# Gigabyte GTX 960 OC 2 GB



## W1zzard (Apr 23, 2015)

Gigabyte's GTX 960 OC retails at an affordable $199, all while offering the same performance out of the box as the bigger G1 Gaming. Even though priced low, Gigabyte didn't compromise on OC potential, noise, temperatures, and power consumption as all of those are comparable to more expensive custom-design variants.

*Show full review*


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 28, 2015)

W1zzard good review.  

Reviews at release I suppose never indicated it as MSRP, probably due to Nvidia not offering a reference cards.  So as "retail" price now being $195 that's probably more base on the overall observed market, and not any stated price change from Nvidia. Correct?

From your conclusion: _"This yields an 8% performance improvement - larger than most other GTX 960s we tested before, matching the GTX 960 G1 Gaming.  So overall this means that the card is roughly as fast a GeForce GTX 680, *slightly slower than R9 285*,"_

I read that as the R9 285 > than this Gigabyte GTX 960 OC, and this is one of the two fastest 960's you've test?  Although, the summary @1980 shows the R9 285 3% below?  I could agree this Gigabyte GTX 960 OC is fast(er) than a reference R9 285, but it needs clarification.

Also, I notice there are no power consumption numbers for the R9 285. though it appears they're from the only R9285 you've reviewed a Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC back September 2014.  It be nice to see a new review on say a Gigabyte or PowerColor version, as you been able to show some six different the GTX 960's since like late January.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 28, 2015)

Casecutter said:


> slightly slower than R9 285


ugh because i'm dumb and looked at 4K. Fixing conclusion.



Casecutter said:


> So as "retail" price


I look up pricing on Newegg, cheapest variant.



Casecutter said:


> you've reviewed a Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC


The comparison numbers in power consumption are for reference boards. Since AMD didn't provide a R9 285 reference card -> no results.
Nobody really wants to send R9 285 samples .. I would buy a GTX 960 over R9 285 any day.


----------



## thebluebumblebee (Apr 28, 2015)

Is this just Gigabyte getting ready for a price cut?  Rebates often proceed a price cut on a new item, and I'm seeing rebates and markdowns on GTX 960's.  The G1 gaming variant is actually $185 after MIR ATT.


----------



## Frogger (Apr 28, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I would buy a GTX 960 over R9 285 any day.


I did  Pick it up for the HDMI 2.0 output to my 65 inch 4k LG. Nice & Quite fan never runs will viewing TV. 1st NV card I've purchased in 4 years. Based on the performance I might just go Green on my next gaming Investment.


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 28, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Nobody really wants to send R9 285 samples .. I would buy a GTX 960 over R9 285 any day.


Yea, at this point within a month there's going to be whole new landscape to test...



thebluebumblebee said:


> Is this just Gigabyte getting ready for a price cut?  Rebates often proceed a price cut on a new item, and I'm seeing rebates and markdowns on GTX 960's.  The G1 gaming variant is actually $185 after MIR ATT.


Nope they seem to have all been moving pricing, I noticed about 2 weeks ago the 960's see lot's of "in cart prices" (Newegg/Nvidia way of enacting price cuts) with rebates and the copy of witcher that been part of it for a while.  It would give the impression AMD intends to make this level of performance a new "entry-mainstream" point at more like $160.


----------



## TC-man (Apr 28, 2015)

Am I the only one who want to see the ASIC quality in this and future GPU reviews here at TechPowerUP? Anyway, another great review by W1zzard.


----------



## Folterknecht (Apr 28, 2015)

Hi W1zzard - nice review.

What I m always wondering with the graphic card reviews on this site - wouldnt it make sense to change the structure a little?







Persoanlly I 'd put the "3 performance sites" near the end, right before Value & Conclusion.


----------



## damric (Apr 29, 2015)

Seeing how your VRAM OC added a nice performance gain, does this mean that the GTX 960 is indeed bandwidth constrained?


----------



## RCoon (Apr 29, 2015)

damric said:


> Seeing how your VRAM OC added a nice performance gain, does this mean that the GTX 960 is indeed bandwidth constrained?



I'm unsure what memory bandwidth requirements BF3 has at 1080p. Judging by tests with other games, the 112Gb/s bandwidth may get completely saturated at peak times in certain cases where GPU Load is maxing out. If this is the case, memory overclock increase that high could be the larger cause of such a performance increase. Without running tests I couldn't give a definitive answer.


----------



## Ikaruga (Apr 29, 2015)

Looks like Gigabyte cherrypicks the most leaking chips, because all their OC and G1 cards (980 OC and G1 for example) are reaching AMD levels in power consumptions at full loads. Other brands don't go this far and not really behind in max OCs. I love the dual-dvi tho.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 29, 2015)

Ikaruga said:


> Looks like Gigabyte cherrypicks the most leaking chips, because all their OC and G1 cards (980 OC and G1 for example) are reaching AMD levels in power consumptions at full loads. Other brands don't go this far and not really behind in max OCs. I love the dual-dvi tho.


I rather think they adjusted the power limit of the board


----------



## Ikaruga (Apr 29, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I rather think they adjusted the power limit of the board


Are they allowed to do that?


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Apr 29, 2015)

this card isn't that bad for $200 or so after discount. A small trade off is the lack of another 2GB of video memory, though I don't mind since Maxwell is much more efficient over Kepler thanks to it's larger cache. But I think a little more VRAM wouldn't hurt, otherwise, it's a good card for those who want to build a good rig capable of tackling 1080p resolutions without problems.

@Ikaruga most AIB vendors make their own custom boards however they like, as they have some freedom in making all kinds of variants based from the same GPU chip, apart from selling the reference cards to the market by simply slapping some stickers on it.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Apr 29, 2015)

TC-man said:


> Am I the only one who want to see the ASIC quality in this and future GPU reviews here at TechPowerUP? Anyway, another great review by W1zzard.


 
I don't think ASIC numbers will really matter for a review, because the "quality" of every single chip is going to be different.  You and I could buy on the same day and have totally different ASIC quality.


----------



## Ikaruga (Apr 29, 2015)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> @Ikaruga most AIB vendors make their own custom boards however they like, as they have some freedom in making all kinds of variants based from the same GPU chip, apart from selling the reference cards to the market by simply slapping some stickers on it.



I think (since Keplers) Nvidia sets the power and temp limits for each of their chips and card makers are not allowed to change that (so whoever makes a 980, it can't make a it to go above 125% of the power limit, and there are different numbers for 970, 780, etc).


----------



## TC-man (Apr 29, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I don't think ASIC numbers will really matter for a review, because the "quality" of every single chip is going to be different.  You and I could buy on the same day and have totally different ASIC quality.



I know about that, but it's kinda fun to know. I guess some people like to know how that ASIC quality relate to the overclock-ability of this particular GTX 960 OC and their own GTX 960 cards; they could have compared the ASIC quality of their own GTX 960 cards with this Gigabyte GTX 960 OC.


----------



## mroofie (Apr 30, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> ugh because i'm dumb and looked at 4K. Fixing conclusion.
> 
> 
> I look up pricing on Newegg, cheapest variant.
> ...


Thanks for the review 

Quick Question how does 2 fan cooler beat the G1 in terms of overclocking should the G1 not have higher quality hardware ?


----------



## Jeffredo (Apr 30, 2015)

Newegg is offering the 4gb version of this card with a backplate.  Between that and the extra 2gb of VRAM they're asking $239.99.


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 30, 2015)

Jeffredo said:


> Newegg is offering the 4gb version of this card with a backplate.  Between that and the extra 2gb of VRAM they're asking $239.99.


 Which is a waste money...


----------



## Jeffredo (May 1, 2015)

$40 for a backplate and double the memory?  Seems fair in relation to any card, but AMD does have good alternatives for between $260-$300.  I'd probably try to come up with another $60 for an R9 290X or a cheaper GTX 970.


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 1, 2015)

Jeffredo said:


> Newegg is offering the 4gb version of this card with a backplate.  Between that and the extra 2gb of VRAM they're asking $239.99.



I really don't thing the 960 has the gpu muscle to make use of 4 GB effectively.


----------



## Ikaruga (May 1, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I really don't thing the 960 has the gpu muscle to make use of 4 GB effectively.


It really depends on what he will play. Most of the games will see zero or max 1 fps speed increase of course, but some will do benefit *a little* from the more VRAM (BF Hardline or modded Skyrim for example, etc). If he will play games where it doesn't matter then $40 is a lot for nothing , so it's only worth it with certain games.


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 1, 2015)

@Ikaruga Yes you are exactly right! Modded Bethesda games came to mind as possibilities that wouldn't overpower the GPU but would benefit from increased VRAM.


----------



## Jeffredo (May 1, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I really don't thing the 960 has the gpu muscle to make use of 4 GB effectively.


Funny thing is no one ever said that about the GTX 670 and GTX 680 4GB models and its right between them in GPU power.


----------



## Ikaruga (May 1, 2015)

Jeffredo said:


> Funny thing is no one ever said that about the GTX 670 and GTX 680 4GB models and its right between them in GPU power.


both of those have 256bit wide bus tho


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (May 3, 2015)

also, the 960 is meant to be a budget, able VGA card for playing most games at 1080p without problems like the 760, but at a much more lowered consumption & heat generation. I mean, having ~5% overall gain over the 760 means it's a worthy card for it's price. New builds will see the 960 as a recommended card, instead of the 760. 2 PWM fans on a 960 is suffice to keep it's operating temps low when gaming, so I dun see utilizing more than 2 is gonna make it run even cooler for an already cool-running chip.


----------



## Artas1984 (Aug 26, 2015)

As far as i am concerned, GTX 960 ain't faster than GTX 760. If it does not beat GTX 760 in Crysis 3, it ain't faster for me (talking about OEM version).

So many games here were tested with 4X AA - this gives the GTX 960 a huge advantage over GTX 760, as both cards feature 32 ROPS, but the core clock on GTX 960 is significantly faster, therefore the AA processing power of GTX 960 is supreme.

I for one, play games without AA, and as an owner of GTX 760 could bet that if AA was to be disabled, GTX 760 should be close or ahead in those cases.

Just how on earth does GTX 960 manage to be this fast with that low memory bandwidth is  a shocker...

Can anybody confirm my AA speculations???


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Aug 27, 2015)

the 960's Maxwell chip has 1MB L2 cache, along with trick texture & delta colour compression technology to reduce overhead while 760's Kepler only has roughly 512KB L2 cache, so a beefier cache usually compensates other areas where the card is lacking like for example it's tiny 128-bit bus width. This in turn gives it a slight edge over it's older brother.


----------

