Generational Performance Compaison – GTX 960, GTX 760, GTX 660
NVIDIA knows that the jump from the GTX 760 to the GTX 960 isn't going to be substantial enough to get a large number of those users to upgrade. But it is likely that the GTX 660, one of NVIDIA's most popular cards of the last 5 years, is getting long enough in the tooth that the GTX 960 will appeal to those gamers.
With that in mind I ran some tests with the GTX 660 at 1920×1080 and put together a collection of graphs comparing the GTX 960 to the GTX 760 and the GTX 660 so you can get a measure of how the generation to generation improvements look based on today's most current driver. Since we have been throwing graph after graph at you today I'll shorten this page a bit by only showing the FPS by percentile image. With that graph you can get an idea of the back half of frame times presented by each card where the 50th percentile is basically equal to the average FPS.
Overall, the gains from GTX 660 to GTX 760 to GTX 960 are pretty consistent with the exception of Crysis 3 (no gain from GTX 760 to GTX 960) and GRID 2 (larger than expected gain from GTX 760 to GTX 960). Users that have a GTX 660 in their system today can run BF4 at 1080p and Ultra settings at just 40 FPS but an upgrade to the GTX 960 gets you to 56 FPS or so, a 40% improvement. Metro: Last Light sees a jump of 52% from the GTX 660 to the GTX 960.
Clearly there is a time and place for upgrades for PC gamers and much of that depends on your annual budget and the change in PC games' demands on that hardware. But at $199, less than the price of both the GTX 760 and GTX 660 at their respective launches, the GTX 960 is going to compel many gamers to make a move.
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…