Graphic Cards GIGABYTE Extreme Gaming GTX 950 Performance

A

Ayush Sharma

Novice
Hi Guys

I recently read some reviews and watched a couple of videos for the new gigabyte, GTX 950 EXTREME Gaming edition. It seems to have reviewed well on most hardware review sites, however i was wondering if anyone had any first hand experience with games like The Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight, GTA 5 and on what settings they were playable with the extreme gaming 950.

thanks in advance :)
 
i can't speak about the gigabyte specifically but going by the reviews of the gtx 950 you would be getting just about playable frame rates at low details on those games. I'm assuming 1080p res and no cpu bottleneck.
 
Crapmypants said:
i can't speak about the gigabyte specifically but going by the reviews of the gtx 950 you would be getting just about playable frame rates at low details on those games. I'm assuming 1080p res and no cpu bottleneck.
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You can easily do medium to high at 1080p resolution. With some overclocking this card performs like a gtx960. And gtx960 is a perfect 1080p card for mostly 60fps gaming. Expect not more than 2-5fps difference between the two with overclocking.
 
Yeah been wondering the same thing actually.. I myself am looking to upgrade from a GTX 750ti and budget is a bit tight.
 
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950/960 are not what I'll call future proof. They are obsolete for 1080p already if you want to play at high/ultra settings. If you have a limited budget, look for an AMD R9 280x or R9 380. If you can spend a bit more, get a GTX 970.
 
Chaos said:
950/960 are not what I'll call future proof. They are obsolete for 1080p already if you want to play at high/ultra settings. If you have a limited budget, look for an AMD R9 280x or R9 380. If you can spend a bit more, get a GTX 970.
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Definately gtx970 is better than gtx960. But, the reviews have clearly shown that gtx960 is the prefect 60fps card. And it does score more than r9 280x in most games. Do check the reviews, you would be surprised the way I was.
The maxwell artitecture used in gtx960 and 950 is effectively efficient and powerful even without having huge bandwidth. It fully make sence for 1080p gaming. For 4k even r9 280x is useless.
 
Yes, the gtx 960 is a good 1080p card. problem is that it's good in today's titles. future titles will subsequently take performance hits as newer graphical features get introduced. as a result, future games may not run as well as current titles do today. the 950 will be even less so.
getting a gpu that's slight overkill for today's titles makes sure it has the headroom to manage future releases a year or two down the road.

@op: the main problem here is the price of the 950.
the gtx 960 goes for ~16-18k while a 950 is ~15-17k online
this makes the 950 very poor value compared to the 960.
aim for 12k for the 950 and 15k for a 960.

p.s. i have a 280x and every time i pop in a new game, the first thing i do is go into options and just blindly put everything in ultra/max settings.
that gpu is absolutely mental.
 
Crapmypants said:
Yes, the gtx 960 is a good 1080p card. problem is that it's good in today's titles. future titles will subsequently take performance hits as newer graphical features get introduced. as a result, future games may not run as well as current titles do today. the 950 will be even less so.
getting a gpu that's slight overkill for today's titles makes sure it has the headroom to manage future releases a year or two down the road.

@op: the main problem here is the price of the 950.
the gtx 960 goes for ~16-18k while a 950 is ~15-17k online
this makes the 950 very poor value compared to the 960.
aim for 12k for the 950 and 15k for a 960.

p.s. i have a 280x and every time i pop in a new game, the first thing i do is go into options and just blindly put everything in ultra/max settings.
that gpu is absolutely mental.
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Actually, gtx960 are available for 14-15k now. While, gtx950 is also in a similiar 13-14k range. So, yes it's bad value for now. Gtx960 is going to go down even more in the coming days. So, better stick to gtx960 and no need to consider amd r9 280x which through is similarly priced is already 1 generation old. And, it is also not as efficient as gtx960. Also, gtx 960 is more powerful as well.

So, until you get r9 280x for 12k-13k max. Your first choice should be gtx 960.
 
redhotiron2004 said:
Definately gtx970 is better than gtx960. But, the reviews have clearly shown that gtx960 is the prefect 60fps card. And it does score more than r9 280x in most games. Do check the reviews, you would be surprised the way I was.
The maxwell artitecture used in gtx960 and 950 is effectively efficient and powerful even without having huge bandwidth. It fully make sence for 1080p gaming. For 4k even r9 280x is useless.
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The 960 is slower than the 285 in everything and the r9 280x is faster than 285 in pretty much everything other than extremely tessellated scenes. Here's what the future holds - Fable Legends (Unreal Engine 4.9)

https://techreport.com/review/29090/fable-legends-directx-12-performance-revealed/2
http://anandtech.com/show/9659/fable-legends-directx-12-benchmark-analysis/2

960: ~34-37 fps
7970 aka 280x: 44-45 fps

From no angle, does the 960 seem future proof in DX12. Its mostly staring at the bottom of the barrel in most benches. Since this bench is based on UE4, expect tonnes of new games to follow the same trend since UE is the biggest deal out there for devs.

Personally if I'm recommending a card to someone, I'd recommend the 970 at the bare minimum as the rest already appear to be dead in the water. The only one of the cheaper ones that appears to have some legs is the 4 year old Tahiti chip aka 7970 aka 280x.
 
Chaos said:
The 960 is slower than the 285 in everything and the r9 280x is faster than 285 in pretty much everything other than extremely tessellated scenes. Here's what the future holds - Fable Legends (Unreal Engine 4.9)

https://techreport.com/review/29090/fable-legends-directx-12-performance-revealed/2
http://anandtech.com/show/9659/fable-legends-directx-12-benchmark-analysis/2

960: ~34-37 fps
7970 aka 280x: 44-45 fps

From no angle, does the 960 seem future proof in DX12. Its mostly staring at the bottom of the barrel in most benches. Since this bench is based on UE4, expect tonnes of new games to follow the same trend since UE is the biggest deal out there for devs.

Personally if I'm recommending a card to someone, I'd recommend the 970 at the bare minimum as the rest already appear to be dead in the water. The only one of the cheaper ones that appears to have some legs is the 4 year old Tahiti chip aka 7970 aka 280x.
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Problem with AMD is that they are still using an old tech even in there latest cards. Now, that's not a huge problem if you keep on updating the features as well. But, at this point, the power consumption on these cards is a sour point for me r9 280x or r9 285 etc. Both uses almost double of what a gtx 960 uses while providing similar performance.

Now, the hidden costs here is the higher class PSU along higher wattage UPS(I use it due to uneven fluctuations and outages), and ofcource higher heat generation with higher electricity bills.
As for the DX12. Nvidia have already mentioned that there drivers are not yet optimized to take full capability of DX12 which would definitely change in the future. So, that shouldn't be a huge concern for now. And comparing nvidia performance vs AMD in present DX12 titles(which are 1 or 2 at best) is not a fair thing to do for now. The real comparison that you should see is for DX11 titles. And you would know how those cards gets beaten by gtx960.

I am not against AMD. But, at this price segment GTX960 is much better value for money right now.
 
redhotiron2004 said:
Problem with AMD is that they are still using an old tech even in there latest cards. Now, that's not a huge problem if you keep on updating the features as well. But, at this point, the power consumption on these cards is a sour point for me r9 280x or r9 285 etc. Both uses almost double of what a gtx 960 uses while providing similar performance.

Now, the hidden costs here is the higher class PSU along higher wattage UPS(I use it due to uneven fluctuations and outages), and ofcource higher heat generation with higher electricity bills.
As for the DX12. Nvidia have already mentioned that there drivers are not yet optimized to take full capability of DX12 which would definitely change in the future. So, that shouldn't be a huge concern for now. And comparing nvidia performance vs AMD in present DX12 titles(which are 1 or 2 at best) is not a fair thing to do for now. The real comparison that you should see is for DX11 titles. And you would know how those cards gets beaten by gtx960.

I am not against AMD. But, at this price segment GTX960 is much better value for money right now.
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To the contrary, the 280x beats the 960 hollow in DX11 titles as well. 960 is severely bandwidth limited.

https://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/5

Far Cry 4: 280x - 66fps, 960 55 fps
DOTA2 : 280x - 112fps, 960 108 fps
Civ 5: 280x - 58fps, 960 54fps
Borderlands TPS : 280x - 88fps, 960 - 71fps
Alien Isolation: 280x - 79fps, 960 - 70fps
Talos Principle: 280x - 64fps, 960 - 55.5fps
Wins for 280x : 6, wins for 960 : 0

From what angle is the 960 faster than the 280x? The latter is a 4 year old card which sells for the same price as the 960 and stomps all over it and even more badly at 2560x1440.

As for power consumption, the system power consumption with a 960 on load is 244W, with a 280x it is 308W in the same review.
Is 64W(25%) justified for the extra performance? Most definitely yes as in many cases, the 280x is 20%+ faster. Both will run perfectly fine on a decent 450-500W PSU.

Don't get me wrong - I have three nvidia cards in my machines - a 980 Ti, a 970 and a single slot GT 740 in my htpc and one 7970 sitting in the cupboard after serving me well for 3+ years.

However to call a spade a spade is necessary - the 960 is an obsolete card the day it was released with that 128 bit memory bus. The card is pretty badly starved of memory bandwidth that it needs. The only thing going for it is full hardware h.265 decoding. But that is an HTPC feature not a gaming feature.
 
Chaos said:
To the contrary, the 280x beats the 960 hollow in DX11 titles as well. 960 is severely bandwidth limited.

https://techreport.com/review/27702/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-graphics-card-reviewed/5

Far Cry 4: 280x - 66fps, 960 55 fps
DOTA2 : 280x - 112fps, 960 108 fps
Civ 5: 280x - 58fps, 960 54fps
Borderlands TPS : 280x - 88fps, 960 - 71fps
Alien Isolation: 280x - 79fps, 960 - 70fps
Talos Principle: 280x - 64fps, 960 - 55.5fps
Wins for 280x : 6, wins for 960 : 0

From what angle is the 960 faster than the 280x? The latter is a 4 year old card which sells for the same price as the 960 and stomps all over it and even more badly at 2560x1440.

As for power consumption, the system power consumption with a 960 on load is 244W, with a 280x it is 308W in the same review.
Is 64W(25%) justified for the extra performance? Most definitely yes as in many cases, the 280x is 20%+ faster. Both will run perfectly fine on a decent 450-500W PSU.

Don't get me wrong - I have three nvidia cards in my machines - a 980 Ti, a 970 and a single slot GT 740 in my htpc and one 7970 sitting in the cupboard after serving me well for 3+ years.

However to call a spade a spade is necessary - the 960 is an obsolete card the day it was released with that 128 bit memory bus. The card is pretty badly starved of memory bandwidth that it needs. The only thing going for it is full hardware h.265 decoding. But that is an HTPC feature not a gaming feature.
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You yourself are showing 5-6 fps average difference in most games. I should have mentioned that gtx960 is a overclocker dream. This card usually reach the level of gtx770 with overclocking. While maintaining a respectable power draw.

While you can overclock a r9 280x as well. But, that really makes the already bad power much worse.

And beleive me a gtx960 can easily run on a good 450-500watt max PSU. While you need a minimum 550-600watt psu for r9 280x. That's a huge difference in price for psu.

And I am yet to see even a single proof that this card gtx960(maxwell) is bandwidth limited on 1080p resolution. There is absolutely no evidence for that on the internet. All of them are speculation. For eg it always performs better than gtx760 which had higher theoretical bandwidth than gtx960. Still, gtx960 destroys gtx760 in every benchmark at 1080p resolution.
 
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redhotiron2004 said:
You yourself are showing 5-6 fps average difference in most games. I should have mentioned that gtx960 is a overclocker dream. This card usually reach the level of gtx770 with overclocking. While maintaining a respectable power draw.

While you can overclock a r9 280x as well. But, that really makes the already bad power much worse.

And beleive me a gtx960 can easily run on a good 450-500watt max PSU. While you need a minimum 550-600watt psu for r9 280x. That's a huge difference in price for psu.

And I am yet to see even a single proof that this card gtx960(maxwell) is bandwidth limited on 1080p resolution. There is absolutely no evidence for that on the internet. All of them are speculation. For eg it always performs better than gtx760 which had higher theoretical bandwidth than gtx960. Still, gtx960 destroys gtx760 in every benchmark at 1080p resolution.
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Its more like 10-15 fps on an average or roughly 15% of performance. Even if you overclock to say 1500 core, you'll only reach the level of a 280x not exceed it. Once you overclock, the power draw will pretty much be at parity with a 280x.

280x overclocks pretty good too - my sample did 1125 core day in day out on a 550W seasonic psu. Yes temps and noise was bad but thats cos of the stock 7970 cooler which was bad. The later models had after market coolers which are much better.

The difference between a 400W PSU and a 550W PSU is at max 2k. Having a good psu will allow CPU overclocks as well.

As for whether 960 is memory bandwidth limited - if you run anything at 2560x1440, performance of the 960 falls off a cliff in current gen games. So while it might be strictly OK for games released so far, in future games with larger textures and physically based rendering the trend will probably continue and only get worse.
 
So a bit more into my exact situation.

1)Not going to be gaming beyond 1080 and on a single monitor.
2)Looking to hang onto this card for 8 months, a year max . looking to upgrade to pascall cards when they comes.
3)I am interested in Gigabyte in particular because they have a good service and rma record in India, and with all the heat and dust that's kinda super important. Not that i expect to need it in less than a year, but that's something i dont have to worry about

So should i take the plunge?
 
@Ayush Sharma : right now the 950 represents bad value so might as well go for the 960. pretty solid performance jump over the 950 for 1-2k more.
since you're replacing the gpu in 8-12 months then what about a used card? something that's still under warranty for ~10k might work.

@redhotiron2004 : yes, tahiti is not as efficient as a 960 but i still love that gpu.
it took on fermi, kepler and still puts on a good show against maxwell, nearly 4 years after it's release.
in fact, it's performance envelope has only increased over time with better drivers.
also, from what we're seeing with early dx12 benches, it's clear that gcn will not get bogged down by it.
imo, tahiti is like a james bond villain - sob just refuses to die :D
 
Ayush Sharma said:
So a bit more into my exact situation.

1)Not going to be gaming beyond 1080 and on a single monitor.
2)Looking to hang onto this card for 8 months, a year max . looking to upgrade to pascall cards when they comes.
3)I am interested in Gigabyte in particular because they have a good service and rma record in India, and with all the heat and dust that's kinda super important. Not that i expect to need it in less than a year, but that's something i dont have to worry about

So should i take the plunge?
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Look for amazon deals on 960 gtx in that case. It'll definitely have better resale than amd.
 
Thanks for all the help guys!

I finally picked up an under warranty G1 Gaming 960. Should see me through to pascall!!

PS The star wars Battlefront Beta is running very well on this
 
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