EVGA GTX 960 with 4GB VRAM.

[Victorious Secret]

oh , i forgot about SLI's. hmm, does it scale good in SLI? 

 

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_960_strix_2_way_sli_review,17.html

The 960 at its lowest has seen 50% improvement, average seems to be ~75% with a second one. If you can get them cheap, I think its worth it for sheer raw power especially in 1440p gaming. 4K just slaughters the card however. 

[zappian]

Runs fine on my system.

 

Hey I am not breaking coc and I am not your slave so I will do as I please.

That game is notoriously poorly optimized , its not a secret.

Anyways the 960s bus is too crippled to handle 4 GB VRAM decently IMO.

128 bit bus.

[Fate]

Why do people think 4GB vram automagically makes the 960 any better at 4k than it already is? The games it can play in the first place (Source games, older games, simulators, MMO's, etc) probably won't use over 2GB vram (assuming you want to run at 60fps) and the only way to use over that is two 960 4GB, and since they'll probably cost the same as a 290, which destroys the 960, I don't see the point. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Watch dogs inst the best example

That game runs poorly on everything.

runs at 60 even with the mods and above 70 without it, after the patches and updates and nvidia driver, watch dogs runs perfectly fine, it should, that game is so outdated now  

 

Runs fine on my system.

same 

 

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_960_strix_2_way_sli_review,17.html

The 960 at its lowest has seen 50% improvement, average seems to be ~75% with a second one. If you can get them cheap, I think its worth it for sheer raw power especially in 1440p gaming. 4K just slaughters the card however. 

it all makes sense now 

[spartaman64]

when a 960 has better ram than 970

[christianled59]

Hey I am not breaking coc and I am not your slave so I will do as I please.

That game is notoriously poorly optimized , its not a secret.

Yeah, I'm aware. It's still not as terrible as the hate train has lead to believe. It's mostly fixed from my experience. It ran fine on high settings on my 760, runs fine on a 660 I have, and flawlessly on my 970. I assume it'll work good on a 960, given my experiences.

[EpicAdom]

I wanted 8gigs on a 960 :'(

The tears are real

[Swndlr]

but does it have 4 gigs

[tmlhalo]

My bet is on it will be the same deal as the 4GB version of the 760.

http://www.legitreviews.com/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-760-4gb-video-card-review-2gb-4gb_129062/4

 

By time the card is using 3-4GBs of textures the GPU core is already swamped. (Farcry 3 4k)

 

http://www.legitreviews.com/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-760-4gb-video-card-review-2gb-4gb_129062/3

 

It would help in cases of SLI 960s but I would seriously just look at a 970 / 980 / 290(X).

[Tass]

happy finally to see some SLI geared Cards in the lower Price range, 2 of these should push 1440p pretty good, and lots of games actually need 3gb+ of vram at 1440p nowadays. gives the people that need to upgrade piece by piece a great alternative to the more expensive Cards.

 

why buy an outdated AMD when Dx12 is just around the corner?? if i had to built on a budget, this would definitely have my attention.

 

would love to see more like these from Nvidia as well as AMD's upcomming 3 series.

 

now give us the highend stuff with more than 4gb, some of us actually use that much.....

[colonel_mortis]

I think this is probably the fastest that a perfectly normal thread has turned into a flame war. I have removed a considerable number of off topic posts from this thread for being off topic, and any more off topic posts (especially regarding the GTX970) will be removed. Don't let that happen.

[Victorious Secret]

it all makes sense now 

 

Yea, SLI'ing the lower end cards can really pay off but you need to be smart about it. Spending more than what a single solution costs is not a good move.

 

My 660s cost me 275 for BOTH. So yea, I'm going to go for it, but thats a very specific use case that no everyone is gong to be able to pull off. I didn't need to update my PSU nor case nor motherboard so going to SLI was fine. 

[dalekphalm]

As an individual card? Not particularly useful.

 

However, what a fantastic SLI card. These low-end 2GB-limited cards are always crippled when people put them into SLI, but a 4GB version would definitely do the trick. Will it be for everyone? Certainly not. But it's definitely not pointless.

 

Now, I'm curious, was EVGA or NVIDIA the driving force behind this? I'ma bet it was EVGA, personally.

[Megahurt]

If that turns out to be an ACTUAL 4gb of Vram, I may actually explode from rage.

 

The 960 isn't a cut down core, so it can only be an actual 4GB of vram.

 

I don't think the 960 could use 4GB of ram at playable framerates, but I do think it can use more than 2GB. It could be nice for SLI but as with any card with double the vram, the extra cost will far outweigh the extra performance.

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Yea, SLI'ing the lower end cards can really pay off but you need to be smart about it. Spending more than what a single solution costs is not a good move.

 

My 660s cost me 275 for BOTH. So yea, I'm going to go for it, but thats a very specific use case that no everyone is gong to be able to pull off. I didn't need to update my PSU nor case nor motherboard so going to SLI was fine. 

huh, i bought my 780ti because i needed my Cuda cores for dynamics and lighting , but for gaming , i always thought buying a single card is better, never in my life have i looked at SLI performance, this is really fascinating to me 

[dalekphalm]

huh, i bought my 780ti because i needed my Cuda cores for dynamics and lighting , but for gaming , i always thought buying a single card is better, never in my life have i looked at SLI performance, this is really fascinating to me 

 

It's a carefully considered trade-off.

 

In most cases, you're better off buying a better, more powerful, single GPU card, over an SLI solution. This is because there aren't always SLI profiles for every game (nor are they always available upon release for a new game), and the performance-jump can vary quite a bit between which game you play on.

 

There are a lot of variables.

 

But occasionally, you hit that sweet spot (Or just get a REALLY good deal on two cards), and it makes SLI worth considering.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

It's a carefully considered trade-off.

 

In most cases, you're better off buying a better, more powerful, single GPU card, over an SLI solution. This is because there aren't always SLI profiles for every game (nor are they always available upon release for a new game), and the performance-jump can vary quite a bit between which game you play on.

 

There are a lot of variables.

 

But occasionally, you hit that sweet spot (Or just get a REALLY good deal on two cards), and it makes SLI worth considering.

yeah, that i know , but looking at SLI , anything above 60 fps is still good isn't it ? 

edit: yeah might not make sense price vise 

[Victorious Secret]

huh, i bought my 780ti because i needed my Cuda cores for dynamics and lighting , but for gaming , i always thought buying a single card is better, never in my life have i looked at SLI performance, this is really fascinating to me 

 

Its a game of tradeoffs. Power consumption vs. heat output vs. how well the game scales. 

 

I thought what I was paying vs. the performance return was worth it, but largely I realized having two cards to look at was pretty badass. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Its a game of tradeoffs. Power consumption vs. heat output vs. how well the game scales. 

 

I thought what I was paying vs. the performance return was worth it, but largely I realized having two cards to look at was pretty badass. 

 

that looks badass !! , i wish i had a glass window 

[kpreg]

yay?

[Victorious Secret]

that looks badass !! , i wish i had a glass window 

 

I used to have a 500R and was prepared to cut the panel and put in my own panel but during boxing day I found the 540s on sale so I sent the 500R to my brother and happily upgraded. 

I don't think I'll ever exceed 2 cards in a system so its going to last me a while. I'm probably jumping to X99 in this case so I'll switch over to a Quadro + whatever mid tier cards are here this fall. 

[Norwegiantweaker]

Why the fuck would you game on 4K with a 960?

hostile much. 

i was talking generally about vram 

[othertomperson]

The 960 isn't a cut down core, so it can only be an actual 4GB of vram.

 

I don't think the 960 could use 4GB of ram at playable framerates, but I do think it can use more than 2GB. It could be nice for SLI but as with any card with double the vram, the extra cost will far outweigh the extra performance.

 

 

lol don't try to inject logic. He'd cry about vram gate in a thread about toasters if such a thread existed.

 

 

It's a carefully considered trade-off.

 

In most cases, you're better off buying a better, more powerful, single GPU card, over an SLI solution. This is because there aren't always SLI profiles for every game (nor are they always available upon release for a new game), and the performance-jump can vary quite a bit between which game you play on.

 

There are a lot of variables.

 

But occasionally, you hit that sweet spot (Or just get a REALLY good deal on two cards), and it makes SLI worth considering.

 

 

And in those cases it's usually vram and price being the reason you wouldn't. Like two 760s didn't actually save you any money over a 780 (though two 270Xs were far cheaper than a 290).

 

Having used two 3GB 580s from 2011 until late last year, (which basically perform like 270Xs) TDP was the only issue I had. Do that with a card as efficient as the 960, and suddenly it's not terrible if you can get a good price.

[MageTank]

As an individual card? Not particularly useful.

 

However, what a fantastic SLI card. These low-end 2GB-limited cards are always crippled when people put them into SLI, but a 4GB version would definitely do the trick. Will it be for everyone? Certainly not. But it's definitely not pointless.

 

Now, I'm curious, was EVGA or NVIDIA the driving force behind this? I'ma bet it was EVGA, personally.

 

This pretty much sums it up. Standalone, buying the 4gb 960 will not yield more performance compared to the 2gb version in a majority of usage scenario's. It does however, make SLI a much more viable option with these cards. It might even be enough to make 2 960's actually better than a single 970 when it comes to 1440p gaming. Still, the price of the 970 is still quite low, and the power consumption between the two single cards differ slightly that SLIing 2 960's with the sole intention to beat a single 970 just seems like a silly idea.

 

I am also going to assume that this is entirely EVGA behind this, as they have done this countless times in the past. Nvidia is pretty adamant about their reference designs, and seldom change the configurations unless they slap a new name on the end of the card itself. 

 

Would i buy this card? Probably not. Even if i were interested in SLI, i would probably just save up the extra $100 or so for a GTX 980 and beat both 960's while saving the power and heat that comes with using two cards. Still, its like they always say. There is a market for everything and everyone.

[Guest Kloaked]

If they're priced well, GG. Could be a good sli option especially with how DirectX12 is supposedly going to make multi card configs better.