EVGA GTX 960 SSC 2 GB Review 16

EVGA GTX 960 SSC 2 GB Review

Architecture & GeForce Features »

Introduction

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NVIDIA recently launched the GTX 970 and GTX 980 based on its new "Maxwell" architecture, torching the market with an unreal combination of performance, power-draw, and fan-noise, which made them overkill for Full HD. The two can handle any game at QHD (1440p) and can provide playable frame-rates at 4K, with some eye-candy lowered.

That creates the need for NVIDIA to come up with a GPU that's just right for Full HD, but with low power-draw and pricing to benefit from the new architecture. "Maxwell" also presents NVIDIA with an opportunity to cut costs because its current sweet-spot graphics card, the GeForce GTX 760, is based on a 3.5 billion-transistor GPU with a surface area of 294 mm² and just 24 percent less power draw than GTX 970 for 51 percent lower performance. Since NVIDIA is still on the 28 nm process, it might as well build a smaller GPU based on "Maxwell" to cut on costs, while hopefully transferring those savings to the consumer.

Full HD is still the most popular gaming-PC resolution, and the advents of 4K and affordable 1440p haven't managed to shake its dominance yet. People still seem to be buying monitors based on panel-size rather than resolution and are also happy to hold onto a monitor for several years. There are, hence, three kinds of consumers: First are those on a tight budget and the ability to buy a reasonably big (24-inch) Full HD monitor for cheap. Second are those who want to convert their vanilla desktops into gaming PCs to game on their Full HD TVs. The third kind is holding onto an old Full HD monitor and drifts between a mid-range graphics card every other year. NVIDIA and AMD can hence ill-afford to leave this resolution unaddressed with each new architecture.



That brings us to NVIDIA's most important launch ahead of Spring-Summer 2015, the GeForce GTX 960. This card is based on a brand-new silicon codenamed GM206. NVIDIA's third chip based on "Maxwell", the GM206 is supposed to be a successor to the GK106 on which NVIDIA built the GeForce GTX 660. The new GTX 960, however, is meant to replace the GTX 660 and GTX 760 in the product stack, offering slightly higher performance at much lower power draw and noise, with greater room for price-cuts. It also brings some of the new features introduced with "Maxwell" to the masses, such as real-time voxel illumination, MFAA (multi-frame sampled anti-aliasing), Dynamic Super-Resolution, VR Direct, Turf Effects, and PhysX Flex, along with community favorites like G-Sync and ShadowPlay.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 960 is priced at just $200, which is lower than what the GTX 760 was priced at on launch ($250). NVIDIA has clearly transferred some of the cost-savings due to a smaller chip with lower power-draw, which translates into a cheaper VRM, fewer memory chips, and a lighter cooler, to the consumers. We are also convinced that there is room for more cost-cutting.



In this review, we are testing the EVGA GTX 960 SSC with EVGA's ACX cooler. The card is overclocked out of the box and features the company's famous cooling solution which has been upgraded to completely turn off in idle or during light gaming, resulting in the perfect noise-free experience.

EVGA tells us their pricing will be $210.

GTX 960 Market Segment Analysis
 GeForce
GTX 660
GeForce
GTX 660 Ti
GeForce
GTX 760
GeForce
GTX 670
GeForce
GTX 960
EVGA GTX
960 SSC
Radeon
HD 7970
Radeon
R9 285
GeForce
GTX 770
GeForce
GTX 680
Radeon
R9 280X
GeForce
GTX 780
Radeon
R9 290
GeForce
GTX 970
Shader Units9601344115213441024102420481792153615362048230425601664
ROPs2424323232323232323232486464
Graphics ProcessorGK106GK104GK104GK104GM206GM206TahitiTongaGK104GK104TahitiGK110HawaiiGM204
Transistors2540M3500M3500M3500M2940M2940M4310Munknown3500M3500M4310M7100M6200M5200M
Memory Size2048 MB2048 MB2048 MB2048 MB2048 MB2048 MB3072 MB2048 MB2048 MB2048 MB3072 MB3072 MB4096 MB4096 MB
Memory Bus Width192 bit192 bit256 bit256 bit128 bit128 bit384 bit256 bit256 bit256 bit384 bit384 bit512 bit256 bit
Core Clock980 MHz+915 MHz+980 MHz+915 MHz+1127 MHz+1279 MHz+925 MHz918 MHz1046 MHz+1006 MHz+1000 MHz863 MHz+947 MHz1051 MHz+
Memory Clock1502 MHz1502 MHz1502 MHz1502 MHz1753 MHz1753 MHz1375 MHz1375 MHz1753 MHz1502 MHz1500 MHz1502 MHz1250 MHz1750 MHz
Price$140$260$210$270$200$210$350$210$300$340$220$300$270$330
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