.

Its really disappointing to see 2GB cards at USD 200 from both GPU vendors. AMD needs to get really aggressive in their pursuit to win back GPU market share. I hope AMD makes serious perf improvments at every price point from USD 100 - USD 650 in the GPU stack with the R9 3xx series and push for significantly better perf than existing products. Nvidia is happy milking record margins with products such as GTX 960. The GTX 970 is the only Maxwell product which has been really exciting from a perf/$ point of view.

 

[exar333]

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.



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?

Actually, yes. Chevy/GM is not the best example, but you actually do see tech from those halo cars (like the Corvette ZR1) trickle down to the other cars, such as magnetic ride control. Other more premium brands do this quicker...like MB. The constantly migrate tech from the top-tier brands down to their more affordable lines, almost like clockwork.

Its something that we see in consumer tech as well, all the time. TVs, receivers, etc.

It is very common, and is a way to get consumers excited for what is coming out for more affordable lines in the future.

GPUs are different though, because few techs are reserved for the halo lines. You could argue that extra VRAM (6GB) was available for Titan, but it could SLI just like any other middle-tier cards, etc. Differentiating the halo is important though...otherwise it makes it tough to justify a large price difference...

 

[wand3r3r]

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.



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?

RS good catch (minus the car analogy, in my opinion).

It's sad to see the double standards being used by many and particularly to the extreme by some reviewers. Where are all of the users who were so concerned about the new (frametime) methodology now? They have all conveniently moved on to p/w, it certainly makes me question their motives.

It would be nice to get purely factual reviews instead of basically parroting the reviewers guides (even one sided at that).

 

[RussianSensation]

Actually, yes. Chevy/GM is not the best example, but you actually do see tech from those halo cars (like the Corvette ZR1) trickle down to the other cars, such as magnetic ride control. Other more premium brands do this quicker...like MB. T.

I never said if the top tier tech from ZR1 doesn't trickle down in 15-20 years to lower level cars. My point is while ZR1 is a bargain supercar that's trading blows with cars costing 2-5x more, Chevy Cruze and Malibu are junk in their respective classes, easily trumped by cars like Mazda 3/Ford Focus and Honda Accord/Mazda 6. Just because a ZR1 or Nissan GTR destroys an M4, doesn't mean that a Nissan Altima or a Chevrolet Malibu is better than a 3 or 5 series BMW. The whole point of the post is to recognize that you can have halo products which are amazing, but the rest of the products in your line-up can be very mediocre. Similar to how X800XT PE > 6800 U but 6800GT > X850Pro. You cannot just assume that because the top product is the best, the rest of the line-up is also better at each price segment.

--
Linus winning as usual:

"For an extra $40 an R9 290 stumps all over the GTX960."
"If going dual cards, it's better to buy a single GTX970 over dual 960s"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVYoiibb2ZU

The so called "professional" review sites like TPU and TechReport couldn't even come up with a 'revolutionary' conclusion like that. Pure unbiased reporting and winning from Linus!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

They have all conveniently moved on to p/w, it certainly makes me question their motives. It would be nice to get purely factual reviews instead of basically parroting the reviewers guides (even one sided at that).

It's not just frame times though. Clearly in TechReport's and TPU's own charts, you can see the awful value of a GTX960.

1) How can a professional reviewer promote the excellent price/performance of a 970 vs. 290/290X at launch but ignore the excellent price/performance of an after-market R9 290 in a 960 review? Double standard!

2) How can a professional reviewer talk for 2-3 years about frame times being critcial, then have a limited test suite of games and doesn't highlight 960's poor frame times captured by other sites?

3) How can a professional reviewer go on to talk about recommending a 2GB of VRAM card after seeing what happened to the 8800GT 256MB, 8800 GTS 320MB, X1950XT 256MB and having data right there in the open for games like AC Unity, Shadow of Mordor and Wolfenstein NWO using > 2GB of VRAM? 2GB of VRAM limit being reached already at 1080P is a fact, no longer an opinion.

4) How can a professional reviewer make generalized statements that all Brand X's cards run hot and loud when real world data shows that R9 290 after-market versions run cool and quiet? This is especially glaring when you are using after-market 960s in the review! How more ignorant can you possibly be?

5) How can the professional reviewer ignore that one of the primary reasons we PC gamers prefer PCs over consoles is for the added IQ and FPS, not just the controls or cheaper and wider variety of games? Guess what then, higher performance and higher IQ are a direct function of price/performance and absolute performance. Yet, the same reviewer which is reviewing PC hardware, not console hardware, is telling us we should care about saving power over performance for PC gaming when $40-60 nets 45%+ performance increase. How anti-PC gaming can you be? Why isn't he telling us to sell our high-end PC rigs and get a PS4! Might as well because you know I'd save 400W of power and still get 1080P 30 fps gaming! That's winning, right?

We all know the minute a 250-275W GM200 comes out, no one is going to care about its high power usage.

Even if these professional reviewers aren't biased, they aren't presented the conclusion in an objective manner to the readers. If you look at sites like TPU and especially TechReport and browse their forums, they are basically infested with NV fanboys. Now that perf/watt is hailed as THE most important metric in the universe, the forum members of those sites just grab on to that to justify buying NV. If NV loses perf/watt, and price/perf but beats AMD in VRAM and perf/mm2 some other generation, goal posts will be shifted to start talking about VRAM limitats for future games and perf/mm2.

You know why I like price/performance and absolute performance so much? Because it directly influences FPS and IQ in games. It's not some subjective metric like perf/watt. If I buy a 150W card that gives me 60 fps in Crysis 3 or a 250W card that gives me 60 fps in Crysis 3, my gaming experience hasn't changed. Price/performance tells me that the amount of money I spent is giving me an optimal balance of IQ and performance, while absolute performance directly influences my gaming experience by elevating it. In both cases, I know for a fact that I get a better gaming experience. Those factors are NOT subjective. Perf/watt and power usage ARE subjective. It's like telling someone who wants a sports car that gets 8 mpg that they should get a BMW 3 series diesel instead because it's more power efficient on a per mile basis on a track.

The most important aspect of perf/watt if that it helps us gauge the limits of performance in power constrained scenarios on the desktop and laptop, but the power consumption differences themselves between 2 GPUs tell me absolutely nothing about my PC gaming experience (IQ or performance).