ASUS GTX 960 STRIX OC 2 GB

[jabbadap]

???

2160p fps:s are mostly under 30 even with r9-290 so you would better have two of them. And this card is ment for fhd gaming, and yes 128bit is too low. Benchmarks are all over the place. On FHD where higher bandwidth/vram is needed this plums near gtx660(AC:U) but when it does not it even beats r9-280x(civ:be).

 

[Recus]

???

GTX 960 is good for 1080p gaming (if you use custom game settings would be perfect), R9 290 for 4k is not. Use R9 290 for 1080p is joke.

 

[krusha03]

Asus gtx 960 strix costs $210
gigabyte r9 280x windforce oc costs $240
That's like 14% ?
Anyway you're right, same increase in $ and in perf.
PD: Or maybe you where talking about the 290, my bad if that's the case.

I think he meant the 290. Speaking of per/$ the 285 is same performance and at $180-190 about 10% cheaper, the 280 can be had for as low as $150 after rebate which is about 30% cheaper and its only 5-10% slower, and the cheapest 280x is currently at $205. It all comes at what are your priorities, lower power consumption noise and heat, cheapest card for 1080p or best performance in a price bracket regardless of noise and heat output

 

[thebluebumblebee]

While it might smell sour, it's still $50 cheaper than when the GTX 460 made its debut, and we loved that.

The GTX 460 is a true mid range card, while this is not. It should be called the GTS 950. (pull up a review of a GTS 450 and compare pictures of the cards without their coolers)

I'm with newtechie1 here, what's not to like?

The extra $50 that Nvidia's charging for these because AMD's got nothing.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

Disappointing to see how the GTX 970 beats it with 50% more performance. That's ridiculous.

 

[Cheeseball]

Guys, I know the GTX 970 is nearly double the performance, but it costs nearly $130 to $150 more. (If the GTX 960 does indeed come out at $200.)

 

[Lionheart]

Disappointing to see how the GTX 970 beats it with 50% more performance. That's ridiculous.

Makes sense with all the extra muscle it's packing.

One thing that amazes me about the GTX 960 is it's 128bit memory bus & it still performs really well even with that lower bus compared to other cards with the normal 256bit bus. Nvidia must of did something right there

 

[Jeffredo]

The intriguing things for me are the 128 bit card matching a GTX 670 or R9 285 and beating a GTX 760 with much lower power consumption. Its definitely no big performance leap, but if you compare it to its real and intended predecessor (the GTX 660) its a pretty good step up. Now they just need to fill in the $200-$330 gap.

 

[Cheeseball]

My local supplier here in the Philippines already has a couple of ZOTAC 960s available. I'll see if I can snag one up.

 

[Jeffredo]

A bit of OT, but i was just wandering what the hell is going on with AMD cards in WOW benchmark? They don't seem to lose a single fps switching from 1440p to 4K I'm sorry if this was mentioned before, i din't see it.

Now if they would just run smoothly at 1080p (or 1920x1200). I sold an R9 290 primarily because it stuttered quite a lot on Ultra settings in Warlords of Draenor. Replace it with a GTX 780 and its smooth as silk on the same settings. So yeah, their raw FPS may look fine but game FPS keeps popping around from 55-60 FPS in many areas. Its absolutely an Nvidia favored game.

 

[dj-electric]

My local supplier here in the Philippines already has a couple of ZOTAC 960s available. I'll see if I can snag one up.

View attachment 61962

You wanna upgrade from a HD7950-like power to a GTX 960?
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_960_STRIX_OC/images/perfrel_1920.gif

Wh... Why?

 

[rruff]

Amazon has a bunch of 960s listed but I didn't see any in stock.
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=10779868011&tag=tec06d-20

Zotac for $199 is the cheapest and there are several very near that. I'm confident that it will be easy to snag one in the fall for <$150 and possibly $120. But it really depends on what AMD does. Nvidia didn't hit AMD so hard with the 960 as they did with the 970. The 280 and 285 are already priced competitively.

 

[PLAfiller]

I am not really gonna comment on whether 960 is worth it, but I was really interested in the "Strix" series from Asus. I am being bombed with their ad on every GSL Starcraft tournament from South Korea I watch. Naturally, I was wondering if it's that good. "Make a good choice!" is what they said and by this review it seems it lives up to its name.

 

[Casecutter]

The extra $50 that Nvidia's charging for these because AMD's got nothing.

IDK a standard 285 by W1zzards' findings is right there in the ring punching it out @1080... I think Nvidia knows they have to be aggressive on price to have this make any ground. Power number here are good with this 960, but will want to see other reviews that really dig into power (sophisticated monitoring) across several titles to see how it pans out.

Interestingly Egg is already offering a $10 rebate on the EVGA with a the ACX cooler (02G-P4-2963-KR), so final cost $200 ($5.67 for shipping) I found it strange EVGA already indicate Rev 2.0+, however that might be just for the ACX cooler.

Consider this Powercolor R9 285 Turbo Duo (945Mhz) 2GB for $163 -AR$20 w/FS
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=101468&vpn=AXR9%20285%202GBD5%2DTDHE&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1261

I see given the cost of the BOM for these 960's, we should some assertive pricing positions from both sides.

 

[64K]

Interestingly Egg is already offering a $10 rebate on the EVGA with a the ACX cooler (02G-P4-2963-KR), so final cost $200 ($5.67 for shipping) I found it strange EVGA already indicate Rev 2.0+, however that might be just for the ACX cooler.

Yeah, Rev 2.0 is referring to the ACX cooler. Where that came from is when EVGA first released the SC 970 with the original ACX cooler one of the heat pipes didn't make contact with the GPU so they fixed that and called it ACX Rev 2.0

 

[rruff]

Power number here are good with this 960, but will want to see other reviews that really dig into power (sophisticated monitoring)

You might be interested in this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-8.html

 

[rruff]

Interestingly Egg is already offering a $10 rebate on the EVGA with a the ACX cooler (02G-P4-2963-KR), so final cost $200 ($5.67 for shipping)

I don't consider a $10 rebate big enough to fool with, but Newegg also has a $25 off $200 deal using Visa Checkout, which brings a few 960s down to ~$180 shipped.
http://slickdeals.net/f/7606726-new...-savings-25-off-200-purchases-w-visa-checkout

 

[newtekie1]

yes 128bit is too low

I don't think the 128-bit is too low, thanks to nVidia's lossless compression, I think 2GB is too low for anything beyond 1080p. Once we see these with more memory(anyone else notice the blank memory pads on the PCB), I think we'll really see the power of the GPU come out.

The extra $50 that Nvidia's charging for these because AMD's got nothing.

That seems to be more a problem of AMD...

 

[rruff]

I don't think the 128-bit is too low, thanks to nVidia's lossless compression, I think 2GB is too low for anything beyond 1080p. Once we see these with more memory(anyone else notice the blank memory pads on the PCB), I think we'll really see the power of the GPU come out.

I think it is all very balanced... the bandwidth, vram amount, shaders, etc. All aspects very near their limit at the same time. 3-4GB would be nice (even a necessity) for SLI, but a waste of money otherwise.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

Makes sense with all the extra muscle it's packing

The intriguing things for me are the 128 bit card matching a GTX 670 or R9 285 and beating a GTX 760 with much lower power consumption. Its definitely no big performance leap, but if you compare it to its real and intended predecessor (the GTX 660) its a pretty good step up. Now they just need to fill in the $200-$330 gap.

To me, this GTX 960 is a card from the low-mid levels of the market, and 2 GB, for a videocard meant to be sold in 2015, is not enough.
It is more like a GTX 950 Ti at best.


They need now 960 Ti, 970 SE, etc to fill this gigantic hole in performance.

 

[newtekie1]

I think it is all very balanced... the bandwidth, vram amount, shaders, etc. All aspects very near their limit at the same time. 3-4GB would be nice (even a necessity) for SLI, but a waste of money otherwise.

I agree, for a single card aimed at 1080p it definitely is very well balanced. The only reason I would like to see a version with more memory is for SLI. I think two with 3GB would be awesome for 1440p. Of course to make that worth while the price would also have to drop since a 970 would be a cheaper option for 1440p compared to 2 960s.

 

[rruff]

since a 970 would be a cheaper option for 1440p compared to 2 960s.

Quite true.... except that 2x 4GB 960s would be at 980 level if the SLI worked well.

 

[rruff]

To me, this GTX 960 is a card from the low-mid levels of the market, and 2 GB, for a videocard meant to be sold in 2015, is not enough.
It is more like a GTX 950 Ti at best.

There are about a dozen reviews on the GTX 960 last I checked, and they prove that what ever specs it has are enough for it's intended performance level and price. I'm impressed with how balanced it appears to be... like if it had a higher spec in any area it would be wasted. I have a GTX 750 1GB, and that is enough ram for *it*. *You* may need more than 2GB of ram, but in that case you will also need more processing power.... a more expensive card.

 

[newtekie1]

Quite true.... except that 2x 4GB 960s would be at 980 level if the SLI worked well.

Yes, if SLI scaled perfectly you'd be correct. But SLI very rarely scales 100%, most of the time it is closer to 80-85%. But even if it was closer to 100%, I still think I'd go with a 970 because it is cheaper and will handle up to 1440p just fine, and puts you in a great position to go 4k with a second 970 when the time is right.

 

[RealNeil]

Once we see these with more memory(anyone else notice the blank memory pads on the PCB), I think we'll really see the power of the GPU come out.

^~This~^

I want to see a 4GB version tested and then an SLI test with 4GB 960s.