[Meta] Can we stop the GTX 960 circlejerk?

[MeDownYou]

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_medium/159/1590344/2849489-2160920414-http-.jpg

 

GTX 960 beats R9 280X in GTA 5. So please, do tell me how the 3 GB is "better in the long run", and how "R9 280X is way more future proof". Here you have a game, GTA 5, that is very much VRAM intensive. So, where is the mighty R9 that beats the GTX due to having more VRAM and higher VRAM bandwith? Ah, right, its actually BS and nVidia's architecture is more efficient and obliterates AMD GCN.

And how do you have over 200 posts?

 

You do realize that GTA V    IS   optimized for NVidia cards right?

You do realize that the AMD driver is beta and will get better right?

 

and really it's fanboys like you that buy NVidia cards for more money even when they don't perform as well - not only that you try to be an internet tough guy and bully the school kids into buying NVidia cards too. 

 

AND I hope NVidia's 900 series cards are ahead (architecturally) of AMD's 200 series It's not like they are NEW or anything  /s

[tmk]

I could buy 960 for £160 or 290 for £205. Both brand new. It was easy to choose one

I got good one 290 as oob I could do 1110 on gpu and 1360 on ram.

[Delusional Phil]

I'd recommend the i5, the 270x will have you tied over nicely until you can get a better gpu (It's like the ideal card for 1080p if you only need the settings on medium)

Great , I can get High-Ultra settings on my 1366x768 monitor 

[BestBOTEU]

I was hesitant to include the AMD driver argument, but GTA:V is a perfect example.

what are you talking about, my 260x runs gta v all high textures normal 2x msaa 1200p 40 fps avg

also the 280x mostly beats the 960 in benchmarks, and 2GB is just MEH, if they made 3GB for the same price I bet it would be a much more popular card.

[BestBOTEU]

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_medium/159/1590344/2849489-2160920414-http-.jpg

 

GTX 960 beats R9 280X in GTA 5. So please, do tell me how the 3 GB is "better in the long run", and how "R9 280X is way more future proof". Here you have a game, GTA 5, that is very much VRAM intensive. So, where is the mighty R9 that beats the GTX due to having more VRAM and higher VRAM bandwith? Ah, right, its actually BS and nVidia's architecture is more efficient.

are you for real? are you saying the 960 is better cause it beat the 280x by ONE fps? how does that make the card any better? 2gb wont survive next year, it cant even use max settings on gta v cause theres not enough memory bandwidth. stop being so biased.  tbh i wouldnt even recommend buying the 280x, a 290 after rebate would be the better choice which is only like 40-50$ more?

[MageTank]

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_medium/159/1590344/2849489-2160920414-http-.jpg

 

GTX 960 beats R9 280X in GTA 5. So please, do tell me how the 3 GB is "better in the long run", and how "R9 280X is way more future proof". Here you have a game, GTA 5, that is very much VRAM intensive. So, where is the mighty R9 that beats the GTX due to having more VRAM and higher VRAM bandwith? Ah, right, its actually BS and nVidia's architecture is more efficient.

 

Alright, ill tell you how 3 GB is better in the long run. Turn your settings up beyond "standard", or increase that resolution to 1440p. I bet that GTX 960 starts singing a very different tune. You people are trying to debunk a myth that isn't even a myth. Vram and its bandwidth are still very important. Just because you think otherwise does not make it any less true. My GTX 770 is faster on average than a GTX 960, and i still find myself bound by 2GB of Vram when i attempt to run ultra textures on AAA titles, or go anywhere beyond 1080p. 

[chopdok]

Alright, ill tell you how 3 GB is better in the long run. Turn your settings up beyond "standard", or increase that resolution to 1440p. I bet that GTX 960 starts singing a very different tune. You people are trying to debunk a myth that isn't even a myth. Vram and its bandwidth are still very important. Just because you think otherwise does not make it any less true. My GTX 770 is faster on average than a GTX 960, and i still find myself bound by 2GB of Vram when i attempt to run ultra textures on AAA titles, or go anywhere beyond 1080p. 

And of course, the R9 280 will be better in the long run than GTX 960, with lesser fillrates. Yeah, because having 3GB automatically means your GPU can deliver good performance when those 3GB are stuffed full of data.

[Frizzil]

I'm somewhere between an enthusiast and a professional graphics programmer, and in my experience, AMD isn't as well supported as Nvidia... who cares about fringe performance comparisons when your card causes games to break?  At the studio I was at, every dev's desk was equipped with an Nvidia card... so you can bet Nvidia configurations will be less bug-ridden come release time.

 

Also, there's a version of the GTX 960 available with 4 GB of ram... are we excluding this from comparisons?

 

@chopdok: fill rates are becoming increasingly more important, so I think that's a reasonable prediction.  As long as games stick to deferred rendering and continue to pile on post-processing effects while monitor sizes grow, fill rate will be dominant.  Additionally, physically based lighting among other things is contributing to the need for raw GPU cycles, which also scale with monitor sizes... and 960 comes out ahead on cycles (though it falls behind in core count).  I'd have to do the math or see the cards in action to know the relative throughput, but overall the 960 seems like a winner to me.

 

(This is my first post, how'd I do?)

[MageTank]

And of course, the R9 280 will be better in the long run than GTX 960, with lesser fillrates. Yeah, because having 3GB automatically means your GPU can deliver good performance when those 3GB are stuffed full of data.

 

I am starting to think you have absolutely no idea how graphics processing works, or how applications choose to use the resources available to it. You are showing standard at 1080p on a 2gb card, and saying that alone will dictate that its faster than the 3gb 280x? How about we use your graphs and source against you? 

 

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Grand_Theft_Auto_V_-test-2-GTA5_2560_1.jpg

 

Would you like to take an educated guess as to why the GTX 960 did not show up in that grouping? Or why any 2gb card did not show up in that grouping? Please, enlighten us on how 2GB of Vram is just a number, and why more video memory is not required in gaming today. Hell, lets ignore the raw resolution itself, lets take a look at higher texture quality. 

 

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Grand_Theft_Auto_V_-test-2-GTA5_1920_2.jpg

 

What do you know? Same results. No 2gb card in the grouping, not even my 2gb GTX 770. Huh, i guess we are starting to see a pattern here. If you are going to spout BS, you should inform yourself on what you are talking about ahead of time. My point still stands. A 2gb GTX 960 is still just a 1080p GPU, and will not be anything more. There are still better options in the same price range, and one should aim at getting the best card for their dollar.

[Frizzil]

@MageTank RAM size is nearly orthogonal to performance -- unlike on the CPU, it's an infrequent scenario when having more available memory can simply allow better performance, and the whole of those cases isn't enough to offset the fillrate cost of sampling larger textures if included (though mipping can prevent larger textures from costing much at far distances).  Rather, higher RAM just allows higher quality wrt textures/post-effects/etc.  So in terms of 1080p+ gaming, I'd think that playability is a matter of raw throughput, not memory.  (E.g. more fill rate, more cycles, more bandwidth.)

 

Fyi, the inability of devs to utilitize memory for performance is largely due to the inflexibility of the highly parallelized graphics pipeline, relative to straigthforward single-threaded programming.  It's hard to have vastly different paths for varying memory sizes, so differences remain simple -- smaller and fewer textures, rather than different algorithms.

 

Also, as far as graphs go, I wouldn't conflate the prejudices of whoever made them with the data they present.

[han_han08]

wasn't 960 compared to 660 because the 760 was an odd duck?

 

IIRC, the 760 was a cut down chip...SLI these and it's better than the 780

 

edit: i guess not always better in all games

Edited April 23, 2015 by han_han08

[MageTank]

@MageTank RAM size is nearly orthogonal to performance -- unlike on the CPU, it's an infrequent scenario when having more available memory can simply allow better performance, and the whole of those cases isn't enough to offset the fillrate cost of sampling larger textures if included (though mipping can prevent larger textures from costing much at far distances).  Rather, higher RAM just allows higher quality wrt textures/post-effects/etc.  So in terms of 1080p+ gaming, I'd think that playability is a matter of raw throughput, not memory.  (E.g. more fill rate, more cycles, more bandwidth.)

 

Fyi, the inability of devs to utilitize memory for performance is largely due to the inflexibility of the highly parallelized graphics pipeline, relative to straigthforward single-threaded programming.  It's hard to have vastly different paths for varying memory sizes, so differences remain simple -- smaller textures and fewer samples, rather than different algorithms.

 

Also, as far as graphs go, I wouldn't conflate the prejudices of whoever made them with the data they present.

 

What you say is very true. However, the bandwidth of the 960 IS its crippling factor. Maxwell's Delta Color Compression does alleviate the bandwidth issue to some degree, but it simply cannot push those higher textures through the pipeline fast enough to have a playable frame rate. What makes it difficult to test this though, is the fact that low-Vram cards tend to have lower memory bandwidth to match, so it makes it a bit harder to test this scenario.

 

You mentioned a 4GB GTX 960 before, and I wish i could give you an answer based on personal experience, but i cannot. I have not had the chance to use one, and the reviews i see and the bench results between the two are completely inconclusive. To the point where some say its a huge difference, and others show absolutely no difference at all.

 

That being said, we can see the effect that higher memory bandwidth has on games, and if getting higher memory bandwidth requires also having more Vram with it, then its still worth noting. It is not hard to see that higher resolution textures, and higher resolution monitors in general do perform better with one, or both of those two things increasing in size. This is why the GTX 960 is still considered a 1080p card.

[Majestic]

The post OP should have made; http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/353139-games-require-more-vram-narrative/

 

Because that's what this is mostly about, isn't it.

 

@MageTank, the bandwidth isn't a limiting factor at higher resolutions at all. Did you test it yourself before you made that statement? Or did you read that somewhere.

 

Tomb Raider, 4K Max Settings (4xMSAA) 7ghz memory;

http://i.imgur.com/fETPHKt.jpg

 

Tomb Raider, 4K Max Settings (4xMSAA) 8ghz memory;

http://i.imgur.com/y3zBr4i.jpg

 

<4% improvement at a 14% OC, granted the framerate is fairly low. But that's bad scaling where there should be loads if it was a problem. That is on a 970, which has 224bit memory. The 128 should be more than ample for 1080p, where the 960 was designed for. I'm not seeing any scaling with memory overclocking, not to any significant degree. If I compare that to my kepler experiences (GTX670), now THAT had some serious scaling with memory overclocking. Much better than GPU overclocking even.

[MageTank]

The post OP should have made; http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/353139-games-require-more-vram-narrative/

 

Because that's what this is mostly about, isn't it.

 

@MageTank, the bandwidth isn't a limiting factor at higher resolutions at all. Did you test it yourself before you made that statement? Or did you read that somewhere.

 

Tomb Raider, 4K Max Settings (4xMSAA) 7ghz memory;

http://i.imgur.com/fETPHKt.jpg

 

Tomb Raider, 4K Max Settings (4xMSAA) 8ghz memory;

http://i.imgur.com/y3zBr4i.jpg

 

<4% improvement at a 14% OC, granted the framerate is fairly low. But that's bad scaling where there should be loads if it was a problem. That is on a 970, which has 224bit memory. The 128 should be more than ample for 1080p, where the 960 was designed for. I'm not seeing any scaling with memory overclocking, not to any significant degree. If I compare that to my kepler experiences (GTX670), now THAT had some serious scaling with memory overclocking. Much better than GPU overclocking even.

 

We were not talking about the GTX 960 being unable to perform at 1080p. I think everyone here agree's with the 960 being a good 1080p card. The entire point of this thread was to try to tell everyone something we already know. My post above was mentioning its bandwidth as the issue as to why it cannot game beyond 1080p, or push high quality textures through the pipeline. That thread you linked is further proof of that. The r9 280x is on par with the GTX 780 on some of those graphs at higher resolution, passing both the GTX 960 and my GTX 770. If we look at raw performance based on core count and core clock, the 280x is not any faster than a GTX 770. Its raw amount of Vram and memory bandwidth however, is higher. This leads me to believe that Vram still is a factor in gaming, under specific circumstances.

 

I would love to see what the GTX 960 can do when you SLI two 4GB versions together. From what you showed me about its scaling, it should make for interesting results, seeing as SLI effectively doubles the bandwidth, making that 4GB easy to use.

[Majestic]

That thread you linked is further proof of that. The r9 280x is on par with the GTX 780 on some of those graphs at higher resolution, passing both the GTX 960 and my GTX 770. If we look at raw performance based on core count and core clock, the 280x is not any faster than a GTX 770. Its raw amount of Vram and memory bandwidth however, is higher. This leads me to believe that Vram still is a factor in gaming, under specific circumstances.

 

If you're referring to the Shadow of mordor benchmark, the one with the 960 SLI, you can see the 290 almost edge the 980. I think that game is much more AMD tuned and thus can lead to wrong conclusions. Afaik SLI doesn't double the bandwidth because both cards have to swap the same amount of data around, and thus meaning the bandwidth stays the same effectively. Meaning the 960 scales 83% during a memory/bandwidth heavy game. 

 

This would imply the maxwell not really suffering any bottlenecks in that regard, which is further proven by my own testing in tomb raider. If you look at another game which uses lots of Memory, like Crysis 3, the 280X isn't close to a 780.

 

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/7/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-crysis-3

 

Neither with BF4;

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/5/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-battlefield-4

 

Or watchdogs;

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/15/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-watch-dogs

 

Be mindful of using one benchmark to base all your information on. I merely used that benchmark to show the scaling in a memory-heavy game. 960 seems unphased.

[MageTank]

If you're referring to the Shadow of mordor benchmark, the one with the 960 SLI, you can see the 290 almost edge the 980. I think that game is much more AMD tuned and thus can lead to wrong conclusions. Afaik SLI doesn't double the bandwidth because both cards have to swap the same amount of data around, and thus meaning the bandwidth stays the same effectively. Meaning the 960 scales 83% during a memory/bandwidth heavy game. 

 

This would imply the maxwell not really suffering any bottlenecks in that regard, which is further proven by my own testing in tomb raider. If you look at another game which uses lots of Memory, like Crysis 3, the 280X isn't close to a 780.

 

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/7/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-crysis-3

 

Neither with BF4;

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/5/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-battlefield-4

 

Or watchdogs;

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5881/15/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-sli-review-net-zo-snel-als-een-gtx-980-benchmarks-watch-dogs

 

Be mindful of using one benchmark to base all your information on. I merely used that benchmark to show the scaling in a memory-heavy game. 960 seems unphased.

 

I always thought that with alternating frames, it would alleviate the strain induced by limited memory bandwidth, my mistake. I do not rely on benchmarks in general to get information, i simply run numbers to draw most of my conclusions. Though, architectural advancements tend to skew my data as i do not have a Maxwell card except for the GTX 750 Ti, which is incapable of performing on par with these newer cards anyways. 

 

I simply use the same benchmarks people bring to me against them, because it is easier that way. Most people tend to link one graph out of several in an attempt to prove their point when an article has several other graphs going against it.

 

I do appreciate you shining light on my misunderstandings, it helps me comprehend exactly what might be a limiting factor for the GTX 960, though i still do not see it performing beyond 1080p (like you said, it was designed for 1080p market anyways). I just assumed that the limiting factor was the memory itself, as its core count is still respectable and its clock can get pretty high as well. 

[Snadzies]

The 960 isn't bad, but it deserves criticism when compared to the other 900 series cards.

 

980 - Equal or better performance than a 780ti and for less money.

970 - Equal or better performance than a 780 and for less money.

960 - Over all only slightly better performance than the 760 for less money.

 

The 960 should have been closer to 770 performance.

 

I expect to see something like a 960ti at some point as right now there is a pretty large price and performance gap between the 960 and the 970.

[Majestic]

The 960 isn't bad, but it deserves criticism when compared to the other 900 series cards.

 

980 - Equal or better performance than a 780ti and for less money.

970 - Equal or better performance than a 780 and for less money.

960 - Over all only slightly better performance than the 760 for less money.

 

The 960 should have been closer to 770 performance.

 

I expect to see something like a 960ti at some point as right now there is a pretty large price and performance gap between the 960 and the 970.

 

970 isn't always better than a 780. And you're forgetting that both the 970 and 960 launched with a MRSP of 50 dollar less than previous generations. So you're overreaching when asking the 960 should to be up to 770 levels, when it launched for $199 instead of the $249 the 760 launched. Especially since the 760 was a rebrand and the maxwell series wasn't. The problem lies with the webshops themselves, due to supply and demand the 760's are sold cheaper since they're "old tech".

 

Some more attention to detail before accusing is preferred.

[Snadzies]

970 isn't always better than a 780. And you're forgetting that both the 970 and 960 launched with a MRSP of 50 dollar less than previous generations. So you're overreaching when asking the 960 should to be up to 770 levels, when it launched for $199 instead of the $249 the 760 launched. Especially since the 760 was a rebrand and the maxwell series wasn't. The problem lies with the webshops themselves, due to supply and demand the 760's are sold cheaper since they're "old tech".

 

Some more attention to detail before accusing is preferred.

 

No, I mentioned them being cheaper "and for less money" is at the end of each of the 3 cards.

The main point is that the 980 and 970 are better than the cards they replace from the 700 series and are often better than the next card up from the previous generation while the 960 is just barely ahead of the 760 and in some instances is behind the 760.

 

The 960 isn't bad and the fact that you're pretty much getting a 760 for about $50 less is nice, but it is still disappointing that it offers so little performance gain vs the 760 while the 970 and 980 offer noticeably better performance vs their 770 and 780 counter parts.

[MageTank]

No, I mentioned them being cheaper "and for less money" is at the end of each of the 3 cards.

The main point is that the 980 and 970 are better than the cards they replace from the 700 series and are often better than the next card up from the previous generation while the 960 is just barely ahead of the 760 and in some instances is behind the 760.

 

The 960 isn't bad and the fact that you're pretty much getting a 760 for about $50 less is nice, but it is still disappointing that it offers so little performance gain vs the 760 while the 970 and 980 offer noticeably better performance vs their 770 and 780 counter parts.

 

That is the point that many of us made during the GTX 960 launch. The 970 and 980 are still technically upgrades over the 700 series cards (i probably still wouldn't upgrade if i had a 780, but still) where as the 960 is not an upgrade over the 700 series, but instead the 600 series. If you look at the 960 product page, Nvidia themselves compare it to the 660 instead of the 760, which made little sense to me and everyone else.

 

Is the GTX 960 a good card? If you can't afford to go a little higher, then yes. It will pretty much handle anything you throw at it in 1080p and if DX 12 does what the rumors say it does with SLI, then i can see the 960 lasting people quite a long time if they pick up another one in the future. I just know that for right now, an extra $30 can get you a 280x which according to every single graph anyone has posted in this thread thus far, seems to handle itself better at higher resolutions. 

 

I do understand the appeal of going Nvidia over AMD at this moment, due to the substantially lower TDP of the Maxwell cards and some of the driver features that Nvidia offers, I just think that if one currently has a card that does a decent job at 1080p, that they should save up the extra cash to get a card that can go beyond it.

[Majestic]

well for me, having noctua cooling and the 960, I can pretty much play my games in absolute silence. My A5+ speakers hiss makes more sound than my system, during games.

That would never be the case with any AMD card of the same speed as the 960.

 

The whole idea is fitting the better card with someone's wishes. My topic also clearly stated that I'd recommend either card, based on the OP's desires. But the way the conversation was going, meant that anyone suggesting the 960 got flak because "LOL 2GB IS NOT ENOUGH FOR 1080P IDIOT". Both the 280(x) and 960 have their pro's and cons. The 960 has a lot more going for it though, there is no denying that. Unless you want that extra bit of raw power, the 960 has you covered on a wider variety of features than the AMD cards can ever make up for in terms of speed. And if someone had no specific wishes (except 1080p) i'd recommend them the 960 by default because it's much more modern.

[Lawliet93]

I agree with the opinion, that the 960 is not a bad card, but... it is priced inadequately (around 150USD would be the perfect price for that card) due to some kind of lack of competition from AMD (although, performance vise, AMDs offer is very close, or even better, than nvidia). There are almost no reference Gtx 960, and almost all of them have been overclocked from the factory (but the R9 280 is being compared at it stock clock of 940MHz, there are some, that go way over 1GHz, like the gigabyte one at 1072MHz, this fact would drastically change the comparison). Yeah, the power consumption is better on the 960 side and it better be (the R9 280 is almost four years old and still competitive!!!), its a freaking 128bit card with a small core, clocked very high to compensate for that. I've been using more than 2Gb of VRAM in Assassin's creed 4 (2,3GB), although I agree with the statement, that VRAM usage is not the same as the VRAM requirements and that the real world usage can be higher, than the requirements. But, in that case, we should be estimating, that the usage is not far of from the actual requirements (therefore 3GB are still way better than 2GB). I've been using nvidia GPUs for the last thirteen years and AMD GPUs for the last six years and I had problems with both (I was not able to play AC4 with my gtx 460SE OC, due to blue screening after about two hours of playing, but I could not play ACB with my hd mobility 4530 OC to 700MHz). After using a R9 280 for about eight months I can clearly say, that they were no problems regarding Driver performance (the stability test being my brother playing games like AC4, AC Unity, Stalker lost alpha for more than twelve hours in a row and me playing Ryse, Crysis, Alien isolation, hitman blood money and The witcher 2 with ultra high-res texture and tressfx mods installed). 

[Vozella]

I saw another thread that said 3/4 PC gamers use Nvidia GPUs, so if that's true there's no need to worry.

[AlexWJD]

I agree with the opinion, that the 960 is not a bad card, but... it is priced inadequately (around 150USD would be the perfect price for that card) due to some kind of lack of competition from AMD (although, performance vise, AMDs offer is very close, or even better, than nvidia). There are almost no reference Gtx 960, and almost all of them have been overclocked from the factory (but the R9 280 is being compared at it stock clock of 940MHz, there are some, that go way over 1GHz, like the gigabyte one at 1072MHz, this fact would drastically change the comparison). Yeah, the power consumption is better on the 960 side and it better be (the R9 280 is almost four years old and still competitive!!!), its a freaking 128bit card with a small core, clocked very high to compensate for that. I've been using more than 2Gb of VRAM in Assassin's creed 4 (2,3GB), although I agree with the statement, that VRAM usage is not the same as the VRAM requirements and that the real world usage can be higher, than the requirements. But, in that case, we should be estimating, that the usage is not far of from the actual requirements (therefore 3GB are still way better than 2GB). I've been using nvidia GPUs for the last thirteen years and AMD GPUs for the last six years and I had problems with both (I was not able to play AC4 with my gtx 460SE OC, due to blue screening after about two hours of playing, but I could not play ACB with my hd mobility 4530 OC to 700MHz). After using a R9 280 for about eight months I can clearly say, that they were no problems regarding Driver performance (the stability test being my brother playing games like AC4, AC Unity, Stalker lost alpha for more than twelve hours in a row and me playing Ryse, Crysis, Alien isolation, hitman blood money and The witcher 2 with ultra high-res texture and tressfx mods installed). 

 

150 dollars? Nvidia needs to make money on these dude 

[Lawliet93]

150 dollars? Nvidia needs to make money on these dude 

What's that for an answer? We all know that nvidia cards are massively overpriced and they make more than enough money out of them. Trust me, the GTX 960 is not worth the 200 USD it costs, they could put the price even bellow 150 and still make a shit tone of money, it's a small core, with small PCB, it definitely doesn't cost more than maybe 80 USD to manufacture.