Best 4GB GTX 960?

[JazzleSAURUS]

Hey guys,

 

I'm looking to purchase a GTX 960 in the 4gb flavor soon.

I'm looking at any of the higher end cards, and finding them on amazon and newegg for around $210-$230.

 

-Gigabyte Windforce G1 Gaming

-EVGA SSC ACX 2.0 w/backplate

-Asus Strix

 

System noise is something that has recently started bugging me, so along with a CPU cooler upgrade, I'm aiming for a quieter card, and a quieter case, (looking at the Phantechs lineup, as well as the Fractal Define S.)

 

Which one of these GPU's is going to offer the best, quietest cooling, along with great overclocking potential? My research has lead me to these cards due to performance and sound volume.

 

Thanks!

[don_svetlio]

Buy a R9 380 for 170$ or a 380X for 240$
380 is 15% faster
380X is 25% faster

960 is a waste of money

[Ryoutarou97]

The best 4gb 960 is a 380.

[JazzleSAURUS]

I had been looking at the R9 380, but I do a lot of work with Solidworks and have had issues with stability with AMD, (then just ATI,) hardware in the past.

 

 

[FellTheSky]

lmao this forum never ever answers the topic just spam "get this card is better for x and y and bla bla bla"

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, JazzleSAURUS said:

I had been looking at the R9 380, but I do a lot of work with Solidworks and have had issues with stability with AMD, (then just ATI,) hardware in the past.

 

 

The 2009 horror stories are long over. Drivers are perfectly stable.

[Majestic]

1 minute ago, FellTheSky said:

lmao this forum never ever answers the topic just spam "get this card is better for x and y and bla bla bla"

 

And insult the people calling them out on it. It's the ultimate irony.

[Josephdalepi]

11 minutes ago, JazzleSAURUS said:

Hey guys,

 

I'm looking to purchase a GTX 960 in the 4gb flavor soon.

I'm looking at any of the higher end cards, and finding them on amazon and newegg for around $210-$230.

 

-Gigabyte Windforce G1 Gaming

-EVGA SSC ACX 2.0 w/backplate

-Asus Strix

 

System noise is something that has recently started bugging me, so along with a CPU cooler upgrade, I'm aiming for a quieter card, and a quieter case, (looking at the Phantechs lineup, as well as the Fractal Define S.)

 

Which one of these GPU's is going to offer the best, quietest cooling, along with great overclocking potential? My research has lead me to these cards due to performance and sound volume.

 

Thanks!

get the strix

has a fanless mode when not gaming

[JazzleSAURUS]

Just now, Josephdalepi said:

get the strix

has a fanless mode when not gaming

The Windforce also offers this feature, and the EVGA card claims to actually be silent, which I tend to believe, (as long as a single case fan is louder, I'm golden.)

 

Which card is going to run the coolest, and have the best overclocking potential?

[Majestic]

I think all those cards support fanless mode. The MSI one would have my vote, but if it's too expensive either EVGA or Gigabyte.

Don't but ASUS graphics cards, terrible warranty service.

 

EDIT: no card gives you overclocking guarantees. Eventhough Gigabyte claims to bin their G1 chips.

[JazzleSAURUS]

Just now, starcoaster said:

AMD's drivers are better now, not wonderful, but a LOT better

This still concerns me, then.

 

I spend about half my time at my PC in Solidworks, a quarter in Linux, (though my understanding is AMD has resolved the Linux driver issues,) and the other quarter losing in CS:GO/puttering around eBay.

[Josephdalepi]

1 minute ago, starcoaster said:

all of them do.

not native, and making it fanless voids warrenty

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, JazzleSAURUS said:

This still concerns me, then.

 

I spend about half my time at my PC in Solidworks, a quarter in Linux, (though my understanding is AMD has resolved the Linux driver issues,) and the other quarter losing in CS:GO/puttering around eBay.

In 5 years of using them I have only had a single crash.

I have ben using Nvidia for about 3 months on my laptop and have had to reinstall my OS cause of them. Fucked up the registry.

[GangstaRas]

5 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

okay, not to be a party-pooper, but don't bother

the 960 has a 128 bit memory bus, it was designed for 2GB of memory, consider the 750Ti and 950 have 128bit buses and 2GB memory (although there are 4GB versions of the 750Ti which, again, make no sense). 4GB on such a narrow bus will really screw with performance. Imagine putting two balls in a tube that's 2 balls wide, it works fine yeah? now put 4 in. you get a delay before you get all the balls through.

Get yourself a R9 380, there's 4GB on a big, fat, wide, juicy 256 bit memory bus for nice memory transfer speeds, using the ball analogy, it's like having a pipe that's 4 balls wide. Twice as wide as the 960. It's the same bus width that the GTX 980 uses. it's about the same price as a 960 for better performance.

While I get what you're saying there's something that doesn't add up to me. Back in the day 128 bit bus was carrying 256MB GPUs, putting 2GB on such a card back then would have been considered too narrow and insane but we're here with it now. No doubt the 960 is bandwidth starved, I have one myself and I see it in the memory OCs I do, linear gains per overclock, but I don't think bus width can be translated so easily especially across different architectures. It's just who is the better performer

[Majestic]

4 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

 

[Josephdalepi]

Just now, starcoaster said:

the SSC has a fanless mode, the Asus has a fanless mode, the MSI has a fanless mode, the only model that won't have a fanless mode are the cheap tacky ones and the reference model

also, warranties are for pussies

sometimes, worth it

and i wasnt aware that the others had fanless

thank you for the information!

i may have to mess with my builds now...

[JazzleSAURUS]

1 minute ago, starcoaster said:

okay, that was 2GB of GDDR3 yeah? that ran at much lower speeds, needing 2GB was also unheard of back then

now, there's GDDR5, which, utilising it's clockspeeds, can force a lot of data through a narrow bus, but with GDDR5, 4GB on a 128Bit is not going to yield great results.

Where exactly is the point of too much memory to actually make use of on a 128 Bit bus?

 

Is 2gb the cap? Or is it somewhere between the 2gb and 4gb cards?

[Majestic]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

In 5 years of using them I have only had a single crash.

I have ben using Nvidia for about 3 months on my laptop and have had to reinstall my OS cause of them. Fucked up the registry.

Anecdotal, we're talking driver CPU overhead not your personal incompetence.

3 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

honestly, AMD's drivers suck just as much as Nvidia's

You'll be fine

there's not many things that can't utilise OpenCL rendering

Nvidia is objectively better in Linux enviroment. And what drugs are you on when you say AMD's drivers are on par with nvidia's. 

AMD's drivers have way more issues with CPU overhead. They can only throughput 60% of the drawcalls compared to Nvidia.

 

PS:

JEZUS fucking christ the new quoting system sucks. Couldn't get rid of that previous quote, nor could I type anything.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, JazzleSAURUS said:

Where exactly is the point of too much memory to actually make use of on a 128 Bit bus?

 

Is 2gb the cap? Or is it somewhere between the 2gb and 4gb cards?

2GB is as high as a 128-bit bus can support without any major bottlenecking.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Majestic said:

Anecdotal, we're talking driver CPU overhead not your personal incompetence.

Nvidia is objectively better in Linux enviroment. And what drugs are you on when you say AMD's drivers are on par with nvidia's. 

AMD's drivers have way more issues with CPU overhead. They can only throughput 60% of the drawcalls compared to Nvidia.

 

PS:

JEZUS fucking christ the new quoting system sucks. Couldn't get rid of that previous quote, nor could I type anything.

There you go insulting people again. I wish you weren't so toxic, then maybe people would listen to you...

[Majestic]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

2GB is as high as a 128-bit bus can support without any major bottlenecking.

 

Horseshit.

[Majestic]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

There you go insulting people again. I wish you weren't so toxic, then maybe people would listen to you...

You keep bringing up anecdotal evidence, and the same one at that (seen you use that multiple times). Look in the mirror, it's you who's the problem.

 

You and your buddies effectively crash ALL topics with "get an AMD instead". And then wonder why people become hostile.

 

No fucking self-awareness. At all.

[GangstaRas]

2 minutes ago, JazzleSAURUS said:

Where exactly is the point of too much memory to actually make use of on a 128 Bit bus?

 

Is 2gb the cap? Or is it somewhere between the 2gb and 4gb cards?

Exactly my point, I'm glad I'm not the only one that saw the trend

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Majestic said:

You keep bringing up anecdotal evidence, and the same one at that (seen you use that multiple times). Look in the mirror, it's you who's the problem.

 

You and your buddies effectively crash ALL topics with "get an AMD instead". And then wonder why people become hostile.

 

No fucking self-awareness. At all.

Someone has a different opinion = problem. Way to sound like Stalin

[JazzleSAURUS]

Welp, I definitely struck a nerve by asking about 960's. Yikes.