Introduction
The GeForce GTX 960 is one of NVIDIA's recently released graphics card (only the Titan X is more recent). With the GTX 960, NVIDIA brought their super power-efficient Maxwell architecture to the mainstream.
This card is based on a 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 as it offers slightly higher performance at much less 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.
In this review, we have with us the Gigabyte GTX 960 OC, an overclocked custom design of the GTX 960. It is more cost effective than the Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming, but still features the same amazing power consumption and noise levels as its bigger brother.
The Gigabyte GTX 960 OC currently retails at $199, which is about as low as you can find a GTX 960.
GTX 960 Market Segment Analysis | Radeon R9 270X | GeForce GTX 760 | GeForce GTX 960 | GIGABYTE GTX 960 OC | Radeon R9 285 | GeForce GTX 770 | Radeon R9 280X |
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Shader Units | 1280 | 1152 | 1024 | 1024 | 1792 | 1536 | 2048 |
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ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
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Graphics Processor | Pitcairn | GK104 | GM206 | GM206 | Tonga | GK104 | Tahiti |
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Transistors | 2800M | 3500M | 2940M | 2940M | unknown | 3500M | 4310M |
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Memory Size | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 3072 MB |
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Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 256 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 384 bit |
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Core Clock | 1050 MHz | 980 MHz+ | 1127 MHz+ | 1216 MHz+ | 918 MHz | 1046 MHz+ | 1000 MHz |
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Memory Clock | 1400 MHz | 1502 MHz | 1753 MHz | 1753 MHz | 1375 MHz | 1753 MHz | 1500 MHz |
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Price | $165 | $210 | $195 | $200 | $200 | $300 | $260 |
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