2 gigs is fine for a starting point for a 199 MSRP sku. 2 gigs is easily enough for a gamer to enjoy gaming with more sensible settings and resolution for a 199 MSRP starting point.
It's not just about the VRAM, as you seem to have missed since 960 launched. Even if we ignore AMD, 960 is just a bad product compared to NV's history and compared to a 760. There is no way to hid the fact that a card less than 14% faster made on a brand new architecture and released more than 1.5 years since 760 came out is basically pathetic. But you will go out of your way to never publicly criticize NV's turd products like 8600GT/S series, 550/650/650Ti series and now 960 series. In the OP's case, if he wanted to stick to NV, it was better for him to look at a used 780 card before even considering a 960 2GB. There shouldn't even be a discussion of 'upgrading' from a 760 to a 960 2GB for gaming - it's simply a waste of $.
Again, it looks like we will not agree here at all. I mean the thread is basically done since the OP bought a 970. However, I will never forget how you defended 960 to no end when a card 50-60% faster with double the VRAM was available for months but you would ignore this because it was from AMD. For all intends and purposes imo if R9 290 was called GTX960Ti, there is no way
you would recommended a $200 960 2GB -- let's not kid ourselves here. It's going to be fun reminding you in 2 years from now when you'll be recommending $200-240 Pascal x60 card with performance around R9 290X/970 that a gamer could have had that performance
2 years ago for
$40 more and enjoyed it from April 2015 to April 2017. :awe:
I remember you also
never made a big deal about 670/680/770 2GB SLI being bad questionable buys for keeping beyond 2.5 years, and neither did you bring up VRAM issues with 780 3GB vs. R9 290/290X 4GB, and yet today all of those NV setups are severely compromised. In hindsight, it's pretty shocking that NV actually had the nerve to price 770 4GB at $450 when R9 280X was $300. Holly batman brand name marketing rip-off. Of course you also never criticized or warned that 470/570 would be worthless for next gen gaming with their 1.28GB of VRAM when HD6950 unlocked to a 6970 beat them both in performance and had 2GB. Pretty much you've shown over time that VRAM and price/performance don't matter as key metrics when it comes to NV. It's not a matter if you feel $199 price level justifies 2GB of VRAM and the performance level of a 960 but where does the 960 sit against other competing cards and where does the 960 sit as far as the history of NV's generational x60 upgrades go. In both cases, the 960 fails miserably. Even if 960 4GB was $199, it would still be a bad buy when one of the best after-market R9 290 is just $240. There is no way around the fact that if it wasn't for 960's specific features such as HDMI 2.0, or its perf/watt for OEM systems with $20 300W PSUs, the card is a major let down in today's marketplace. Unfortunately, many uninformed gamers who are paranoid about 750W fake PSU requirement for a 290 and lack of knowledge of performance of a 960 will guarantee that a lot of gamers will be suckered into a 960 purchase without realizing just how much of a compromise this card really is.
What I find eye-opening is given your experience with the GPU industry, you don't have the foresight to see that 960's performance gets worse as we increase the resolution and it's not just related to 2GB of VRAM. As the shader, texture and pixel fill-rate demands increase, 960's performance against other cards gets worse, even losing to a 285 2GB, far behind R9 280X = 7970Ghz and miles behind R9 290X/970. That means as more demanding games come out, 960 is going to be double penalized, both of the VRAM side and the GPU side.
But I guess go ahead and use all kinds of reasons why spending $40 extra for an after-market R9 290 = 290X reference isn't worth 50-60% more performance over the next 2-3 years. Certainly in public you won't acknowledge this very point in writing.....:hmm:
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