Review: Nvidia's GTX 960 is a Good, Not Great 1080p GPU - GameTech

The GTX 960 boasts superb power-efficiency, and MSI's version runs near silent, but thanks to some stingy memory specs it's not quite a home run for team green.

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[AllieRX]

For someone like me who doesn't have an expensive gaming PC, this card is perfect for $200! Although my PC is 2 years old, it's graphics card (GTX 560) is from 2011. Going from that to the 960 is a *huge* improvement!

[Lluminal]

For my mid-range HTPC, this would be perfect. All I want is a card that can deliver 1080p 60fps, easy on the wattage and runs on high settings without the need to overclock. And a decent price to boot.
Haven't upgraded my rig in years (AMD Radeon HD 6770, yeah), nor was there a need. Things just ran and looked fine running 720p 60fps. I'm not what you would call a hardcore gamer.
Spending about $200.00 for an upgrade is about time. Considering I haven't needed to upgrade my rig since 2011.

[T]

I feel like Nvidia are sitting on some powerful chips we haven't seen yet. They are driving on cruise control until AMD release some competitive GPU's. Nvidia are almost competing with it's own products thus why they need to nerf cards like the GTX 970.

[aljowen]

Super good review. Not gonna lie, i dint expect it to be this good from a channel that hasn't done all that much PC stuff in the past. I went from a 560ti to a 970, the difference is huge in games. But a small tip for anyone working with software such as blender is to keep your old card in the system too. You cannot use sli but Blender does not care, it uses both cards via cuda at the same time resulting in very quick renders.

[Constantine]

Why do u compare the 960 to the double priced 970? i dont see the point

[gidedin]

Bought my rig in 2012 and just upgraded it in December last year. Bought a H80i and 2 GTX980. Having 16 gigs of DDR3, 6TB of storage, 500GB of SSD in Raid0 and an intel i7 3770k, I am completely fine for the years to come.

Yet I have a PS4 and XBO. because I like to talk about stuff. And if I don't own the stuff I am talking about, how can I talk about it? So. I can say that PC, most of the time, has the best experience. I have friends that only plays on console and they are very skeptical about 1440p/60 frames. They keep saying their PS4 or XBO are better. Close-minded friends, unfortunatelly.

Before I bought my gaming rig, I was playing on my PS3 and 360. For me, those were the supreme place to go for gaming and bla bla bla. Little I knew :)

[frietpan]

I am saving to buy my first gaming PC.
This is my list:

Giga Byte GTX 960 4GB
Intel Core i5 4670K
MSI Z97 PC Mate
CM Hyper 212 EVO
Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x4GB DDR3 1600mhz
COoler Master GM G550M

Will 550W be enough?

[MadSpectro]

If I don't have a 7-series GPU, should I just get a 9-series if I want to get something new or take advantage of the discounts on the 7-series?

[WilliamScopes]

A buddy of mine has a used one that he's had for a few weeks and selling it for $150. Is that a good price?

[MichaelMiller-tzbe]

Looking for an upgrade, I want a mid ranged card. Deciding between a gtx 960 or a r9 280.Any suggestions

[Kaasify]

i have a pretty descent computer and i want to upgrade to the nvidia gtx 960. Will cod black ops 2 run 60 fps if i upgrade it???

[Oni_XT]

Honestly this card isn't bad. If you want AMD then go with them. I don't understand people though, how can you not be happy with these cards? PC IS LITERALLY CHEAPER THEN EVER BEFORE. Like this performance for the price is insane! Same with AMD gpus. Like this or maybe a R9 280 paired with a 6300, or maybe pick up a older used i5! Great budget systems, maxing pretty much every game out with just some settings turned down like AA, then again nvidia has that new MFAA, DSR, like a lot of stuff.

[Jasterrrr]

I have a feeling that many tech reviewers don't know the difference between power consumption and TDP.

[Griefhand]

I love this gpu. I bought the Asus one to remplace a R9 280X 3Go (sapphire vapor-x) which was too big for my mini itx build (and I had a lot of coil whine issues with it) and actually it perform better in a lot of games, the results I get are far better than a lot of the benchmarks and reviews I saw before my purchase. 

[joshuajoo]

How many watts do I need in my power supply for just these. Gtx 960 ssc 4gb from EVGA and amd fx 9590 with a corsair h110 water cooler

[Koolkid]

i just got a gtx 960 the other day. im wondering if i should return it and get an r9 380? it's the same price and usually has better performance, but it would take a while to return it so idk if its worth doing

[CodyMitts]

The MSI 4gb Armor version of this card handles overclocking really well, and performs AT LEAST 30% better than the stock overclock, in objective terms of frames, as well as just keeping itself cool with a fairly aggressive fan curve.

[lxrdox]

I actually love this card. It is the first card I bought for a first build system though. It does the job since I mainly play quake and team fortress on it. I just got one question though, could this card run overwatch when it comes out? I hope so.

[Barmy]

With this I only wanna game at 1080p, but do other tasks like watching YouTube videos and editing video in 2160x1440 or full 4k, for a mid range pc with this in it will that be possible?

[rkraiem]

How much of a improvement is this compared to the GT640? Also how much can i crank up the quality on a game like tomb raider, can i get 60FPS on medium or high quality or it only handle that on low settings?