That's the thing, in synthetic tests, the 960 isn't better than 770, not in shader performance, not in tessellation and way worse in texture performance than Kepler is. In shader and peak rasterization on paper specs, 770 crushes the 960 as well:
http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/4
You can't have your cake and eat it to. What I mean is - synthetic benches != gaming. More so, one day someone promotes synthetics to prove their point or canned and then even raw runs. At this point, it means nothing (and I'm not saying this specifically to you).
There is clearly some play (foul, your call) with Greenworks games. We've been over this. This doesn't mean Nvidia is "crippling Kepler" it blatant NV isn't focusing on Kepler. Again, look at the title of this thread.
In any event, 960 can be easily found for $160 today which means in 3.5 years since $499 GTX680 came out, we can get at least that level of performance for 32% of the price. With cards like R9 290 going down as low as $200 November/December 2014 and
$205 this week, the moral of the story is if you buy the latest/greatest gen of AMD or NV, you almost always get burned. GTX970 is one of the few exceptions as it has really held on to its positioning.
I suppose people just need to learn and accept that if they buy a $500-650+ GPU at launch that in 3-3.5 years it will perform no better than a $200 card and that's what we are seeing with GTX680 vs. 960.
But that has been true FOR YEARS, even before NV split their lines up. I've read your posts, and you've advocated buying middle and upgrading more often than buying top and holding on it for 4+ years (and perhaps I'm an elitist but who buys a GPU for 4+ years? At that point, just stick to consoles. Even my non-heavy PC gaming friends buy a new GPU every 2-3 years and they often buy at the $150-200 price range.)
I mean, look at this:
GTX 460 1GB $220 is faster than $650 GTX 280 AND nipping at $400 GTX 285 in less than two years.
Having said that, the performance standing between 780/Titan and R 290/290X in a lot of games highlights issues with Kepler in particular that R9 290 cards didn't suffer to the same extent. But again had the gamer listened to advice on AT forums and bought a GTX670 instead of 680, well they would have had $100 extra today. That means they could have sold their GTX670 for $100, added that $100 saved and bought a $205 R9 290 or added a bit more and gotten a $250 GTX970. But the majority of PC gamers don't think like that and they spend a disproportionate amount at that time of upgrade for a small 15-20% increase in performance when that extra $100-150 couldn't them 50-100% more performance in 3 years when they'll actually need the upgrade.
Why are you so obsessed with how people spend their money and the choices they make? Is this the core issue you have with how Nvidia can basically jack up prices and get away with it? There is nothing wrong with people NOT taking advice given to them, but you quickly jump on a soap box and act like you predicted all this and your opinion is factual. I've followed your posts for a long time and up until you insulted me I normally had no issue with your opinion. But accept it - people do what people do and they don't need justification from you (or I) or anyone else. And that just seems to rub you wrong.
On top of that, no one has crystal balls and frankly, I don't think most people (at least on these kind of forums) really care that their $300-400 GPU upgrade will be obsolete in 3+ years. They'll most likely already have an upgrade in mind. You need to go post on NeoGaf if you want to get in tune with the "my budget is $100, whats the best GPu I can afford" crowd, because here - we're all benching $400+ GPUs trying to 1up each other and score points for our perspective teams.
That's why I keep saying unless a PC gamer can afford to get the highest end cards every generation, they are not upgrading optimally (i.e., it only took 4 years before NV's $150 750Ti matched a $499 GTX480 in sub-75W power usage!). The same fate awaits Fury X and 980Ti. If we are on Pascal in 2016, Volta in 2018, by 2019 we'll be 2.5 generations beyond Maxwell, which surely means a $249 card in August of 2019 will destroy a 980Ti/Fury X!
And it took two years for the $180 GTX 460 764MB to invalidate the $600+ GTX 280. If anything, th 680 crowd got a good run for their money.
But read the bold, seriously, just read it. Who cares? Who here honestly cares? Besides, you of course. I don't think anyone here who is buying in those price segments are going "gee, in August 2019 this card would be inferior, maybe I SHOULDN'T buy it." Nah they're probably more like me "$650 now, next card I want hits the scene I can sell it perhaps for half, and then it's another $300 out of pocket to keep the trend going."
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