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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.

1 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. 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...