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NVIDIA Launches New Midrange Maxwell-Based GeForce GTX 960 Graphics Card

Posted by samzenpus on from the looking-good dept.

MojoKid writes NVIDIA is launching a new Maxwell desktop graphics card today, targeted at the sweet spot of the graphics card market ($200 or so), currently occupied by its previous gen GeForce GTX 760 and older GTX 660. The new GeForce GTX 960 features a brand new Maxwell-based GPU dubbed the GM206. NVIDIA was able to optimize the GM206's power efficiency without moving to a new process, by tweaking virtually every part of the GPU. NVIDIA's reference specifications for the GeForce GTX 960 call for a base clock of 1126MHz and a Boost clock of 1178MHz. The GPU is packing 1024 CUDA cores, 64 texture units, and 32 ROPs, which is half of what's inside their top-end GeForce GTX 980. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory on GeForce GTX 960 cards is clocked at a speedy 7GHz (effective GDDR5 data rate) over a 128-bit memory interface. The new GeForce GTX 960 is a low-power upgrade for gamers with GeForce GTX 660 class cards or older that make up a good percentage of the market now. It's usually faster than the previous generation GeForce GTX 760 card but, depending on the game title, can trail it as well, due to its narrower memory interface.

114 comments

  1. What is a cuda core? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is that one processor or a collection ?

    1. Re:What is a cuda core? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1, Informative

      is that one processor or a collection ?

      Each "CUDA core" is a single processor, which can run a CUDA instance, or an OpenCL instance, or run a shading algorithm. The card has 1024 of them.

    2. Re:What is a cuda core? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did read the cuda wiki page before I posted. I read in other places also about "stream multi processors" and "stream processors". So your answer clarified it. Thanks, Bill.

    3. Re:What is a cuda core? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 2

      No, a CUDA core is better thought of an ALU or sub-ALU, speaking in terms of cores is clear abuse because AMD or nvidia once started to use that term. As a limited analogy, the original Pentium has two integer pipelines but is not called a dual-core CPU.

      "CUDA cores" are organised into units that house 128 of them here, called an "SMM". But to understand how things are dealt with from the software point of view (threads, warps) some extensive reading is needed.

    4. Re:What is a cuda core? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's an irrelevant piece of marketing.

      Whatever "cores" a GPU has, has no equivilent in CPU cores. It's how many parallel operations the GPU can do from one CPU instruction telling it to do something. It's like comparing the ALU's or FPU in a CPU instead of the full die that represents a single core. You can have 10,000 ALU's, but you'll only able to use 2 or 4 without there being the necessary parallelism in the rest of the real core. When you pair slow memory with narrow bandwidth or put the GPU card itself on PCIe slots with less lanes or previous generation's, you also commit cardinal sins of GPU performance loss.

      Under ideal circumstances, your CPU, GPU and the RAM on each will be the maximum size and maximum width (in bits) that the system supports. In most cases a CPU or GPU vendor wanting to save a few pennies will switch 19ns memory for 24ns memory and you end up losing 20% of the performance in the process. You may still have 1024 cuda cores, but they will have to spend more time waiting for slower memory.

    5. Re:What is a cuda core? by billstewart · · Score: 1

      Cool. Our research folks at $DAYJOB have been building GPU-computing clouds, and have found that for many workloads, the GTX 750i was extremely cost-effective (that's the predecessor to this card, and costs include the server you plug it into and electricity as well as the graphics card), compared to much higher-end computation-focused systems. But they bought their lab hardware months ago; this looks to be about 50% faster, for a slightly higher price, so that's a win.

      --

      Bill Stewart
      New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    6. Re:What is a cuda core? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thanks to you these fat lazy fuckers will never learn how to google

      Says a guy who does not bother with proper punctuation or capital letters. Who's the fat lazy fucker?

    7. Re:What is a cuda core? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      A CUDA core is basically an active hardware thread [pool.]

      For example my GTX Titan has 2,688 CUDA Cores.

      This number is derived from:

      Streaming Multiprocessors: 14
        * 192 Cores/SM
      ====
      2,688 Cores

      In practice that means you have 2,688 threads doing "real work" at any one time.

      See this SO question/answer
      http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

    8. Re:What is a cuda core? by bythescruff · · Score: 2

      This is incorrect. CUDA cores are at a higher level than ALUs or FPUs; they're like small, simple cpu cores. They can do integer and floating point arithmetic, and they have hardware support for thread context switching, which they can generally do in a single clock tick. There can be varying numbers of CUDA cores in a streaming multiprocessor, but CUDA thread blocks are arranged in groups of 32 ("warps") which share a scheduling unit and which execute the same instruction in lock-step on different memory addresses. When threads running on adjacent CUDA cores read and write adjacent memory addresses, memory access is very efficient ("coalescing").

      CUDA cores aren't as capable or powerful as CPU cores; they don't have things like branch prediction or preemptive execution, but they are cores none the less. They achieve high performance via sheer numbers - thousands of cores on top-end GPUs - and they're very good at streaming, which consists of doing the same operation in parallel on many array elements when each operation is independent of all the others.

      --
      Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
  2. Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    My "sweet spot" is $100, with perhaps $20 fudge factor for impatience and/or shipping. Hence, I am now running an Asus 450 GTS OC 1GB. If I were to buy a card today, which one would I buy assuming I weren't even considering throwing away money on an ATI card?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd try to get a 750 Ti with that budget, but you'd probably end up with a 750.

      I don't think Nvidia has made up a 950 yet.

    2. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by slaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You might be able to find a Geforce 750 for $125 or so. They're adequate but definitely not ideal for 1920x1080 in most PC games. They're also ridiculously efficient; they don't even need an extra PCIe power connection.
      If anyone tells me they want to game on a PC and don't immediately mention a game with a more serious demand, that's the hardware I use.

      I generally prefer ATI hardware because I think nVidia's stock cooling kills graphics cards and I'd rather deal with crappy drivers, but the current ATI hardware is a complete non-starter. There's really no level at all where it can be justified.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    3. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by mc6809e · · Score: 4, Informative

      Personally I love the GTX 750. It gives the biggest bang-for-the-buck and running at about 55 watts max or so it usually doesn't require a larger power supply. It can run completely off motherboard power going to a 16-lane 75 watt PCIe slot.

      It's the perfect card for rescuing old systems from obsolescence, IMO.

      The only trouble you might have is finding a single-slot-wide card if your system doesn't have room for a double slot card, though in my case I found a double-slot card that I could modify to fit in a single-slot of an old Core 2 Duo E8500 system.

      And heat doesn't seem to be a problem at all, even with the mod I did. The low power of the card means less heat. Even if heat becomes a problem, the card is capable of slowly clocking itself down, though I've never seen that yet, even running Furmark.

    4. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There isn't a good answer to that without knowing your intended use, people will recommend all sorts of cards but it all depends on why you are upgrading and what you are playing. Hell I just DOWNGRADED a friends machine as he didn't play high end games and his card was just a noisy heat generating waste in his machine. I put a $70 GT 730 in which is more than adequate for gaming for someone not playing high end graphics games. for about $120 you will get an R7 260x or a GTX 750.

    5. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Tom's hardware has the latest Jan update for graphics comparisons. The R7 260x is best bang for buck but the 750ti is not quite as good value but as you don't like ATI it may be a better choice. All really comes down to why you are upgrading and what you play though.
      http://www.tomshardware.com/re...

    6. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by idealego · · Score: 1

      I managed to get a GTX 750 Ti for about $80 USD (I price matched it at $120 CAD and it had a $20 MIR, so it ended up being $100 CAD plus tax).

      I bought it because my old 6850 wasn't running Far Cry 4 all that well. The GTX 750 Ti runs it like a champ at 1080P with settings between medium and high. Huge performance increase over the 6850, it's much quieter, doesn't need an external power connector, and I even sold my old card to someone for $70.

    7. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Jumunquo · · Score: 1

      Geforce 750 should be able to run 1920x1080 at high settings on most games, so I would say it's ideal. I run 2560x1440 on a Geforce 660, medium and sometimes medium-high settings no problem.

    8. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll throw in my vote for the 750ti as well. I upgraded from a 460GTX and I have been quite happy with it. I also absolutely love that it is a smaller card that require less power to run.

    9. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by epyT-R · · Score: 2

      Yes, if you're happy chugging along at 20-35fps with dips into the low teens.

    10. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think you understand what the numbers mean. x50 and below (450, 650, 630, etc) are workstation kind of cards. Good for web browsing and regular desktop stuff. The x60 and up cards are for gaming (460, 760, 980, etc). As a result, your 660 will handle games better than a 750, even though it is a newer generation.

    11. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just put some money to the side for a few months, and get the 960. The problem with buying the dirt-cheap $100 cards is that they have no resale value. The mid-range and higher cards, on the other hand, can resell a year later without a problem due to people looking to upgrade on the cheap through SLI.

      So spend the $200 now and enjoy some decent graphics quality, and sell it on craigslist next year for $125 to upgrade to next years mid-range card.

    12. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He seems to understand it perfectly well. performance wise both the 750 and 660 are similar with the 660 a little ahead but the 660 comes at a price premium. the 750 already is a little over the $100 budget mentioned, the 660 blows that budget completely. 750 is excellent in the bang for buck range, the 660 less so and is overkill for many people.

    13. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sooo rather than spend $100 every few years you are proposing put down double the amount upfront and spending on average $75 EVERY year to have slightly better graphics. You don't seem to understand the concept of value for money or people that don't value high end graphics enough to want to double or triple their spending to increase it.

    14. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 750 is a Maxwell card, so it may as well be treated as a 950. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually rebrand it as a 950 like they often do.

    15. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by KamikazeSquid · · Score: 1

      Psh. I spent $500 on my GTX 780ti. I have no regrets.

    16. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Salgat · · Score: 1

      I use a 750 Ti on a setup with 3 monitors (main being 1440p) and runs my games just fine on high settings, including WoW, LoL, Skyrim, Civ 5, and a few others. It's more the sufficient for most gaming on a budget, even at higher resolutions.

    17. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by gman003 · · Score: 1

      I generally prefer ATI hardware because I think nVidia's stock cooling kills graphics cards and I'd rather deal with crappy drivers, but the current ATI hardware is a complete non-starter. There's really no level at all where it can be justified.

      Well, yeah, because ATI doesn't exist anymore, even as a brand. AMD bought them in 2006 and retired the brand in 2010. The last ATI card was the 5870 Eyefinity Edition, which packs about as much punch as this 960, but in a card with the size, noise and power draw of a top-end card. Everything since has been AMD.

      I know exactly what you meant, and I even agree with you on your points, it's just hard to take those points seriously when you're using a half-decade-old name.

    18. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the current ATI hardware is a complete non-starter. There's really no level at all where it can be justified."

      That's simply not true unless you're talking about edge cases like gaming on Linux.

    19. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      That's simply not true unless you're talking about edge cases like gaming on Linux.

      It so happens that I game on Linux.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a former ATI employee, I think many will join me in lamenting its demise. Was a great place to work, and I enjoyed contributing to some cool products.

      As a former AMD employee (as per the buy-out), all I can say is AMD sucked. First the "green" management couldn't get a product to production, year after year after year. Now they're trying to play as a mostly "red" team, and unfortunately don't have half the staff that made ATI work well. Rory was just weirdly goofy, and sometimes bizarrely candid with the staff ("we're thinking of laying a bunch of you off" [paraphrase]). He even told Jensen that he was "going to kick [his] ass" in the market. Yeah, that happened... Lisa always talked the good talk (to the staff) as GM, but somehow always things came up a bit short, and after noticing that for a few quarters, it started to seem as if she was stretching the truth and double-talking a bit. Since she was largely driving things as GM, expect little to change with her as CEO. AMD still sucks

      As a current nVidia employee, I look back fondly and wistfully at my time at ATI, but recognize that nothing lasts forever. nVidia is where ATI friends and fans should end up, IMHO. It's far closer to the ATI spirit than AMD ever was or could ever be. And to folks who keep referring to AMD's graphics group as ATI, know that we all wish it were so, but you've got to accept reality. ATI is dead, and AMD really hasn't picked up the torch.

      Ok, done rambling, it's bedtime...

    21. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Right now the GT750 is the best price/performance. Save the $25 to $35 bucks just isn't worth it in the case if you are a gamer.

      If you are not a gamer, then sure.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    22. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Torp · · Score: 1

      Aye aye. AMD drivers have been shit on Linux for like forever. Your only option there is to get a NVidia card. If it draws less power than the competition like now, it's even better.

      --
      I apologize for the lack of a signature.
    23. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to have a 750, had no lags whatsoever, neither in Vice City nor San Andreas.

    24. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And heat doesn't seem to be a problem at all, even with the mod I did. The low power of the card means less heat. Even if heat becomes a problem, the card is capable of slowly clocking itself down, though I've never seen that yet, even running Furmark.

      You are not overclocking it enough then. I run my GTX 750 Ti at 1360MHz, 6020Mhz effective memory clock and it does clock down in Furmark for reaching max TDP (increased by BIOS mod), max voltage or max temp.

    25. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I agree with you in almost every way (I generally don't prefer ATI though).

      ATI certianly has the advantage when it comes to multiple screens, I recently had to setup a video wall running 12 displays from a single PC.

      ATI firepro's can get you 6 displays per card at 1080p, quadro you're limited to 4 per card unfortunately and tend to cost 2-3x as much as the equivilent firepro's.

      I'm definitely an nVidia fan, but ATI have the market with 4+ display workstations, hands down.

    26. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I don't think you understand what the numbers mean. x50 and below (450, 650, 630, etc) are workstation kind of cards. Good for web browsing and regular desktop stuff.

      I don't think YOU understand the target market or numbers. Workstations that do web browsing and regular desktop stuff don't need standalone cards, they use integrated graphics.

      The x00, x10 x20, x30, x40 cards are for those who have some use for better 3D hardware than just browsing and "regular desktop stuff", but not enough to require a higher end card. "Light gaming" like Minecraft, some F2P MMO's or HTPC use. That's why those cards are popular amongst Linux users.

    27. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Yes, if you're happy chugging along at 20-35fps with dips into the low teens.

      If you know what I mean.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    28. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by DG · · Score: 1

      That's no longer true.

      The Catalyst drivers have made *huge* gains over the past year to year and a half, both in terms of performance and stability.

      Civ V and the recent Civ-BE preview run just fine on my HD 7870.

      --
      Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
    29. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Yeah, any card released in the last five years should be awesome for games released before 2005, so if those are the games you want to play then save your money and see how the onboard graphics cope with them before even buying a dedicated graphics card.

      My year old graphics card is still coping fine with games released in the past few months at full detail and 2560x1440, so that gives you an idea of how far ahead of the current game demands the graphics cards are. 1920x1080 gaming is comparatively extremely cheap these days.

    30. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by blackomegax · · Score: 1

      No they haven't. Speaking from the use of 14.10 with latest as of today, it sucks balls on my APU. Open drivers still work great but lack OpenCL. I wish I had nvidia...

    31. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i get this is a midrange card, but damnit, 1920x1080 sucks. it really, really does. so does ~2560x1440 (save for the sony gdm-fw900). lots of people have ~1080p, so odds are, people'll think this is a shit post; people generally dont want to be told their shit sucks, regardless of merit. or people'll dismiss the post for its presentation rather than content (or some AC prejudice BS). sad, really.

      if you really want to appreciate the art assets of current gen games instead of merely "barely getting by", buy a GPU with around 3GB of VRAM and a wide bus (128-bit? are you kidding me??), then downsample like a mofo. its really the only reliable way to largely clean up most console ports. the results can be drastic, and you dont need a ton of power to do this, just power in the right components; a moderately OC'ed gtx 580 is still plenty powerful to downsample the crap out of most current games. then any extra juice goes toward SMAA, transparency supersampling, AF, etc.

      getting ass performance? lower shadow res and ambient occlusion - two traditional performance black holes.

      reading it all as "1080p sucks blah blah blah"? if youre used to 1080p go play at 1600x900 for a while.

    32. Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong.

      GeForce GTX 660
      960 cores
      80 TMUs
      24 ROPs
      192-bit bus
      2 to 3 GB VRAM

      GeForce GTX 750
      512 cores
      32 TMUs
      16 ROPs
      128-bit bus
      1 GB VRAM

      The 660 is significantly more powerful than the 750.

  3. Midrange? by rcht148 · · Score: 1

    I think the 'range' depends on what resolution you are playing at..
    For 3840x2160 - Low end
    For 2560x1440 - 'Midrange'
    For 1920x1080 - High end

    1. Re:Midrange? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      For 3840x2160 - Low end

      Are there any good monitors at that resolution though? I bought a pair of 27" screens this holiday season and ended up opting for 2560x1440 because 3840x2160 were all terrible for gaming; with pretty much any video card it seemed.

      So if you are going to shell out for a top-line nvidia card... what monitor are you pairing it with? A 30Hz QuadHD monitor with high lags, and latency?

      I don't get the logic of that.

      I couldn't find a good 3840x2160 screen that was remotely any good at least at the price ranges I was looking at? How much do you have to spend to get a good 4K screen - that's decent build quality, decent at gaming, and decent at picture quality?

      I know they are -coming- but what is actually HERE?

    2. Re:Midrange? by PIBM · · Score: 1

      2 of my friends bought 40" 4K samsung tvs (hu7000) on black friday for around $600. I find that the size is just perfect, coming from multiple 30" 2560x1600. The colors were a bit off, but it had not been calibrated. The intensity was adjustable to a working range, and playing Battlefield 4 on it was fast enough to finish 1st on a 64 people pistols only hardcore server :) Last I heard they haven't been able to get 4:4:4 working but it's supposed to get fixed by a firmware upgrade.

    3. Re:Midrange? by zlives · · Score: 1

      i have an asus 4k monitor, 1 ms gtg 60hz on displayport. works pretty well though for gaming i am still using 2560 on a single 980gtx.

    4. Re:Midrange? by rcht148 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I never said that I'm using 4k.
      After your response I think my original comment might make me look like a resolution whore.
      My point was NOT that the card should be labeled low end because of 4k. Rather, it should be labeled high end.
      I play at 1920x1080 resolution. So from my perspective, the card is high end.
      It's just that cards get labeled based on series (like Nvidia x60 series is mid-end) which is primarily based on price.
      When there are graphics cards available from $30-3000, the low, mid and high end will be different based on a person's usage and perspective.

      My point was that for vast majority of people (according to Steam Hardware survey: > 98%) who would be gaming at 1920x1080 or less, this card would be high end.
      (Note to self: Well done on conveying exactly opposite of what you are trying to say without using sarcasm, negation or typos)

    5. Re:Midrange? by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      It really depends on the game and your expectations for minimum framerate. If you want lots of gfx detail and high minimums, 1920x1080 still requires high end graphics.

    6. Re:Midrange? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      i have an asus 4k monitor, 1 ms gtg 60hz on displayport

      1ms gtg though means TN display right? If performance / gaming is your primary and only driving consideration that's fine.

      But I wanted something that does better with picture quality and color representation than a TN will deliver. I ended up with Asus as well but selected a 27" QHD PLS based panel; (the pair of which so far I'm very happy with.)

      But I know they'll be obsoleted with really good 4K stuff soon.

      Still the fact that you are choosing to game at 2560 on 980GTX (a better card than I have) says a lot too (not about you personally; but about the current state of UHD gaming).

    7. Re:Midrange? by smallfries · · Score: 1

      I'm using an Asus PB287Q with a GTX970. It sits on the boundary, so Elite Dangerous and Wolfenstein are comfortable in 4k. Far Cry and Metro need to drop to 2560x1440 to hit 50-60fps. Anything under 40fps is unplayable on this combo, not so much to do with looking bad, it feels like the input lag jumps below that rate.

      The monitor looks alright at 1440p, a little soft and washed out but still better than my previous monitors in their native modes. In 4k the picture is unbelievable. At this size and sitting about 50cm from the screen it has a cinematic feel, but 1080p is painful to watch.

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
    8. Re:Midrange? by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Nah, it means that Nvidia offer a range of graphics cards for gaming, and this one is not "cheap and nasty" and it's not "top end". It's sort of near the middle of the range.

    9. Re:Midrange? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      Asus PB287Q with a GTX970

      Yeah, that's a TN panel. It's good for gaming; as it gets the response times etc where they need to be, but its not really suitable for anything that requires an accurate color space; which was one of my requirements.

      It's also telling that even with a GTX970 you are finding running at 4k to be a bit hit and miss.

      1080p is painful to watch.

      And that's unfortunate too because 99% of content is not available yet for QHD / UHD so your going to be looking at a lot of 1080p content for a while yet.

      I'd rather have QHD panel (2560x1440) and be able to run everything at native, have an accurate color space due to it not being TN (I ended up with a PLS display this round; and had IPS units previously) ~and~ its not as fast as a TN panel, but its still good enough for games.

      Im glad your out there blazing the trail for us. But I just don't think 4k is really here quite yet.

    10. Re:Midrange? by zlives · · Score: 1

      "choosing to game at 256" the screen size comes into play. i would play 4k with maybe a 32+ inch screen but then it may be too close for a desktop experience. I output to a 4k projector if I truly need color corrected picture quality, plus my old eyes really appreciate the beauty of high res but at a much bigger screen.

    11. Re:Midrange? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      the screen size comes into play. i would play 4k with maybe a 32+ inch screen but then it may be too close for a desktop experience. I output to a 4k projector if I truly need color corrected picture quality, plus my old eyes really appreciate the beauty of high res but at a much bigger screen.

      I don't get this at all. The only reasons ever not to game at the screens native resolution is

      a) due to framerate losses due to pushing more pixels

      b) due to poor game designs where the fonts become unread-ably small because they are fixed pixel size instead of scaled.

      If your down sizing because of framerate on a 970GTX; that tells me that video cards really aren't ready to push 4K yet.

      If your down sizing because of readability and font issues; that tells me that the games themselves aren't really 4K ready yet.

      Or perhaps a combination of both issues; depending on which game we are looking at.

      Either way, it tells me that 4K isn't really quite "there" yet for gamers.

    12. Re:Midrange? by zlives · · Score: 1

      in one game wasteland2 4k native is too small for me/my eyes so i stick with 2560
      the other game StarCitizen 4k looks beautiful but game is in dev, needs optimization and even then i will need a second 980gtx and maybe a third because the game can use what you throw at it.

  4. Slashdot affiliated with Hothardware by edxwelch · · Score: 2

    There are other, better reviews for this card, for instance Tom's hardware, but every single hardware review story on Slashdot seems to be obliged to link to Hothardware.
    So, which editor own's Hothardware shares?

    1. Re:Slashdot affiliated with Hothardware by rahvin112 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Tom's a whore, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the ranking or quality of the product in his reviews is impacted by the amount of money he was paid. Some of the recommended products he's had over the years to me indicate that the site's "approval" is for sale. I haven't been there is years so it might have changed but once someone sells out you shouldn't trust them again.

    2. Re:Slashdot affiliated with Hothardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at MojoKid's post history. Basically all he does is submit stories to hothardware. I think it's safe to assume he's affiliated with them somehow.

    3. Re:Slashdot affiliated with Hothardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tomshardware has been a vendor sellout since 2000. Their 'reviews' are only slightly better than cnet.

  5. Some people say it's too pricy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Mid-range Nvidia cards alway seem to launch a little expensive. There's always an older model from AMD that's got a better value on paper.

    But I'd take this in a heartbeat over an AMD counterpart. The maxwell chips are leagues ahead of anything AMD's got. Very low power consumption and solid performance with great features. Maxwell is a huge leap over their previous offerings. Cards that are 150% faster while consuming 60% less energy than their previous generation counterparts.

    "AMD has shitty drivers" is an old meme but at this point I'd say the Nvidia software stack is currently far superior to AMD's offerings. I've cards from both vendors and AMD's 'Suite' (raptr) is a pain in the ass and is playing catch-up to Nvidia's counterpart (Geforce Experience) - Yeah you don't need the suite but they make software updates easy, and can help less experienced users configure their software. They also include nice things like free game recording and streaming software. (And in Nvidia's case it's required to stream games to a Shield handheld or tablet)

    A legit complaint I can see is 2GB of memory. Modern games are starting to crave lots of memory. I suspect Nvidia may be gating that feature in higher tier SKUs, or maybe we'll see 4GB cards not long after launch.

    1. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by sd4f · · Score: 1

      I decided to go nvidia this round, had issues with my previous AMD gpu where certain functions didn't work properly. The one that annoyed me the most was that I have a 1920x1200 monitor, which is an older model that won't do 1:1 pixel scaling, so if a 1920x1080 signal gets fed, it will stretch it to full screen. The AMD software could be set to maintain the aspect ratio, so it didn't bother me, after a certain update, that feature stopped working, and no matter how hard I tried, it would always stretch the display. Using nvidia now, and able to get the letterboxed image again.

      GPU's are easy to change, 16:10 monitors not so much. There's no way I'm departing from 16:10!

    2. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by epyT-R · · Score: 2

      It might be an old meme, but it's still true, especially for opengl. Their d3d is ok if you plan to run the games tweaked in that particular version of the driver.

    3. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by mc6809e · · Score: 1

      But I'd take this in a heartbeat over an AMD counterpart. The maxwell chips are leagues ahead of anything AMD's got.

      WIth one exception: the R9 280x when used for DP floating point compute.

      For about $250 you can get an R9 280x that in one second will do one trillion double precision floating point operations. That's about 10x faster than the Maxwell cards.

      With such a card AMD should have had the scientist/engineer space for GPGPU locked up by now.

      But, you know, they're AMD, so...

    4. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by WheezyJoe · · Score: 1

      GPU's are easy to change, 16:10 monitors not so much. There's no way I'm departing from 16:10!

      This. Love my 16:10's. Getting harder and harder to find, so can only hope they keep holding up.

      --
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    5. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by Cederic · · Score: 1

      A legit complaint I can see is 2GB of memory. Modern games are starting to crave lots of memory. I suspect Nvidia may be gating that feature in higher tier SKUs, or maybe we'll see 4GB cards not long after launch.

      That's the bit that confuses and disappoints me. The consoles seem to be expecting 3GB of graphics RAM so it feels pretty asinine to release a PC card with only 2GB. Surely matching console performance in a midrange PC is a fairly basic expectation?

    6. Re:Some people say it's too pricy. by Cederic · · Score: 1

      I gave up and went 16:9. I cheated though; I didn't drop to 1080 height, I switched to 2560x1440.

      The aspect ratio is less important to me than having good vertical resolution. This way I get more vertical than 1920x1200 and the bonus of a few extra pixels on the sides too.

  6. Proposed New Story Section: by ewhac · · Score: 1
    "Raw Press Releases."

    C'mon, guys, this is copy-pasted marketing fluff. Better is expected of you.

    --
    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
    1. Re:Proposed New Story Section: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's just an iteration of a chip family they've had out for a little while. (Then 750, then the 970 and 980)

      Judging by the specs its performance can be reasonably inferred. Any technical discussion worth having was done months ago when the other 900s were launched. This is just a heads up on a new price point that might be a good value for someone in the 200 dollar gaming card market.

  7. Slashdot affiliated with Hothardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    your mom

  8. Not all that impressive by Kjella · · Score: 1

    From the reviews I've read it's basically it's cool, quiet, has all the latest features but in the end has almost the same performance as the 760. Where the 970 went really aggressive on pricing the 960 looks to be their "money maker" that TechPowerUp called "a cheap-to-make GPU they paired with an extremely cost-efficient PCB design that has loads of margins in it for future price wars with AMD".

    Not that I think AMD is in any mood for price wars after their Q4 financials, they posted a $330 million loss, a lot of one-time charges but also a $58 million inventory write-down on their APUs. Last quarter revenue was down 13% and guidance for Q1 2015 is another 15%, they really could use some killer graphics card very, very soon. Or to put it even more harshly, their last quarter wiped out 2/3rds of their stockholder value and one more quarter like would put them in bankruptcy court.

    --
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    1. Re:Not all that impressive by Cederic · · Score: 1

      I practically begged a friend to get a 970 on the PC he bought a week ago. Their pricing was so aggressive that as soon as you went within £40 of it the performance uplift was just too appealing to turn down. You get a PC that'll play new release games beautifully at 1920x1080 for another 4-5 years instead of just 2-3.

  9. Sounds Familiar by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 1

    Isn't Maxwell that talking pig in the teevee commercials? Not the first thing I want people to think of when they hear about my new product.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    1. Re:Sounds Familiar by marcomarrero · · Score: 1

      Or a Beatles song... "Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head. Clang! Clang! Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that he was dead." (I bet the GTX 970 price is definitely hurting AMD).

    2. Re:Sounds Familiar by dbIII · · Score: 1

      The other poster did the hammer thing, so second choice is it running like a demon (Maxwell's demon).

  10. 128-bit Memory Interface? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    nVidia's been using that for years to keep their mid range from biting into their high end. At those price points I wish I was confident enough in AMD's driver stability to buy an R9 270X. 256 bit interface + 1500 mhz core clock for $210 bucks.

    --
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    1. Re:128-bit Memory Interface? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      What's funny is that before the mid-2014 crypto-coin mining rage, the R9 270X was priced well below 200$CAD.

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      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    2. Re:128-bit Memory Interface? by gman003 · · Score: 1

      Normally the x60 card uses a 192-bit bus, but nVidia's betting big on their texture compression and insane clock rate. Same reason the 980 uses a 256-bit bus instead of 384-bit.

    3. Re:128-bit Memory Interface? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny that my elder Nvidia 9600 GT uses a 256-bit interface and was a great buy for the buck since itÂs still fine for casual games, indie or old-school games.

  11. Shorter card by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    I'm glad to see ASUS understands that a lot of gamers have a small PC. Their Asus Strix GeForce GTX 960 looks like it might fit in a Cooler Master Elite 110.

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    1. Re:Shorter card by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      I can't speak much for NVidia products, but Sapphire makes a short AMD-based card that would fit in an Elite 110 I'm sure there are others (might have to put the power connector into the cutout for the front panel if it's a card-rear power connector model),

    2. Re:Shorter card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you'd be happier with a console.

    3. Re:Shorter card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might want to look at the MSI N760 ITX which is a GTX 760 card in a smaller card format with reasonably low power requirements.

    4. Re:Shorter card by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      http://www.asus.com/Graphics_C...

      Short 970 from asus that will fit in a 110 for sure.

      --
      Good-bye
    5. Re:Shorter card by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Stupid gamepads with tiny, over-sensitive and useless analog thumbsticks? No thanks.

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      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    6. Re:Shorter card by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      tiny, over-sensitive

      You are a PC gamer, you've spent years not using your thumb for anything except the space bar. You will have issues when you try to use the thumbs on a gamepad because you haven't developed the skills/dexterity to do so.

      The people who have been using their thumbs can use those thumbsticks, d-pads and buttons just fine.

    7. Re:Shorter card by Cederic · · Score: 1

      You mean like the one I use on my PC? I call it a controller, but that's because I perceive a gamepad to have no analog thumbsticks.

      It's the joy of a PC. I can use keyboard and mouse for strategy, FPS and RPG games (online / MMO / offline or otherwise), use HOTAS for flight/space sims, use a wheel or a controller for driving games and just use the mouse for Hexcells.

      Or combine options. For Saints Row III the keyboard and mouse gives me the control and precision I want for moving around on foot, then switch to the controller when I'm in a car or aircraft.

      But then, I've been using peripheral controllers of various forms for gaming with keyboard based programmable computers since before they came with a mouse...

    8. Re:Shorter card by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I can use a D-pad and buttons just fine, I even grew up with consoles, starting with the Intellivision. I just never was able to use those thumbsticks - they're too sensitive and don't allow the same precision as a mouse.

      There's a reason why first-person shooter games don't let PC gamers play with console gamers. The console gamers would have no hope against the PC gamers.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  12. Will it play Batman Arkham Knight? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    My problem with this new card is, as far as I can tell it barely meets the minimum requirements for some next-gen games. Isn't the min req for Assassins Creed Unity like a GeForce 680?

    The specs for all new games are out of whack with the latest generation of video cards. If you buy a $200 card, you should be able to play any game released in the same year (though probably not on Ultra).

    I just don't want to pull the trigger on a $350 video card, but it looks like game devs are making that the entry level for AAA games.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Will it play Batman Arkham Knight? by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      That is because its Unity. Unity doesn't run well on anything.

      And I do mean anything. No hardware in the world runs Unity well. Not because hardware is bad, but because Unity is a buggy piece of shit that won't run well even on SLI 980s.

      As for "playing games released on the same year", I'm yet to find a game that won't work with my 560Ti. Though many of these releases I had to bump quality down to medium to get solid frame rate.

    2. Re:Will it play Batman Arkham Knight? by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Those minimum requirements are a joke. I've got a 580 and I can run everything at full detail for the monitor resolution I have. None of them even stress the games. The fact is most games are designed, spec wise, around consoles and won't even stress 5 year old graphics cards.

    3. Re:Will it play Batman Arkham Knight? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those minimum requirements are a joke. I've got a 580 and I can run everything at full detail for the monitor resolution I have. None of them even stress the games. The fact is most games are designed, spec wise, around consoles and won't even stress 5 year old graphics cards.

      So you've got a 640x480 monitor then? 'Cos that's the only way your claim is remotely true.

    4. Re:Will it play Batman Arkham Knight? by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      I've been using a 550 Ti for the last three years and it's been great. It could be better I suppose but I'm not some elite gamer that needs 60 FPS no matter what, or photo realistic video quality.

      That said I just worked a weekend and holiday so had a little extra cash coming this paycheck so I ordered my EVGA 960 lastnight. While the performance may not be spectacularly better than the previous generation it will be a big upgrade for me, and with it's lower power requirements it'll fit nicely in my computer without disrupting anything. Since it is newer it'll also be supported for longer and I can use some of the newer stuff like nVidia's free screen recording software. In a couple years I expect I'll want to upgrade the rest of my computer and I should be able to reuse this 960, and I'll be able to put the 550 back in and hand the old PC to the kids.

  13. Weaksauce by oic0 · · Score: 1

    You can get a used 280X for cheaper that will wipe the floor with it. The dual fan models are very quiet. They use a bit of power, but not at idle... so unless you game 24/7 and live in a super pricy electric area OR have a garbage PSU, its the far better deal. The plain ol 280 is also better.

    1. Re:Weaksauce by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      You lost me at "used".

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    2. Re:Weaksauce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you like dealing with half-assed drivers then maybe.

    3. Re:Weaksauce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahem. The GTX 280 is only 933 GFLOPS for a whopping 236W (the replacement GTX 285 is 1063 GFLOPS for 204W), while the 960 is 2308 GFLOPS for only 120W.

      Since when do we say something half as fast for twice the power "wipe[s] the floor" with the thing that's actually superior on both metrics? Is today opposite day?
      Also, my PC doesn't have a big enough power supply to feed the GTX 280 (or 285).

    4. Re:Weaksauce by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      No, the card in question is Radeon R9 280X, which is a rebranded and high clocked 7970, does over 3 teraflops.
      It's priced cheaper, but is significantly faster (depending on game) and has 3GB memory not 2GB. Sure, it uses about 200 watts.

    5. Re:Weaksauce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not the nVidia GeForce GTX 280 (6 years old), the AMD Radeon 280x (1 year old) which is 3482 GFLOPS.

    6. Re:Weaksauce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is slashdot. We don't run Windows here, so AMD is not an option. ;)

    7. Re:Weaksauce by oic0 · · Score: 1

      I just swapped from a AMD to a GTX 970 (I needed HDMI 2.0 for 4k). I would not say the Nvidia drivers are better. Not by a long shot. Alt tabbing out often leaves my screen tinted a funny color until I change resolutions and back. A few of the driver options either don't work or mess things up (attempting to change color modes scrambled my screen even on compatible settings). Oh and my cursor is all sorts of messed up. Yes I uninstalled the AMD drivers and ran a cleaner. There are some features I really like, like the target frame rate option so my card doesn't work too hard playing old games, but the drivers are darn buggy and this hard power limit on overclocking sucks. 106% is the max. Since when has an overclocker ever cared about power consumption.

  14. Too late. by buckfeta2014 · · Score: 1

    I bought a 980 over the holidays. Runs 3x 1080p excellently. If I had the extra money to spend, I would have bought g-sync monitors, but they would cost more than my PC did, so screw it.

    --
    Buck Feta. You know what to do.
  15. Re:Either power saving, or faster, not both by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's exactly what Maxwell did vs Kepler.

  16. AMD has HBM coming by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    There's finally a reasonable bump coming this year from cards with a new architecture and using a totally different ram system. Up to 9x higher bandwidth.

    I doubt they won't bleed us with slow bumps and increments initially but none the less I suspect the first 'significant bump' in years might occur when these cards come out in the next couple of months. Look to see the 9xx series drop in price if you prefer nvidia - but unless you need an upgrade right now urgently, apply some patience and wait to see what this HBM setup can do.

    1. Re:AMD has HBM coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMD has HBMv1 coming... that'll be limited to 4GB per GPU, which will be kind of lame for a flagship part when it's released late this year... Especially considering it was AMD itself that was hyping cards with 8-16GB of VRAM on them. Watch that tune change quickly...

    2. Re:AMD has HBM coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this different to nVidia's stacked DRAM which gets similar bandwidth increases AND density increases (4GB per chip, 16-32GB in the current tesla ranges with ~8x more bandwidth - which sadly pushes you past PCIe 3 at that point, hence the new tesla's nave NVlink).

    3. Re:AMD has HBM coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's not, except that nVidia is apparently going straight to HBMv2, which doubles the datarate, quadruples the density, and doubles the maximum stack height. hence the 4GB-vs-32GB for max per-GPU configuration at double the bandwidth. AMD will launch a bit earlier, will be interesting to see if that pays off, of they just end up paying a very expensive early-adopter/pipe-cleaner penalty for minimal market gain.

  17. 1.3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Display port 1.3? Will not buy another card without it.

  18. not yet in stock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some of my favorite stores don't have the card in stock. I'll wait a few more weeks. I see results for the Geforce 970 and 660 when I search for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960. 128-bit memory interface is a bit slow, but I really don't need 256 bit memory. Wonder how much heat the 960 will generate. Thanks for posting.

  19. Might want to wait a few months... by RogueyWon · · Score: 0

    says the guy who bought a 980 just before Christmas. Yeah... hypocrisy much.

    However, be aware that minimum specs for games are in a bit of a state of flux at the moment. In some senses, it's not before time; they've only risen very slowly for many years, as development of most games was targeted first and foremost at the Xbox 360 and PS3, with PC versions usually not receiving much more than a few cosmetic upgrades. For quite a few years now, a reasonably recent i3/middle-aged i5 (or AMD equivalent) and a sensible Nvidia 400-series (or AMD equivalent) would have done you fine.

    Since the summer of 2014, we've seen a rise in the number of games developed primarily for the PS4 and Xbox One and then scaled up for PC, or indeed, developed for PC and then scaled down for the consoles (Alien: Isolation a fairly clear example of the latter). And as this has happened, there's been a trend for rapidly rising specs.

    Shadow of Mordor, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition have all needed substantially higher specs to run sensibly than was the norm a year ago. CPU, GPU, RAM and, frankly, even hard drive speed have all been pushed quite hard by the games above - you're now talking about wanting at least a recent i5 and a 780 if you like 1080p max settings. It might be that things will level out again soon. Or it might be that the increase will rise for a bit further yet. It will level out, when developers find a sweet spot that makes it easy to cross-develop between current-gen consoles and PC. But it might be worth waiting for performance analysis of how The Witcher 3's final build works before committing to a hardware upgrade - that's looking like the most technically demanding game on the horizon.

  20. TDP? by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 1

    120 Watts

    The summary should have included this.

  21. Hmmm, going to sit on my 680 SLi for a while. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since my 680 SLi setup keeps up to the 980 in many tests I think I shall keep this setup for a while.

  22. Re:Either power saving, or faster, not both by Whorhay · · Score: 1

    Not completely true. When a chip draws less power to perform the same functions you can the push the clock, because consuming less power means less waste heat. As you raise the clock you get more speed. There is of course a balance to be struck, but ragardless figuring out how to accomplish the same work with less power will allow you to push the performance before hitting the limit of your heat disipation capabilities.