GTX 960 My disappointment and mistake

[VicBar]

I actually bought it thinking it was the 4gb and when i got it i was disappointed but when I got to playing CivV, TorchlightII, SW:ToR, SMITE etc.. without a problem i was pretty happy. Also the used Strix was in prefect condition and even had the sticker in the box ($W4G)...

I guess i never see problems because what I play is not really demanding GPU-wise.. also kinda old games. I don't have a 1080p monitor so there is also that.. but I am going into 3d modeling soon and I actually have a dual set-up monitor using both the igx and the 960, so my programming sessions have become more productive!

 

Anyway storytime over.. the benchmark is in..

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2899665

doesn't look good.. let me re-run it with the OC Strix can handle... CPU not Oc'd, ofc its an i5-6500

[Antipathy17]

That's nice. I am considering throwing in another gtx 960 because I wont be upgrading to 1440p or 4k gaming this year. I am also considering getting a gtx 1060. I would prefer a 1060 over the dual 960 but I like you, don't have funds readily available. My choice though : / I disagree with society

[Antipathy17]

8 minutes ago, VicBar said:

"""""""

Anyway storytime over.. the benchmark is in..

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2899665

doesn't look good.. let me re-run it with the OC Strix can handle... CPU not Oc'd, ofc its an i5-6500""""""''

 

I am very surprised with the results. I am guessing if we had something more memory oriented, you'd do better than me. Keep in mind my benchmark was the highest OC I've been able to run stable. I can't get my voltage to go past +37mV. @65% fan speed my OC runs 100% at 75 degrees. I'd like to get the voltage higher to see what I can do but precision doesn't let me. 

[VicBar]

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2899665

Not very much better, but the highest clock speed on the GPU was higher. Anyway.. Straight down the middle with perfomance comparisons.. I didn't expect it to shine incredibly but playing Just Cause 2 with everything maxxed, and any other game so far is pretty sweet. You can see the diff in perf with the igx.

GPU Tweak II let me crank up everthing to the highest it'll allow:

clock 1143MHz

Voltage 1213mv (+50)E

FAN on auto..

I remember I ran the 3d mark when it came out:

http://www.3dmark.com/vrpor/26202

Not VR ready obviously.. still interesting tho.

Anyway keep shooting higher. SLI is riddles with problems IMO you're better off with a 1060. My plans for the future are to get a i7 to overclock it or check Ryzen out and go HAM.

[cpuwaiy]

12 minutes ago, Antipathy17 said:

 

I am very surprised with the results. I am guessing if we had something more memory oriented, you'd do better than me. Keep in mind my benchmark was the highest OC I've been able to run stable. I can't get my voltage to go past +37mV. @65% fan speed my OC runs 100% at 75 degrees. I'd like to get the voltage higher to see what I can do but precision doesn't let me. 

Well the 660 has a 192 bit memory bus vs the 128 bit bus on the 960.  

 

http://www.hwcompare.com/18432/geforce-gtx-660-vs-geforce-gtx-960/

 

[Antipathy17]

1243mV is the highest it lets me go but I guess I got the GTX 960 lottery, I can run it stable at 1504. I'll run the bench you did and post when it's complete. 

[VicBar]

Ok got my best run now.. The results had said there was background cpu (noise i guess) so I closed all my apps.. It freaked me out a bit that a 6th gen i5 would lose so harshly to a 3rd gen i5. Also managed to push the GPU slightly more (+5% in the benchmark)..

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2899917

[Antipathy17]

My i5-3470 is nice but the OC on the bus instead of the multiplier is king for this processor. IF you can manage it. I was looking into the 6500 but decided not to upgrade because the performance isn't where it needs to be for me to spend the same as I did on this one. Actually the performance on it is far worse than you'd expect for a new gen processor at the same price I bought mine. 

 

 

Here is my benchmark for Orange room:

http://www.3dmark.com/vrm/18140291

http://www.3dmark.com/vrm/18140162

 My oc is 

http://imgur.com/a/IzCQh

 

 

My strong OC seems to put me ahead of you but I'd guess if you and I were to play GTA V together, you'd get much better FPS.

[Antipathy17]

55 minutes ago, cpuwaiy said:

Well the 660 has a 192 bit memory bus vs the 128 bit bus on the 960.  

 

http://www.hwcompare.com/18432/geforce-gtx-660-vs-geforce-gtx-960/

 

Oh I know what you mean but we are referring to our 960's atm. 

[Antipathy17]

Overall I guess I am disappointed I trusted Nvidia to release a card 2 generations newer with the same kind of performance increase they gave from previous generations, averaging around 25% increase. Not the 4% increase the 960 got from the 760

[aisle9]

I've got an EVGA 960 SSC 4GB. What attracted me to it over the 7970, 280, 280X, 380, 380X or any of the other AMD cards that would have been better? Noise and power consumption. In retrospect, it was a poor choice, but it's still a good card. Mine has since been replaced by a GTX 1070 and is getting ready to go into another build I'm putting the pieces for together.

 

In truth, unless you're trying to play high-end AAA titles like Witcher 3, like Crysis 3, like GTA V at 1080p ultra, a GTX 960 is probably enough for just about anyone. The 4GB version definitely helps in GTA V, even if you can't crank the details all the way to max ands rack up anti-aliasing. Consider this: a Sapphire 7970, which my wife has and loves, uses 300W of power under load. 300W! And when that thing gets warmed up (so, when the monitor is on), it gets loud keeping those 300W under control. Meanwhile, the 960 was damn near whisper quiet, even running at full load, and I couldn't get the thing above 80C no matter how low I set the fan curve and how far I overclocked it.

 

...which wasn't far. My 960 is a terrible overclocker. Even +50MHz on the core, regardless of voltage added, would break games.

[Antipathy17]

The 960 is amazing for a power consumption / heat card but performance, I let myself think I would see more out of it than just a more efficient 760. I like nvidia as a company but I am bothered about this. My fault or not, the company evaluated my cards possibilities and said "sure" to it. Fault is mostly my own but that doesn't mean we shouldn't seek fault elsewhere if it possibly exists. I'd say this is 80% my fault 20% deceptive practice  but I just dont want to feel like a fool HAHAHA. too late

 

 

ps I can oc mine 125 core and 300 mem no problem but when I push it, voltages get shotty at the max 1243mV

[AlTech]

8 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

I feel in the obligation to point out I went from the GTX 560ti to the Titan X, huge jump, loved my 560ti all the GTA IV, Counter-strike, LoL, MirrorsEdge, Amnesia and a whole bunch of other games she managed to serve me good

 

8 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

I believe the 960 must be heck of card still by today,

I'm gonna be quite honest here.

 

I've heard that the 960 AT BEST can be as good as a GTX 680/770. Which in turn is about as good as a 1050.....

 

At worst, you can probably expect around something slightly lower. The GTX 960 is not a good buy for someone with a 760 let alone a 660.

 

8 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Ultras is cool, I am having a fun time myself right now while I still can with mine, but in no way would it bother me going lower, you can safely jump 2 or three gens before the true need of buying a new card if you do enough research and know what to expect at the moment of your purchase.

Research is critical. See above ^^^^

[i_build_nanosuits]

10 hours ago, Antipathy17 said:

Hello all. I am a gamer and a complainer =D

snip!

...i feel you, when it launched we were all in awe at how weak the GTX 960 was

i've never recommended one to anybody simply because it's barely faster than a GTX 760 and quite a bit slower than what AMD had at the time to compete with this card (R9 280/285/280X/ HD7950/7970)

[Antipathy17]

Thanks for the chat guys.

[typographie]

13 hours ago, Antipathy17 said:

My own disappointments aside, The gtx 960 barely performed over the 660 let alone the 760.

There are a lot of possible explanations for this: something wrong with your 960, something wrong with something else in your system, driver issues, playing poorly optimized games, or even just unrealistic expectations.

 

http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-960-2GB-Review-GM206-199

Here are some launch day reviews of the 960, benchmarked alongside the 760 and some other relevant cards. The improvement is not massive, but this is the kind of difference one can usually expect from one generation's x60 card to the next at approximately the same price.

[Daniel Z.]

On 2/21/2017 at 6:23 PM, Antipathy17 said:

Btw This thread was more than I ever expected it to be. I might have to start coming here instead of tomshardware. 

How did you get such high clocks on your GPU? mine goes unstable at 35 mhz above stock

[Antipathy17]

I am not really sure, I bought the ITX version which had much higher clocks than any other version available on newegg.com

[Zodiark1593]

Back in August of 2015, I got my 2 GB model for $165. I wanted 4 GB, but an equivalent 4 GB model went closer to $220. And the 970 exceeded my GPU budget of $250. (needed a CUDA card, otherwise I'd have gotten an AMD card). 

 

For most of my games, the card does fine. The most demanding game in my repertoire is Tomb Raider. 

[ShampooCA]

Don't be disappointed, it's a regular thing with Nvidia over the past couple of generations.

 

Also, blame the developers. So may games from 2010 to now are NOT optimized, and run like shit.  I don't know how people BS so much on online forums reporting silky smooth framerates with lesser hardware.

 

Case in point, I bought a GTX1070 this past summer, and I was expecting silky smooth framerates with no studder on older titles like Borderlands 2 & Skyrim.

NOPE!  I got a big middle finger from my rig.  Everything is running healthy and fine, no issues.  Some titles need tinkering to get them to run OK, but even then I was still getting massive frame drops in Borderlands 2, down into the 40s with a GTX1070 on a Z77 platform with an i7-3770@4.1-4.3GHz & 16GB of 2400MHz DDR3 RAM.

I was left scratching my head.  I mean, I was playing this game on my old GTX660 & GTX670 with similar results.  Tell me about being disappointed.

 

Same thing with Fallout 4 & Skyrim/Skyrim SE.  Drops below 60fps that I could feel, and see.  It's irritating.  Especially when I'd read about all these people saying yeah smooth! No problems! etc., and review sites reporting minimum framerates of 60+, BULL.  Depends on what parts of the game you're running through.

 

Then I picked up an RX 480 for my HTPC, and ran a few benchmarks & played some games on the same rig, and my lord, to my eyes, it was smoother in Battlefield 1, with lower framerates, but it wasn't as jittery, no judder.  SHOCKED.

 

There's lot of tinkering required these days with software titles, not that there wasn't before back in the day, but I think all of us need to be more honest when sharing our experiences, so others can benefit from it.

 

That's my piece.  

OH, newer videocards seem to run older titles terribly, talk about optimization, but run newer titles very well.  Go figure.