Overclocking the ASUS GTX 960 Strix
When a company starts bragging about overclocking capability in a new GPU two things always go through my head. First, overclocking must actually be good. Second, why the hell don't they just add that headroom into the reference speeds? Obviously NVIDIA would like to keep GPU die yield high by being able to sell more units that do not overclock well and still not break any rules and at the end of the day it is a profit margin kind of world.
The process of overclocking the GTX 960 is identical to that of the GTX 980 and GTX 970 and results are similar as well. For my testing with the GTX 960 Strix from ASUS I used the ASUS GPU Tweak software, version 2.7.8.0. With it you can adjust Boost clock, minimum GPU voltage, maximum GPU voltage, power target and temperature target.
Even though it is completely unnecessary for this GPU, I raised the power target to 115% and the GPU temperature target to 95C (it got nowhere near those levels in my testing). I maxed out the voltage increase by 50 mV, the maximum that NVIDIA is allowing on the GTX 960. That's annoying because on the GTX 980/970 that limit is 87 mV and we already thought that was low and restrictive. But we work with what we can for now.
My maximum stable overclock was found when I set the GPU Boost clock to 1420 MHz, 103 MHz higher than the stock setting and 242 MHz higher than the reference setting! That is a 20% increase in Boost clock for our maximum overclock over reference. Even better, in my testing after more than 30 minutes of looped gaming, the GTX 960 Strix was able to maintain a clock speed of 1498 MHz! To add to the level of eyebrow raising, during that same gaming period I never saw temperatures cross over 61C!
Click to Enlarge our GPU-Z Log Sample
Clearly the GM206 GPU and the ASUS DirectCU II cooler and doing a fantastic job of staying cool at high clocks. If only we could get some more voltage…
The performance gains are less than we would have liked from this overclock as we definitely need to increase the memory clock speed along with the GPU speeds. We'll have more on this in our full retail card reviews very soon as it will be one of the key differentiator between the cards on the market.
i r disappoint
i r disappoint
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Why is the texture fill rate
Why is the texture fill rate for the 970 lower than the 980, aren’t they using the same memory architecture?
What is the minimum power
What is the minimum power supply requirements for 950 SLI
Live Q: can any other card be
Live Q: can any other card be used in SLI with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 ?
no, you can only sli with the
no, you can only sli with the same card family. i’ve read that some games won’t even work with different brand cards. I find that one hard to believe but worth double checking. 2 cards doesn’t give you 4gb of videoram. You will still only have 2 gb for gaming.
This is more of a GTX 950 Ti
This is more of a GTX 950 Ti to be honest. While the power consumption is excellent, the performance is nowhere near the x60 class. The gap between this card and the 970 is simply too big. A cut-down GM204 with 1280:80:48 3GB 192bit will fit the 960 monika better.
So when is this power
So when is this power efficiency going to turned into affordable performance? Nothing to see here.
This card is just is about as
This card is just is about as close as you can get to exactly as powerful as a gtx 760 with the same amount of vram and and a 128 bit bus. The only place you see true improvements are in the titles and benchmarks that Nvidia spent time making driver/firmware improvements. Look at older benchmarks like Heaven or 3dmark vantage and the gtx 970 and 760 are neck and neck. We got a much more power efficient card but at the same time a crippled memory bus to save money. Except for the niche htpc market (which I may or may not belong to) this is really isn’t that exciting and pretty much a sidegrade to the existing gtx 760. Even the compute numbers clearly show this.
I think a lot of people here
I think a lot of people here hating on the 960 are missing a key point – SLI. $200×2=$400. That’s $400 for great fps at 2650×1440 with high settings, barely any heat, and barely any noise.
I think it’s a great deal, and I think Nvidia has a TON of room to lower the price if they want/need. Who cares though, its still only $400 for 2x GTX 960 that can basically do everything youll need. Play more, worry less.
What about the people that
What about the people that don’t want to deal with crappy SLI profiles for games that are getting lazier and lazier with optimization. I want to spend money now for something that plays everything fairly decent and in a year or two buy another.
Will the 128-bit memory
Will the 128-bit memory interface cause any performance hit in modern games?
In layman terms, how does
In layman terms, how does Nvidia make their performance so smooth compared to the competition? It’s the one thing in particular I like about their products. 🙂
Do you know why the
Do you know why the performance differential for Crysis 3 is so much smaller than for the other games? I was considering this card for an upgrade, but if it doesn’t play nice with the CryEngine 3 (Star Citizen in particular) then it might not be worth it.
I am on the Sapphire Vapor-X
I am on the Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290 right now but I just don’t see anyone making a really smart choice by going for this slow of a card. I would at least get the 970.
Call optimization for what it is but PC games now are crushing through 2GB of vram all day long. Dying light at 1080p and max settings is hitting 4gb. Farcry 4 hitting 3GB. Shadow of Mordor 3.5GB. All of this at 1080p…
It’s funny to see reviews
It’s funny to see reviews about gaming GPU’s that emphasize power consumption, and decibel levels. My son and I game everyday for hours on a regular basis. We play games for entertainment because we have a little bit of disposable income I can use for just playing… paying a few cents worth of electricity extra is not even a concern, we saved more by buying a GPU with a better price.
Decibles… seriously? We aren’t playing in a library… and most gamers have headphones that make the decibel level of pc’s really un-noticeable. Even if we are recording with sensitive mics for gameplay uploads… our decibel level is not a concern.
Maybe it’s just me… and I just don’t understand the new sophisticated testing methods. But as a father who enjoys gaming with my son, price… and a GPU’s in game playability is my main concern. I refuse to pay the premium price some manufacturers charge just for a few less watts and decibles… we can use that saved money buying new games, and snacks.
Yes yes we all get it…the
Yes yes we all get it…the 960 isnt blowing anyone away with raw performance. At the same time, everyone is giving this card a ton of crap and saying how over priced it is…is this coming from the same crowd that has been paying $250 for a 760 as close as a couple months ago? A TON of people have a 760. The 960 gives you marginally better performance using much less power, giving off much less heat, less noise AND at $200. If power, heat and noise do not concerns you, then think of it as getting an overclocked 760 at a $50 discount.
Finally upgraded my Radeon
Finally upgraded my Radeon 5850 after a long and painful to tolerate card failure. So happy with this card.
NEVER AMD again !
Fry’s price-matched Amazon and same $10 rebate.
$189 after rebate ; )
Is it worth it to upgrade
Is it worth it to upgrade from my gtx 560 to the 960 because from looking at this review it’s not…