Gigabyte's GTX 960 OC comes at a more affordable price than the higher-branded G1 Gaming, but it can easily compete. Out of the box, it runs a large overclock of 1215 MHz base clock that boosts up to 1456 MHz. This results in an 8% performance improvement, which is larger than on most other GTX 960s we have tested, matching the GTX 960 G1 Gaming. So overall, the card is roughly as fast a GeForce GTX 680, 3% faster than the R9 285, 15% faster than the GTX 760 and only 5% slower than the GTX 770. I only wish Gigabyte had overclocked the memory for some extra performance.
The card's dual-fan cooler is relatively simple, but it does a fine job at keeping the card cool. NVIDIA's new Maxwell GPUs produce very little heat, so massive coolers are no longer needed. The Gigabyte GTX 960 OC runs extremely quiet under full load. With 27 dBA, it's really inaudible in most systems. In idle, with a light load, or during media playback, the fans will completely stop for the perfect noise-free experience. Temperatures are also fine, just like on all other GTX 960 cards.
Power consumption is also almost the same as with other GTX 960s, so there is not much to report on here. Any half-decent power supply will run the card just fine. Overclocking of our card also delivered surprisingly good results, so there is no need to worry that only other premium custom design cards, like the G1 Gaming, will be good for overclockers.
What is truly unique to the Gigabyte card, though, is the monitor output configuration. Gigabyte crammed three DisplayPorts, two DVI ports, and an HDMI port onto their board, which is more than anyone else. Since the GTX 960 GPU can not support that many outputs at the same time, Gigabyte added a TMDS switch chip that automatically decides on how to route those outputs. This could prove useful to gamers with exotic monitor output configurations or as a means to simplify connectivity.
Overall, the Gigabyte GTX 960 OC is a very well-engineered, well-balanced card that comes without any bells and whistles, but clocks in at $199 instead. The excellent overall impression and the price make this the best GTX 960 on the market so long as you are looking for an affordable solution. AMD, on the other hand, also has very competitively priced products in this segment with the R9 285 and R9 280.