GeForce GTX 960 3DMark Numbers Emerge

[btarunr]

Ahead of its January 22nd launch, Chinese PC community PCEVA members leaked performance figures of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 960. The card was installed on a test-bed driven by a Core i7-4770K overclocked to 4.50 GHz. The card itself appears to be factory-overclocked, if these specs are to believed. The card scored P9960 and X3321 in the performance and extreme presets of 3DMark 11, respectively. On standard 3DMark FireStrike, the card scored 6636 points. With some manual overclocking thrown in, it managed to score 7509 points in the same test. 3DMark Extreme (1440p) was harsh on this card, it scored 3438 points. 3DMark Ultra was too much for the card to chew, and it could only manage 1087 points. Looking at these numbers, the GTX 960 could be an interesting offering for Full HD (1920 x 1080) gaming, not a pixel more.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[GAR]

gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed here by the 128 bit bus, weak, nvidia, weak.

 

[dj-electric]

"256bit? how the hell are these gtx 900 cards going to beat R9 290 series? no way in hell".

Stop thinking in numbers, start thinking in results

 

[the54thvoid]

gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed here by the 128 bit bus, weak, nvidia, weak.

nvidia sucks.

Just go home. Or go to school. Or maybe go live in that cave forever.

My 780ti has a bus of 384. The 980 has a bus of 256. It only has 1Gb extra memory. It's bus is 128 smaller than my card (or only 2/3 of a 780ti.) It's faster than my card (only, it uses higher clocks but it performs better at 4k and it's not all down to the extra 1Gb memory. The Maxwell cards feature an effective texture compression algorithm that offsets the need for a larger bus. When folk bitch about it having a small bus they simply don't understand the engineering or the market. This card only has 2Gb memory - it's gpu isn't powerful enough for 1440p+ gaming - it doesn't need (in fact the GPU chip itself cant handle) lots of bandwidth.

Stop being so ignorant about the technologies, it's tiresome and childish. Maxwell doesn't need as large a memory bus because of other technology developments - get over it.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

This is like GTX680 sipping even lesser current.

 

[buggalugs]

Yep, disappointing. A mid range card should be able to run 4K in 2015. or at least 1440p.

 

[Recus]

AMD Defense Force can't handle the truth that 128bit card is almost fast as 280X 384bit.

 

[Nullifier]

Ughhh 7k graphics score on firestrike normal.
not even 1k on ultra.
Would need 2 to compete with a single 970 at 1080.
And like 6 to compete with a single 970 at 4k LOL

 

[john_]

"256bit? how the hell are these gtx 900 cards going to beat R9 290 series? no way in hell".

Stop thinking in numbers, start thinking in results

At higher resolutions that 512Bit data bus on Radeon cards gives them the edge in many cases. So, yes. You should ALSO take in consideration those numbers.

 

[Overclocker_2001]

those number aren't that bad. The card can handle quiet good 1080p ( over 4x AA will kill the fps but.. really you can't live with 2/4x AA? ).

biggest part of the cards potential is its price. I think that a launch price of 199$ is quite good, if after 4-6 week the card will settle in the 170-180$ price range than its a very good buy ( and if the card support sli, and from GB g1 I will say yes ) than sli on the midrange is a quite good option for eye candy detail on 1080p. ( assuming a price of 175$ per card and a total power consumption of about 90-105% of a single gtx970 )

a card that perform like gtx680 but with 2/3 of it's tdp it's good! ( if price is right )

 

[Xzibit]

So if its competing against AMD R9 280 it should be $159-$199. If its replacing a card GTX 770 $279-$329.

 

[dj-electric]

At higher resolutions that 512Bit data bus on Radeon cards gives them the edge in many cases. So, yes. You should ALSO take in consideration those numbers.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/images/perfrel_3840.gif
How much higher? 5K? 8K?

 

[the54thvoid]

So if its competing against AMD R9 280 it should be $159-$199. If its replacing a card GTX 770 $279-$329.

It's Nvidia, expect a premium over what ever its meant to compete with.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Just go home. Or go to school. Or maybe go live in that cave forever.
My 780ti has a bus of 384. The 980 has a bus of 256. It only has 1Gb extra memory. It's bus is 128 smaller than my card (or only 2/3 of a 780ti.) It's faster than my card (only, it uses higher clocks but it performs better at 4k and it's not all down to the extra 1Gb memory. The Maxwell cards feature an effective texture compression algorithm that offsets the need for a larger bus. When folk bitch about it having a small bus they simply don't understand the engineering or the market.

Hey, it's Nvidia card launch week - welcome to the AMD Troll-a-thon! I think they're just getting their frustrations out because the lack of action from Team Red (Ink) and some impending bad news regarding AMD's Q4/Yearly financials and graphics market share numbers - coincidentally due the same time Nvidia launch the 960 (and possibly the M6000). Schadenfreude looms large.
Having said that, I'm sure true enthusiasts would recall that in addition to the delta colour compression, Nvidia stated that a Maxwell shader module has 90% of the performance of the Kepler SM thanks to the rejigged resources and additional cache. In the 780 Ti's case, its 15 SMX's would equate fairly well with the GTX 980's 16 SMM's with the latter pulling away in demanding situations thanks to the higher ROP resources.
With a few salient facts at hand it should be a relatively easy matter to deduce the performance parameters without resorting to hyperbole.

I'll stop now, so that some random can explain why this card being a fail because it cant deliver playable framerates at 1080p with 8xSSAA enabled.

 

[Fluffmeister]

GM200 does indeed seem to be ready to drop too (no doubt in the guise of the M6000 initially).

http://videocardz.com/54358/nvidia-maxwell-gm200-pictured

 

[RCoon]

I'll stop now, so that some random can explain why this card being a fail because it cant deliver playable framerates at 1080p with 8xSSAA enabled.

I'm currently prepping an article that covers memory bandwidth usage figures for a couple of AAA titles and a couple of "generic" titles, how it correlates with GPU usage, VRAM usage as well as PCIe Bus usage, and how much (approximately) memory bandwidth said games actually use at Very High presets on 1080 and 1440p. Probably will take a few days though, I've only done two benchmarks on 1440p, but I should have something concrete before the 960 releases.

All I'm saying after these first couple of tests is, without Maxwell compression methods, the 970 memory bandwidth would have been totally saturated at a Very High preset on 1440p. But with the compression, it's got a butt-load of bandwidth to spare. The 770 has identical bandwidth, so if I can safely assume Maxwell compression is precisely 30%, a 4GB 770 would have too little memory bandwidth available for this one game on 1440p.
I'm being as vague as possible for now so my article doesn't become entirely worthless, and I've not done enough tests to give you 100% certain answer. Not to mention NVidia are currently the only people that allow you to measure PCIe bus usage, AMD don't have it nailed in yet.

I took a day off my day-job to do this, and now I'm starting to realise it's going to take a lot longer.

 

[GhostRyder]

AMD Defense Force can't handle the truth that 128bit card is almost fast as 280X 384bit.

Because the bus is all that matters, but by your logic its almost as fast as a 256bit GTX 770 which is slower than a R9 280X so what was the point of the comment?

So if its competing against AMD R9 280 it should be $159-$199. If its replacing a card GTX 770 $279-$329.

Most likely its supposed to be above a GTX 760 and below a GTX 770 overall while eventually there will probably be a GTX 960ti or similar to fill the gap. But that's just my guess...

gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed here by the 128 bit bus, weak, nvidia, weak.

RAM speed can alleviate a low bus width and on top of that when we mix in the new techs (Color compression etc) we get a little more strength out of something like that. Its more than enough for a card of this magnitude. Having a 256bit bus on this card would not really have made much sense based on where its supposed to be aimed because it would just add more power to a card that would potentially undermined the GTX 970 which undermines the GTX 980 resulting in harder sells the higher they go up so it really makes sense. On top of that I am bettering their is a chance of a GTX 960ti that might incorporate something like a 192bit bus later on but that is just a guess.

At higher resolutions that 512Bit data bus on Radeon cards gives them the edge in many cases. So, yes. You should ALSO take in consideration those numbers.

Ram speeds do alleviate this as its part of the factor that gives a 256bit bus the feeling of a much larger bus width. Though the 512bit bus has really helped the R9 290/X in being very well done for high resolution gaming (eyefinity, 4k, etc).

Not sure why every thread regarding NVidia, AMD, or Intel has to be a fest of who can make the most ignorant comment that starts a fan war. But I guess certain people constantly cooking up AMD hatred on each thread and the people automatically complaining about NVidia not overpowering a middle ground card suffice to the biggest reasons these threads end up in spam fests.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Yep, disappointing. A mid range card should be able to run 4K in 2015. or at least 1440p.

A single flagship card can barely get away with 30fps at 4k......Either your serious, or trolling, I hope its the latter, or my faith in this community has just dropped.

 

[Blue-Knight]

gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed here by the 128 bit bus, weak, nvidia, weak.

This is like saying my AMD is better because it runs at 5GHz while your Intel runs at only 3GHz.

Yep, disappointing. A mid range card should be able to run 4K in 2015. or at least 1440p.

Sarcasm!?

If not: It should not be able to run 4K in 2015, maybe not even in 2016 or more seriously 2017.
Why? I can count on my hand the people who have a 4K monitor and can only afford a mid range card (if any at all).

 

[HisDivineOrder]

A single flagship card can barely get away with 30fps at 4k......Either your serious, or trolling, I hope its the latter, or my faith in this community has just dropped.

I think the answer is... neither.

I think he was merely being sarcastic to illustrate the comments to come and the absurdity therein.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I think the answer is... neither.

I think he was merely being sarcastic to illustrate the comments to come and the absurdity therein.

I hope so. That is why I gave the option of trolling.

 

[_larry]

AMD destroys the low/mid-range sector. This confirms that. Some may argue that the 970 is a midrange card...for $300+ that is hardly mid-range..

 

[Baffles]

I can count on my hand the people who have a 4K monitor and can only afford a mid range card (if any at all).

You rang? Running my samsung 4k on an R9 270X (the buyer's remorse I have for that monitor is immeasurable, but I got it so now I use it).

Lot of people forget that you don't need to run max settings to enjoy the game, just running the native resolution on low/medium is good enough.


The 960 seems to be scoring a reasonable amount higher than the 760 and with maxwell should use significantly less power, as long as its priced competitively with the outgoing 760 I see no problem here.

Also people, if you don't like it, don't buy it. Its simple

 

[Casecutter]

The card itself appears to be factory-overclocked, if these specs are to believed. On standard 3DMark FireStrike, the card scored 6636 points.

AMD Defense Force can't handle the truth that 128bit card is almost fast as 280X 384bit.

Is there some difference between "standard" and "extreme" FireStrike? I have never heard of it termed as "standard", just good old "FireStrike Extreme".

 

[ManofGod]

WOW, just WOW. The 128 Bit defense force it out is force today. Have to justify the decrepit 128 bit bus by calling others AMD fan boys. Shit, crap is crap whether someone likes it or not. The 128 bit but is from last decade and needs to be dropped on anything about $150. This card is low end at best compared to everything in its price range out there.

The 128 bit bus will quickly get overwhelmed with anything coming out in the next year or so. Sorry but, Nvidia pushed this crap just so people would buy their 970 GTX's instead. Otherwise, with a 256 bit bus, the 970 sales would be eaten into buy the 960.

As Baffles said, if you do not like it, do not buy it. For what it is, it is probably fine but, 128 bit bus is still very limiting.