Upgrade 2gb GTX 760 to 4gb GTX 960?

[JDG1980]

The moment you realize psus tend to lose 5% of their capacity per year

Do you have any source for this statement? A properly designed PSU shouldn't be losing capacity like that. I can't recall ever seeing a review that mentioned anything of the sort. I'm sure that some poor quality devices have this issue, but a poor quality PSU can do just about anything, including catch fire. Any proof that a Seasonic, EVGA, Superflower, etc. PSU will "lose 5% of [its] capacity per year"?

 

[RussianSensation]

I can say this about TitanX, 980, 970 and 960: Even though this Maxwell architecture is substantial and significant the price/performance is more-so incremental and evolutionary compared to past generations.

As I have repeated since day 1 that 960 2GB launched, under no circumstances should a 960 be in the same sentence with a 970/980. While we can argue about the semantics if 970/980 should have been called GTX960Ti/970, or whether the 980 should have been priced lower, 970/980 themselves do not have critical flaws per say. In very rare cases does a 970 run into a 3.5GB+0.5GB of VRAM limitation. However, you have continuously ignored that a 960 2GB simply cannot be recommended for 1080P gaming simply because 2GB of VRAM isn't enough or current generation games, and of course those released in the next 2 years. I've constantly warned about this because games like AC Unity, Wolfenstein NWO, Dead Rising 3, Shadow of Mordor all exhibited signs that 2GB of VRAM is obsolete for 1080P and beyond. BTW, absolutely the same applies for the R9 285 2GB, which is why I have not recommended it either.

We can now add GTA V to this list (and this is without mods!). In fact, just to show to you how bad 2GB limits the 960, take a look at minimum frame rates of a single 960 2GB against an R9 280X 3GB and once again for 960 2GB SLI against R9 290/970. As I said and I will keep emphasizing it, 960 2GB is worthless for modern gaming at 1080P and above at its current price level. This is not me being biased but simply using evidence based on real world testing that reveals the flaws in the card.

So even if someone prefers NV only, 960 2GB cannot be recommended for gaming at the current $180-200 price level unless this person knows exactly the type of PC games he intends to play (which will not use > 2GB of VRAM). But even then you are playing in the mine field because more and more games will use > 2GB of VRAM over the next 2 years.

 

[xorbe]

The gap between 960 and 970 is huuuge. The 960 should have been called a 950 or 950 Ti.

 

[SirPauly]

As I have repeated since day 1 that 960 2GB launched, under no circumstances should a 960 be in the same sentence with a 970/980. While we can argue about the semantics if 970/980 should have been called GTX960Ti/970, or whether the 980 should have been priced lower, 970/980 themselves do not have critical flaws per say. In very rare cases does a 970 run into a 3.5GB+0.5GB of VRAM limitation. However, you have continuously ignored that a 960 2GB simply cannot be recommended for 1080P gaming simply because 2GB of VRAM isn't enough or current generation games, and of course those released in the next 2 years. I've constantly warned about this because games like AC Unity, Wolfenstein NWO, Dead Rising 3, Shadow of Mordor all exhibited signs that 2GB of VRAM is obsolete for 1080P and beyond. BTW, absolutely the same applies for the R9 285 2GB, which is why I have not recommended it either.

We can now add GTA V to this list (and this is without mods!). In fact, just to show to you how bad 2GB limits the 960, take a look at minimum frame rates of a single 960 2GB against an R9 280X 3GB and once again for 960 2GB SLI against R9 290/970. As I said and I will keep emphasizing it, 960 2GB is worthless for modern gaming at 1080P and above at its current price level. This is not me being biased but simply using evidence based on real world testing that reveals the flaws in the card.

So even if someone prefers NV only, 960 2GB cannot be recommended for gaming at the current $180-200 price level unless this person knows exactly the type of PC games he intends to play (which will not use > 2GB of VRAM). But even then you are playing in the mine field because more and more games will use > 2GB of VRAM over the next 2 years.

imho,


2 gigs is fine for a starting point for a 199 MSRP sku and as time passes, the pricing may drop. The 4 gig sku's may drop as well.

Ya can't expect a 199 MSRP sku to shine gloriously with ultra settings with x4 MSAA in one of the latest-and-greatest titles, and there are abilities to help: Using MFAA will help with memory footprints - why use x4 MSAA when one can use x4 MFAA?

The GTX 960 is still disruptive because it brings Maxwell's strengths to a much cheaper price-point, being disruptive helps bring more value to AMD's pricing for potential buyers to combat the sku.

I'm not a fan of buying recommendations based on how subjective tastes and tolerances differ. I am a fan of sharing experiences, data, views and findings.

 

[mohit9206]

Basically going from 2gb 760 to 4gb 960 is a waste. An R9 290 4Gb will be a true upgrade for around $250.

 

[BSim500]

Ya can't expect a 199 MSRP sku to shine gloriously with ultra settings with x4 MSAA in one of the latest-and-greatest titles, and there are abilities to help: Using MFAA will help with memory footprints - why use x4 MSAA when one can use x4 MFAA?

I've been saying for a long time there's a desperate shortage of half-intelligent benchmarks for lower end cards that don't involve ramming AA up to 8x MSAA or using Super-Sampling then complaining of low fps and the usual epeen "so anything less than the top-end card I bought is cr*p" extrapolations. Example of what happens in GTA V when you tweak the AA settings:-

Ultra:-

High:-

You can get a 2GB 750Ti to do more than 30fps on mixed High / Very High custom settings with an i3 averaging 1.8GB VRAM usage (and get a GTX960 to run 2-4x faster than earlier posted scores) with a bit of common sense...

 

[RussianSensation]

^ Everyone understands that you can always lower settings and even resolution to get more playable frame rates. Such serious compromises do not need to be made with a $240 R9 290 or a $320 970 compared to a 960. Furthermore, by using this argument, you end up in a catch 22. Why buy a 960 when you can just buy a GTX750Ti/R9 270X and lower settings? Why not get a console if you are going to run PC games at console level FPS/textures? The whole point we use price/performance as a proper objective gauge/metric is because it solved this issue of subjectivity entirely.

Again, the key point being ignored completely though is that a person buying a 960 will yet again be forced to upgrade to a 60-70% faster Pascal/AMD equivalent card in 2016-2017. This is an absolutely pointless upgrade path because instead of getting 960 level of performance over the first 2 years of ownership and then ~ GTX970 level (with a next gen x60 14nm card), one can just pay a little bit extra today for an R9 290 or even stretch it to an R9 290X/970. Historically, mid-range cards in the $200 level tended to have one of the best price/performance proposition but this is not the case for a 960 against R9 290/970. It actually has worse price/performance and considering 960 2GB is more or less irrelevant, we immediately get into the $240 range of a 960 4GB card. The major problem with the cards like the 285/960 is that they miss the price/performance sweet spot, which means that purchasing them will actually cost the gamer more money long term as a result of a premature upgrade, but as a consequence suffer from much lower performance compared to say an R9 290. Heck, if one needs to go NV, I'd even look into a used 780Ghz Edition/970 over a 960.

 

[SirPauly]

imho,

There is enough separation in pricing between the 960 and 970 from a MSRP stand-point.

AMD, on the other hand, offers compelling price/performance and ram value with their 280x and 290.

I also agree, that a GTX 970 offers much more performance and value with ram but is around 60-65 percent more monies with over-all MSRP.

Sadly, this happens when one has competitive architectural and software advantages -- nVidia's engineering has placed them in more-so ideal situations, where they can charge higher premiums for more-so incremental increases in price/performance.

If one desires the nVidia brand, there are premiums for their work.

 

[Viper GTS]

People with HDMI 2.0 TVs should be able to afford a GTX970. A modern TV that supports HDMI 2.0 is not exactly cheap. As far as VR goes, same point. Since the OP is likely talking about a gaming upgrade, we have to stick to the topic. If he had a 4K monitor or was interested in VR, then I am sure he would have mentioned it in the OP.

Not everyone with big/high resolution displays (or multiple of them) is using them for gaming.

I paid $799 for my HDMI 2.0 4k TV that I'm using as a monitor. They don't have to be expensive. I ended up with a 960 because it's the cheapest, lowest power draw card that would drive it correctly. I may upgrade eventually, but for now it is just about the perfect card for me.

Viper GTS

 

[BSim500]

Again, the key point being ignored completely though is that a person buying a 960 will yet again be forced to upgrade to a 60-70% faster Pascal/AMD equivalent card in 2016-2017.

If the gap between 2015 vs 2016 cards of the same price bracket really is going to be 70% on average, then it sounds like everyone should just ignore both the Maxwell's AND AMD 200/300 series and wait another year. TBH, I'm curious as to how you "know" to within 10% exactly how fast these future Pascal cards will be as I haven't seen any GTX 960 vs GTX 1060 or 300 vs 400 series benchmarks. (That's probably why people are "ignoring the key point" when most of us can't see two years into the future, and anything else is just random guessing...)

one can just pay a little bit extra today for an R9 290 or even stretch it to an R9 290X/970.

You've repeated that several times but in many areas those cards are not even remotely in the same price bracket. Where I live, 2GB GTX960's in the are typically £155-£175 ($229-$259), R9 290's typically being £227-£250 ($335-$369), and R9 290X's typically being £275-£330 ($406-$488), and GTX970's £260-£300 ($385-$443). Those £72-£175 ($106-$259) price differences are not even remotely the same class of card. Nor are 290w vs 120w TDP / power consumption or 438mm2 vs 228mm2 die sizes. Yes the £205 4GB 960 is more expensive and poor value, but then it's just as easy to cherry pick some of the Sapphire cards listed at Ebuyer like the R9 285 2GB Dual-X OC for £220 or the R9 290X listed for £478 as a spectacular ripoff. The nearest genuine commonly priced comparison equivalent in both performance and price is the R9 285 (£130-£150) - typically £25-£30 cheaper, but the GTX 960 comes with Witcher 3 (listed at £30 at most places) which wipes out that plus draws a lot less power, chucks out less heat, needs only 1x 6-pin connector, full 4K/60fps H265 hardware decoding, 0db fans when idle / light gaming, etc, (which for many make up the premium in itself even without the game).

The major problem with the cards like the 285/960 is that they miss the price/performance sweet spot...

I agree with what you're saying on principle, but by extension you might as well recommend i7 / 32GB RAM / 1TB SSD components for a "mid-range" build to everyone regardless of their budget on the grounds anything less than the exact pinnacle of of the perf/$ curve "might lose them $20-$30 worth of efficiency". Lower end dGPU's generally exist (and sell) for a reason (as do lower CPU's, smaller SSD's, smaller RAM chips, etc). If that's all someone needs for however they game, then that's all they need. It's very easy to get sucked into the "but if you spend another extra x $/£, then you could gain x +y % more performance, and then if you spend another...", etc) and before you know it, you're well outside of someone's budget talking about cards $150-$200 more than the GTX 960 and nearest genuine equivalent (R9 285) or what's typically as "popular mid-range" on Steam (GTX 760).

 

[blake0812]

I'm interested in getting a GTX960 4gb as well, just to upgrade to DX12 and bump Shadowplay bitrate up past 50mb

 

[RussianSensation]

Not everyone with big/high resolution displays (or multiple of them) is using them for gaming.

I paid $799 for my HDMI 2.0 4k TV that I'm using as a monitor. They don't have to be expensive. I ended up with a 960 because it's the cheapest, lowest power draw card that would drive it correctly. I may upgrade eventually, but for now it is just about the perfect card for me.

Viper GTS

Fair enough. If you read my comments on the 960 on the forum, it is strictly related to gaming (OP's topic). I even went out of my way to mention that in case you have a very specific use such as the one you described, a case can be made for a 960. It feels unfortunate that there are no HDMI 2.0 choices at $50-70 levels so you didn't have to spend nearly $200 for only media. Hopefully with next gen AMD/NV refresh cards, all future cards will have HDMI 2.0.

If the gap between 2015 vs 2016 cards of the same price bracket really is going to be 70% on average, then it sounds like everyone should just ignore both the Maxwell's AND AMD 200/300 series and wait another year. TBH, I'm curious as to how you "know" to within 10% exactly how fast these future Pascal cards will be as I haven't seen any GTX 960 vs GTX 1060 or 300 vs 400 series benchmarks. (That's probably why people are "ignoring the key point" when most of us can't see two years into the future, and anything else is just random guessing...)

Nah, you missed this point too because you are not thinking about it. If a next generation x60 card in 2 years from now delivers even less than 60-70% faster, then it makes buying cards like R9 290/970 look even better since it's cheaper than buying 2 cards with a price of a 960 (one now and another in 2 years from now). That's the point. You get a 960 today for 165 pounds and some mythical 2017 card for 165 pounds that's likely at best will end up 60-70% faster, which is more or less where 970 sits today.

Where am I getting this data? Histrionically speaking we get a 40-70% bump in performance on new nodes + new architecture at similar price levels. Maybe AMD/NV will deliver better than that but looking at GTX460->560->660->760->960, the trends show:

460 (July 10, 2010) / 560 (May 17, 2011) -> new generation+new node GTX660 (Sept 13, 2012) = 87%/58%, respectively.

That means it took more than 2.5 years for NV to increase performance by 87% going from 460 to 660 and 1.5 years to increase it by 58% going from a 560 to a 660.

660 (Sept 13, 2012) ->960 (Jan 22, 2015) -> new architecture and nearly 2.5 years to get 44%.

Source:
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-03/geforce-gtx-460-560-660-760-960-vergleich/2/

That's where I am forecasting using reasonable historical data that chances are at best a card replacing 960 in 2 years will end up 60-70% faster.

You've repeated that several times but in many areas those cards are not even remotely in the same price bracket. Where I live, 2GB GTX960's in the are typically £155-£175 ($229-$259), R9 290's typically being £227-£250 ($335-$369), and R9 290X's typically being £275-£330 ($406-$488), and GTX970's £260-£300 ($385-$443). Those £72-£175 ($106-$259) price differences are not even remotely the same class of card.

But your salary is in pounds, correct? In other words in a similar job, chances are if I am making $50K USD, you are making 50K pounds. Looking at price/performance:

MSI Gaming 960 2GB = 165 pounds
960 4GB = 198 pounds
MSI Gaming R9 290 = 228 pounds

In both cases 960 loses. Since 960 2GB is a serious compromise for 1080P gaming, it loses even worse.

QUOTE=BSim500;37330633]Nor are 290w vs 120w TDP / power consumption or 438mm2 vs 228mm2 die sizes. [/quote]

What do die sizes have to do with price/performance and VRAM limits? Also, why are you comparing TDPs of AMD and NV when we know AMD and NV measure TDP differently? I realize that an R9 290 uses way more power but by you simply comparing the cards' TDPs exaggerates the differences. Further, you ignore the total system power usage.

It's not 120W of power vs. 290W of power as you are trying to make it. It's more like a 313W system vs. a 417W system but the 2nd system is 50% faster in gaming, thus having superior perf/watt. :sneaky:

I've repeated this for many years now that using a card's TDP rating by comparing NV and AMD can be grossly misleading. By ignoring the perf/watt efficiency of the entire system, you are also grossly misrepresenting the perf/watt metric the gamer enjoys. The perf/watt of each individual card is fine to compare for engineers at NV and AMD but it's not really what the gamer needs when building an entire rig since you can't just play games with a videocard alone.....

but the GTX 960 comes with Witcher 3 (listed at £30 at most places) which wipes out that plus draws a lot less power, chucks out less heat, needs only 1x 6-pin connector, full 4K/60fps H265 hardware decoding, 0db fans when idle / light gaming, etc, (which for many make up the premium in itself even without the game).

MSI 970 Gaming has most of those perks and it costs 284 pounds. That's only a 43% premium over the 960 4GB for 70%+ more performance. Sure a 165 pound 960 2GB prives similar price/performance but boy that 2GB of VRAM is basically worthless for so many modern games today unless you love playing at near PS4 level textures.

I agree with what you're saying on principle, but by extension you might as well recommend i7 / 32GB RAM / 1TB SSD components for a "mid-range" build to everyone regardless of their budget

Depends on a specific case - i.e., how long does a gamer intend to keep his parts, does he/she resell parts when upgrading, what the purpose of a computer is. If someone's budget is 600 pounds for a gaming rig and that build includes a GTX960, I will absolutely recommend getting a beefier PSU and getting an R9 290/970 because for 700 pounds or even 750 pounds allows one to get there which means 50-70% more gaming performance for just 17-25% increase in price. That makes a new gaming rig with a 960 a bad deal for gaming today. That's why 960 needs to come down in price or NV needs to fill this space with a 960Ti. Are you telling me when someone is spending 600 pounds on a new gaming rig, they can't be flexible with their budget to get 50-70% more performance for another 100 pounds considering they'll keep their GPU for 2-3 years? Sounds like a consumer that hasn't thought his PC building through. Budgets should be flexible to account for these scenarios. Sometimes spending more upfront saves more money in the long-run. That's all I am saying. I guess if you can't afford to stretch your budget by small amounts, then you make a point.

 

[BSim500]

Nah, you missed this point too because you are not thinking about it. If a next generation x60 card in 2 years from now delivers even less than 60-70% faster...

You aren't "thinking", you are "guessing", and as I said I'm simply not going to argue over random predictions of how 2017 vaporware GFX products behave vs today's. Plenty of "past generational extrapolations" have ended up wrong even for products 3-6 months in advance. People can't even agree on whether AMD's mid-range 300 series are tweaked rebrands or whole new cards - and that's merely weeks away. LOL.

It's not 120W of power vs. 290W of power as you are trying to make it. It's more like a 313W system vs. a 417W system

Thing is, I've tested the GTX 960 and measured it at the wall myself. Idle power was 37w, load power under Furmark was 158w (with typical i5-3570). Your guesses are around 150w out from my measurements, and your Hardware Canucks "143w idle" chart (a dead giveaway that it's a top-end enthusiast rig far removed from the $200 GPU target market under discussion) consists of a 6-core i7 4930K heavily overclocked and overvolted to 4.7GHz with multiple SSD's, fed by a $300 1200w PSU, etc. Nice try at artificially inflating the low end figures to make some "space heaters" look relatively good by comparison, but for many genuine mid-range rigs (which a $575 i7-4930K isn't), it is indeed often sub 150w vs 250-300w. :sneaky:

I've repeated this for many years now [long post snipped]

I know exactly what your point is given how often you've repeated it. You're not grasping our point though - not everyone wants to spend £250-£300 on a GFX card and that's why lower segment cards exist in the first place. It really is that simple...

 

[Ranulf]

Is that 37w idle including your monitor? Because my fx8350 (a space heater cpu) w/7870 card idles at 95-100w with my 23'' 1080p monitor on (measured through my UPS) and down to 55-60w with the monitor off. The variance is likely due to whether or not my storage hd is spun up or not.

The 960 is a bigger disappointment for me than the 970's memory problems. 3-4 month wait for that price/perf is just a joke. I'd be even angrier if I hadn't picked up a 290 last fall for $250.

 

[shipinabottle]

I actually ordered the EVGA GTX 970 FTW at Newegg. Got a good deal with a 10% off coupon, EVGA's $20 rebate, and nVidia's Witcher 3 game. I also bought a backplate along with that. lol

I also like to play around with the DSR setting in the nVidia control panel, hence I was asking about the 4gb vs 2gb.

 

[Headfoot]

Unless you have an actual reason, saying "I'm not buying AMD" is likely because you have some preconceived notion which is more likely than not, incorrect.

You can get the best 290 here for $240. http://slickdeals.net/f/7826279-sap...-video-card-239-99-after-rebate-free-shipping.

Is you "reason" to not buy AMD worth $80 more (970 vs 290) or a 50% drop in performance (960 4GB)?

 

[sarfraz khan]

Hi everyone. Yes, my question is just what the thread title is. I have an EVGA 2gb 760 card right now, and will also upgrade to another EVGA 4gb 960. Will that upgrade be a worthy investment? I am only looking at nVidia cards, so AMD stuff is out of the picture.

Hmm . It's good . Gtx 960 is better and especially if you are buying a 4gb version . I will help you to run games smoothly on higher resolutions

 

[Qwertilot]

Unarguably better of course, slightly faster, lower power and quite a bit quieter all plus points. Fundamentally you'd have to strongly want the low noise to justify it.

Not a great time for it either, prices very likely to drop a bit when the delayed competition finally arrives from AMD. (a few months.).

Also has to be a very good chance there'll be a 750ti equivalent from Pascal out early next year. That could well be roughly as fast as a 960 in a ~60w form factor.

 

[RussianSensation]

I actually ordered the EVGA GTX 970 FTW at Newegg. Got a good deal with a 10% off coupon, EVGA's $20 rebate, and nVidia's Witcher 3 game. I also bought a backplate along with that. lol

Good job. :thumbsup: 970 or an R9 290 was the right move here. How are you liking the performance increase from your 760?

 

[shipinabottle]

Unless you have an actual reason, saying "I'm not buying AMD" is likely because you have some preconceived notion which is more likely than not, incorrect.

Is you "reason" to not buy AMD worth $80 more (970 vs 290) or a 50% drop in performance (960 4GB)?

Actually, my reason for not buying AMD is because I have personally seen nVidia cards being better than AMD for overall video quality. I own both AMD and nVidia cards. I'd rather pay a bit more for better overall video quality, than pay less and have something that I might end up regretting. I do see that AMD gets better game image, but that's it. AMD cards are just for the hardcore gamers who don't care for anything else but game image quality.

 

[Leyawiin]

Unless you have an actual reason, saying "I'm not buying AMD" is likely because you have some preconceived notion which is more likely than not, incorrect.

You can get the best 290 here for $240. http://slickdeals.net/f/7826279-sap...-video-card-239-99-after-rebate-free-shipping.

Is you "reason" to not buy AMD worth $80 more (970 vs 290) or a 50% drop in performance (960 4GB)?

It is a good deal, but its not $240. Its $260 with a $20 rebate "card" that arrives eight weeks later (if the mail-in-rebate gods smile on you and you've jumped through all the correct hoops). It can't be applied to the credit card purchase you made for $260 today. Nice little bonus - kind of like a free game. Again, I'm not saying $260 for a solid R9 290 like the Tri-X isn't a worthy purchase. Also, the lower end GTX 970 models are $45 more than that R9 290, not $80.

 

[crisium]

Wait, which company for years didn't display full RBG over HMDI? It wasn't the red team.

 

[Charlie98]

I actually ordered the EVGA GTX 970 FTW at Newegg. Got a good deal with a 10% off coupon, EVGA's $20 rebate, and nVidia's Witcher 3 game. I also bought a backplate along with that. lol

I also like to play around with the DSR setting in the nVidia control panel, hence I was asking about the 4gb vs 2gb.

Sweet! I actually made the upgrade from the EVGA GTX760 to the GTX970 SSC myself, and I'm glad I didn't cheap out. It easily handles everything I run on it, and I know it will serve well for the next few years. I have a backplate on the way, too, but noticed Newegg is shipping a free backplate with some EVGA models now... oh, well.

Coming from first a 560ti 448, to the 760, and finally to the 970, I realize that the 960 would have been, if not necessarily a step backwards, at most a sidegrade, even with the 4GB memory.

 

[iiiankiii]

Actually, my reason for not buying AMD is because I have personally seen nVidia cards being better than AMD for overall video quality. I own both AMD and nVidia cards. I'd rather pay a bit more for better overall video quality, than pay less and have something that I might end up regretting. I do see that AMD gets better game image, but that's it. AMD cards are just for the hardcore gamers who don't care for anything else but game image quality.

I've owned cards from both AMD and Nvidia that are recent at one point or another (gtx 970, gtx 980, gtx 760, gtx 770, gtx 780 ti, 6850, 6870, 7770, 7850, 7870, 7950, 7970, r9 280x, r9 290x). I can say from personal experience, they both look relatively the same. Sure, some games look better than the other. Overall, it's the same. It depends on the game.

Unless you HIGHLY value power consumption, they're pretty much the same. You can't go wrong with either choice within the same price range. You basically get the same performance at a lower price at the cost of power consumption with AMD. Nvidia offers the same performance with lower power consumption and proprietary crap at a higher price.

 

[Headfoot]

Actually, my reason for not buying AMD is because I have personally seen nVidia cards being better than AMD for overall video quality. I own both AMD and nVidia cards. I'd rather pay a bit more for better overall video quality, than pay less and have something that I might end up regretting. I do see that AMD gets better game image, but that's it. AMD cards are just for the hardcore gamers who don't care for anything else but game image quality.

lol, so yep I was exactly right. There is no difference in "game image" other than what settings you can put it at for 99% of games. Every once and a while a poorly programmed game feature breaks on one brand or the other but its exceedingly rare in today's age.