Nvidia to Discontinue 2GB Versions of the Geforce GTX 960 – 4GB Version Better Suited to Deal with the R9 380

[Mr_Troll]

Nvidia’s GTX 960 is an interesting card. At a price tag of approximately $200  (~$220 retail on Newegg for the 4GB variant), it is cheaper than the 760, but with arguable drawbacks. The card houses a 128 bit bus and either 2GB or 4GB of GDDR5 memory. A report from HWBattle.com on the other hand reveals that Nvidia is actually planning to phase out 2GB versions and only offer 4GB versions of the Geforce GTX 960 to make it more attractive to buyers.

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 960 was the first to feature the GM206 graphics processing unit, which is a very skimmed down core compared to the GM204 core. As far as specifications are concerned, the GM206 based GeForce GTX 960 features 1024 CUDA cores, 64 Texture mapping units and 32 Raster operation units. It is clocked at 1127 MHz base and 1178 MHz boost clock. The graphics card also comes with a 2 GB GDDR5/4GB GDDR5 video ram which operates along a 128-bit bus that is clocked at 7.00 GHz (1753 MHz QDR), pumping out 112 GB/s of cumulative bandwidth. The GeForce GTX 960 graphics card will feature a TDP of 120W that will be provided by a single 6-Pin connector while display outputs include Dual-DVI, HDMI 2.0 and a single display port.

 

According to the report, Nvidia will beginning the phasing out of 2GB variants of the GTX 960 soon, leaving behind only the 4GB variants. This probably comes in response to the fact that the GTX 960 under performs when compares to its price-rival: the AMD R9 380.  The card was originally pitted against the AMD Radeon R9 280, which actually had a bus width of 384 bits and consequently, 3GB of vRAM. Since we are dealing with 1080p or lower resolutions, the bus width doesn’t really come into play ( remember, Maxwell has some pretty amazing color compression technology) but with games like Shadow of Mordor demanding huge chunks of vram, 2GB is really too less for any card.

Now that the GTX 960 is pitted against the Tonga Pro based R9 380, a card which is cheaper and more powerful I might add, Nvidia has all the more reason to do some rethinking about this particular price point. Although the excess 2GB of vRAM (for a total of 4GB) wouldn’t change much in most games, in AAA titles where the vRAM is becoming a bottleneck and the load is being offloaded via PCI-E to secondary memory sources, there should be significant gains in performance. Of course, the Maxwell GM206 is an insane overclocker, so with decent overclocks and 4GB of vRam, it may be able to put one over an R9 380.

 

Lets just see how the 960 performs agains the 380. Shall we? 

 

Tech Showdown

 

 

Digital Foundry

 

 

In every bench ive seen so far the 380 is sligtly or quite a bit faster  than the 960 no matter how much vram it has. so idk what NV is talking about.

 

Off topic : Good news ... AMDs stock on a steady rise after a long time... see here : http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AMD

Source : http://wccftech.com/nvidia-discontinue-2gb-versions-geforce-gtx-960/

http://www.hwbattle.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=news&wr_id=10161&ckattempt=1

[Muz]

What the fuck, are they going to upgrade it's memory bus too then?

[Atmos]

Do you know why it is no match, no matter the ram it uses?

 

You see, theres this little thing called a memory bus, and the 960 seems to be stuck with a three generation old 128bit bus. This isn't problematic on the 2gb variant, as that's just enough. However, a 128bit bus is mathematically incapable of utilizing more than just over 2gbs of vram, literally making that extra 2gbs on a 4gb card completely, and utterly useless.

[MageTank]

In the benches i've seen in the past, that extra 2GB translated to little to no performance benefit. In certain titles (AC:U for example) it netted a maximum of 10% FPS boost (the FPS was already quite low, so that 10% was not that substantial), but even then, it seems kinda pointless. At this point, it just makes no sense. Not to mention the 4GB cards tend to have a price premium compared to the already lackluster price:performance of the GTX 960. 

 

Sorry Nvidia, but i think AMD has a stranglehold on this price range.

[mosin40]

GG nvidia, AMD offers better cards at that range

[The Official Czex]

Both the 380 and 960 are budget cards. If the 960 4G with non-updated memory bus is more expensive, then NVIDIA loses out BIG TIME.

[KemoKa]

Derp, 4GB of VRAM with a 128-bit bus. Have fun with that, Nvidia.
 

[TheSLSAMG]

Do you know why it is no match, no matter the ram it uses?

 

You see, theres this little thing called a memory bus, and the 960 seems to be stuck with a three generation old 128bit bus. This isn't problematic on the 2gb variant, as that's just enough. However, a 128bit bus is mathematically incapable of utilizing more than just over 2gbs of vram, literally making that extra 2gbs on a 4gb card completely, and utterly useless.

And yet have you actually used the card to know? No, you probably haven't.

 

I have had two GTX 960 Gaming G1 4GBs for a couple of weeks now, one since July. I have played games where I saw good performance and up to 4GB VRAM usage, including GTA V. I plan to test it more, but from what I've been doing so far, the card's "mathematically incapable of utilizing more than just over 2gbs of vram" 128-bit bus has been working perfectly fine.

 

But then again, what do I know? I'll probably just be called a shill.

[Nowak]

Derp, 4GB of VRAM with a 128-bit bus. Have fun with that, Nvidia.

 

They shoulda stuck to a 256-bit bus, like the GTX 760.

[SteveGrabowski0]

$200 is obscene for a 2GB 960 anyways. The 960 really only makes sense if you're using a low-end CPU where AMD driver overhead kills DX11 performance or if you absolutely need to run a really low power system.

[KemoKa]

They shoulda stuck to a 256-bit bus, like the GTX 760.

That's the irony that will never escape me.

[thekeemo]

Nvidia right now has no competitive card but the 980 ti..

Fury > 980

390x = 980 for $100 less

390 > 970 (barely though unless cf 4k)

380 > 960

270x>950 (not quite sure on this)

[TheSLSAMG]

$200 is obscene for a 2GB 960 anyways. The 960 really only makes sense if you're using a low-end CPU where AMD driver overhead kills DX11 performance or if you absolutely need to run a really low power system.

The cheapest 2GB GTX 960 is currently $184 while the cheapest 4GB is currently $209. Just keep in mind WCCF have a heavy AMD bias, they're going to bend the numbers to fit their agenda just like others would for NVIDIA.

 

Better still, that's before the MIRs. The $184 card would go down $5 while the $209 card would go down $20.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-gtx9602gd5toc

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-gtx9604gd5ttitaniumoc

[PlayStation 2]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Nvidia... DROP THE FUCKING 4GB VERSION, NOT THE 2GB VERSION

[Dabombinable]

Lmfao, this would only be a good idea if the 'tards had actually used a 256bit bus as the baseline for the GTX 960.

[Nowak]

That's the irony that will never escape me.

I'm kinda glad I didn't wait for the 960 for that reason alone lol, the 760 is a better GPU in basically every way. More cores, wider memory bus, greater memory bandwidth, 3-way SLI support (due to the GK104 core), slightly better performance, the only way the 960 is better is in power consumption and heat output and the 760 is neither a power-hungry nor a hot GPU to begin with.

 

Don't get me wrong, the 760 still outputs a decent amount of heat, but it's not a hot GPU at all. Or, at least, the specific model I have isn't anyway.

[Dabombinable]

I'm kinda glad I didn't wait for the 960 for that reason alone lol, the 760 is a better GPU in basically every way. More cores, wider memory bus, greater memory bandwidth, 3-way SLI support (due to the GK104 core), slightly better performance, the only way the 960 is better is in power consumption and heat output and the 760 is neither a power-hungry nor a hot GPU to begin with.

Also, Kepler has better compute performance and is better for DirectX 9 titles (if you play those sort of games).

[PlayStation 2]

And yet have you actually used the card to know? No, you probably haven't.

 

I have had two GTX 960 Gaming G1 4GBs for a couple of weeks now, one since July. I have played games where I saw good performance and up to 4GB VRAM usage, including GTA V. I plan to test it more, but from what I've been doing so far, the card's "mathematically incapable of utilizing more than just over 2gbs of vram" 128-bit bus has been working perfectly fine.

 

But then again, what do I know? I'll probably just be called a shill.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: SLI isn't representative of one card's performance.

How does it run with just one card?

[Nowak]

Also, Kepler has better compute performance and is better for DirectX 9 titles (if you play those sort of games).

That too. Kepler has better compute performance.

[TheSLSAMG]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: SLI isn't representative of one card's performance.

How does it run with just one card?

Both with one card and with two, it runs fine. VRAM usage is right up there. And I'd test more extensively, but Rockstar's servers are flaky as hell and I can't download GTA V. I'll have to do a once-over of my game library to find intensive games that are actually representative of games out now since I haven't exactly been buying a lot of new games. Maybe I'll get Witcher 3 and Dirt Rally or something.

[Dabombinable]

Both with one card and with two, it runs fine. VRAM usage is right up there. And I'd test more extensively, but Rockstar's servers are flaky as hell and I can't download GTA V. I'll have to do a once-over of my game library to find intensive games that are actually representative of games out now since I haven't exactly been buying a lot of new games. Maybe I'll get Witcher 3 and Dirt Rally or something.

Don't forget the age old question, can it run Crysis?

[Bonn]

Real problem is doubling memory chips from OEMs, not nvidia. The double chip capacity and the memory controllers are expected to keep up. = stutter / artifacts. 

[PlayStation 2]

Both with one card and with two, it runs fine. VRAM usage is right up there. And I'd test more extensively, but Rockstar's servers are flaky as hell and I can't download GTA V. I'll have to do a once-over of my game library to find intensive games that are actually representative of games out now since I haven't exactly been buying a lot of new games. Maybe I'll get Witcher 3 and Dirt Rally or something.

With two cards, I can see the 960's 4GB of memory being used as it's got enough horsepower to use it.

But with one card, I can only really see it as it can take advantage of it but not nearly enough as with two cards because it's starved of horsepower.

[KemoKa]

The most funny thing about all this is that you can overclock a 950 to near-960 performance.

Am I the only one who hasn't exactly been the most blown-away by Maxwell overall?

[Humbug]

Good move.

But what I would also do is raise the stock clocks significantly and call it the 960ti.