The GeForce GTX 960 is one of NVIDIA’s recently released graphics card (only the Titan X is more recent). With the GTX 960, NVIDIA brought their super power-efficient Maxwell architecture to the mainstream.
This card is based on a new silicon codenamed GM206. NVIDIA’s third chip based on “Maxwell”, the GM206 is supposed to be a successor to the GK106 on which NVIDIA built the GeForce GTX 660. The new GTX 960, however, is meant to replace the GTX 660 and GTX 760 in the product stack as it offers slightly higher performance at much less power draw and noise, with greater room for price-cuts. It also brings some of the new features introduced with “Maxwell” to the masses, such as real-time voxel illumination, MFAA (multi-frame sampled anti-aliasing), Dynamic Super-Resolution, VR Direct, Turf Effects, and PhysX Flex, along with community favorites like G-Sync and ShadowPlay.
In this review, we have with us the Gigabyte GTX 960 OC, an overclocked custom design of the GTX 960. It is more cost effective than the Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming, but still features the same amazing power consumption and noise levels as its bigger brother.
The Gigabyte GTX 960 OC currently retails at Rs. 20.000, which is about as low as you can find a GTX 960.
We absolutely like the G1 Gaming series from Gigabyte, the cards look great, perform nice thanks to the factory overclock and cooling with the WindForce coolers simply is sound. Where the reference cards operate at 70 to 80 degrees C you’ll notice that this puppy shaves off up-to 25 degrees C on average under full load gaming conditions, roughly 56 degrees C is what we measured whilst being whisper silent.
The product comes factory tweaked at a boost frequency of over 1300 MHz which is impressive all by itself really. The card also has a raised power limiter, and as such we noticed it boosting on the dynamic clock frequency over 1400 MHz. We really like the 4 GB models, even if the effect it’ll have at 1080P (game resolution of choice for this card) of course remains a little trivial. Fact remains that these products perform nicely for the gamers in the 1920x1080P resolution, even at WQHD at 2560×1440, we have not been disappointed. And that resolution is where 4GB models come in rather handy.
The performance of the GeForce 960 series overall is certainly okay if you stick to 1080P, this is really a 1080P card. At 2560×1440 the case becomes trickier with 2 GB, once the card runs out of memory frames will start swapping back and forth in the frame-buffer, resulting in a performance loss. Admittedly, even there the card manages to do OK thanks to compression techniques that save memory, but it definitely is the resolution where you want more than 2GB memory, and thus the 4GB model is applicable here. So overall it will be a fun and sweet Full HD gaming product and yeah, though the specs are a little less exciting, really we are not disappointed by the performance if 1920×1080 is your gaming domain.
The G1 Gaming edition of the GeForce GTX 960 is one of the more rare products that have all the variables right. I simply do not have anything negative to state about the product. All boxes are ticked and that makes this an extremely competitive product. The extra VRAM up-to 4GB (fully usable yes!) we feel will make the product a little more future proof. We find 2GB is shy yet sufficient, 4GB offer you a little breathing space, but do not expect miracles in performance. It is more that with selected games you’ll notice a bit less stuttering as some textures already have loaded in graphics memory opposed to loading them mid-game.
Other than that the conclusion remains the same as the 2GB model — the G1 Gaming is one of the faster factory models available. It leads in performance due to the fact that it has the best temperatures as well, that combined with a slightly tweaked power limiter it brings the better performance to this product out of all the cards we tested to date. From top to bottom, in terms of factory overclocked cards versus the several brands, the difference in FPS can be up-to 4 frames on average with a modern game and decent image quality settings. So what I am saying is that the ultra fast clocked version won’t be heaps faster, do remember that when you open up your wallet. Purchasing this product to game at WQHD / 2560×1440 is not advised though, 1080P is the space and domain of the GeForce GTX 960.
But at 1080P you can use pretty decent image quality settings. Overall the product is getting our top pick award as product within its category, and not because I find the GTX 960 so great. Contrary, it is an OK performing product with the reality that Nvidia is asking too much for it money wise. But within the GTX 960 range, this is one of the best products you can find in the stores hence out Top pick award.
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