GTX 960 owners thread

Mysterious reboots strikes again here are some fun facts
1) Issue seems to be related to DX9 , so far only games that gives me headache are Tera and Deadpool. FC 4,DA:I, GTA V , AC: Unity works without anything like this
2) While Tera goes wild completely random , Deadpool reboots seems to be replicable and related to plenty of action on the screen.
3) Issue is not related to OS . I just installed Win 10 TP ( 1000074) with newest driver just to check Tera and it rebooted same way in about 5 mins of gameplay
4) There is no power / utilization problem as FC4 eats almost every chunk of RAM/Vram avaiable and is working perfectly.
5) Issues in Deadpool can be bypassed by setting low graphic details. Tera still reboots no matter what I set
6) OC/DC doesnt change anything.
7) There might be something magical in the way how drivers are installed. When I did DDU in safe mode then rebooted and installed v348.08 then did the one required reboot it was working without reboot for few next hours then I shut down and went to sleep. Next day it wont let me play more than 10 minutes sometimes even reboots on the game loading.

I'm totally out of ideas so please if anything comes to your mind say it.

 

Got GTA V and Project Cars earlier this week.

GTA V runs at 30-60fps, settings on auto.
It's weird, when driving, fps dips, when walking, fps goes back up.

Project Cars runs at 40-60 fps.
Settings on auto.

All my games in 1920x1200 when possible.

 

I picked one of these cards up premature to doing my research as a replacement for my 760 and after learning what I know now the 960 is a 760 with a maxwell chip. Overall though for the price its an alright card..... I might get a second one and just SLI them the performance with these things in SLI from what I have read so far appears alright.

 

There are a few games that take advantage of more than 2GB of video memory. Some people seem to think the only thing that takes up more VRAM is running games at 1440p and above. Try running Watch Doges on ultra textures with a 2GB card, or Titan Fall. Sometimes more video memory is needed just for textures, and that isn't going to tank performance either. Plus there is Skyrim and mods which need more than 2GB. The 960 is a good card that is simply overpriced. It should have launched at £140-150 with 3GB minimum. Also if a 960 owner wants to sli down the road 4GB makes higher settings more viable.

I got a 58.03FPS in a Metro Last Light bench.

I seem to recall my overclocked 670 (Asus Top) getting 48.something fps using the exact same settings.

Not bad considering how bandwidth starved the 960 is.

128-bit lol

 

Anybody modded their BIOS? Increase the voltage limit and power draw limit? I'm curious just how far these over clock. I know its not necessary, but I have an H75 waiting, if I get one of these. I want to push it as far as possible.

I assume the Gigabyte Gaming is the one to get for that reason?

 

I was only supposed to get the Witcher 3 free with my 960 but Dabs sent me a code today for Arkham Knight too! :hatty:

 

Went with the EVGA SSC. It had a memory & vrm heatplate separate from the main heat sink. Perfect for watercooling.



H75 comes tomorrow, 960 comes a day or two later.

 

For anyone interested, the 960 only reaches ~40C while gaming, on an H75.

 

So I decided to get another 4GB 960 for sli, more for my own amusement than anything else. I'll run some benchmarks and post some results when it arrives in a few days. Oh and I just want to vent at why vendors of Nvidia cards don't include a bloody sli bridge with their cards. I went looking in my 460 box, my 580 box, my fooking 670 box and my 960 box and nothing! Quite pathetic. I finally found one in the box for my mobo. Jesus.

 

Here are some benchmark results with GTX 960 sli

3DMark 11

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9862950

Fire Strike

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7116271

The overall score there is good but for some reason the combined test was rather poor with an average fps of 16 which is well below a 980 and even my 290 does better with around 20fps. Not sure what's up with that.

Valley benchmark gave an average of 68fps using the extreme HD preset which is a good score and is basically what you'd get with a 980.

 

Played The Witcher 3 yesterday, did the tut.

Low-med settings, with post process on med, no hairworx.
60 fps smooth, no drops what so ever.
Beautifully renderd world, eye dropping draw distance.

 

Witcher 3 with 960 sli all settings to ultra except shadow to high, foliage distance to high hairworks off 1080p/60fps locked except one demanding cutscene that dropped to 56fps. I turned sli off and did the same cutscene with one card and it dropped lowest to 29fps, so scaling is pretty good.

btw can someone please resize that massive pic blacklac posted.

 

My bad. I'm used to forums with auto resizing.

 

Well, I am now a member of the GTX 960 owners club. NewEgg has an excellent price on the Gigabyte 4 GB Card with 3 fans. It is $209.99 with a $10 dollar mail in rebate, making final cost (If Gigabyte is good about rebates) of $199.99.

It also came with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. It looks like a fun game, am looking forward to trying it.

I am upgrading from an MSI GTX 660. I'm very happy with the MSI 660. At 1080 it plays all my games including WoW, BF4, and FarCry 4 just fine.

I know the GTX 960 4GB will be a bit faster than the GTX 660. I really wanted to give my sister my GTX 660 so she could play wow maxed out at 1080 like I do now. I'm glad this card went on sale as it allows me a good upgrade and my sis an awesome upgrade, as she is using my older 8800GT. The GTX 660 is about 300% faster than the 8800.

It would have been nice to get a GTX 970, but it is 100 dollars more and that is just not in my budget. I could buy one used from craigslist but I really don't trust doing that, and no one is selling used GTX 970's for 200 dollars. I also did not get a R9 380, although I looked and did a lot of research, for four reasons. First was Physx. I play games that use that (AC: Blackflag is one). Second was the suite of Nvidia software and drivers. Third was the overclocking ability of the GTX 960. It can overclock much more than the R9 380, which then puts the GTX 960 in the lead. Fourth and final reason was power efficiency. This lowers power use, and heat, and improves the ability to overclock. These all played a part in my decision on which card to purchase.

Next week sometime after I get the card installed I will post my impressions, and maybe some pics in my case if I can figure out how to do that.

Glad to be part of the GTX 960 owners club!

 

DirectX 12.1 does not exist!

DirectX 12 include 4 feature level:
D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1
D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_12_0
D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_12_1

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_12_1 is not DirectX 12.1


Kepler 1.0 (GTX 660 for example) supprot D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0 (ref. DirectX 11)
Kepler 2.0 (GTX 760) support D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1 (ref. DirectX 11.1)
Maxwell 1.0 (GTX 750) support D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1 (ref. DirectX 11.2)
Maxwell 2.0 (GTX 960) support D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_12_1 (ref. DirectX 12)

But still all Kepler and Maxwell also support DirectX 12, because device may be init as follows
ID3D12Device *device = nullptr;
D3D12CreateDevice(nullptr, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0, IID_PPV_ARGS(&device)); (3DMark Overhead uses just such a set of function)

Spoiler

 

First Impressions: My new Gigabyte GTX 960 4GB is just an amazing graphics card. After upgrading to this from an MSI GTX 660 2GB card, I am extremely happy with it, and I do not yet understand why people are so negative about it.

Anyhow, I got it for less than 200 dollars, and it came with a free 60 dollar game, Metal Gear Solid 5 (Which I can download in 2 weeks since its not out yet).

I have played World of Warcraft, Battlefield 4, FarCry4, Assassin's Creed: Blackflag and some other games all now on ultra settings (Except World of Warcraft I could do on ultra on the GTX 660). Let me tell you that Battlefield 4, FarCry4 and Assassin's Creed play smooth and look amazing on Ultra. I did not realize the difference it makes.

Sure a GTX 970 would have been nice, but I don't have 300 dollars to spend on a graphics card, and my budget for such an item is always around $200 dollars anyway.

I have not tried overclocking yet, but look forward to doing so. I would definitively recommend this card if your price point is 200 dollars and you prefer Nvidia software and drivers over AMD's. While the AMD R9 380 is slightly faster at stock speeds, the GTX 960 I believe beats it when overclocked, and also has Nvidia Physx. I maxed out the Physx in Assassin's Creed and it played great.

Finally, I also thought the 128 bit bus would be a hindrance, and maybe it is at resolutions above 1080p, but on my Asus 23" 1080p monitor, it feels like a 256 bit card. The 128 bit bus does not seem to be a factor at all at 1080p.

That is my mini review. Very happy with the GTX 960, and glad I did go with the 4GB one.

 

The 960 isn't really held back too much by being 128-bit. The card definitely punches above its weight considering the limited memory bandwidth. I have 2 4GB MSI 960s and haven't noticed any problems running games at 2720x1536. The 960 seems to get a bad rep but there's nothing wrong with it as far as I can tell.

 

Last weekend I bought a Gigabyte 960 OC 4GB as it was on special offer to replace an aging Gigabyte 660 GTX Windforce 2GB and have been pleasantly surprised so far.

Formerly I was averaging the following with the 660:
Cities Skylines (1080p): 18-20fps
Witcher 3 (720p): 26fps
Skyrim (1080p high, 2xAA, 8xAF): 28-32fps, depending on area with no ENB.

After the upgrade:
Cities Skylines (1080p): 46-60fps
Witcher 3 (720p): 60fps (1080p) 48fps
Skyrim (1080p Ultra, 4xAA, 8xAF): 49fps, with SkyVision ENB. Image fidelity is MUCH higher.

I am tempted to buy another for SLI later on.

 

Not bad... hope worth of money

 

Well I paid £150ish for the card and sold my 660 for £100 so £50 for an upgrade that solid is always worth it, even if only for the Skyrim benefits alone!