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一线大厂齐发彪，有没有！&&&&&&整机配置全部采用了一线硬件厂商的产品，保证了整机平台的质量和性能表现。其中硬件三大件中：酷睿i5-4570是目前Intel&Haswell架构中i5系列的性能中坚，作为游戏装机中的一环性能上完全胜任；对应的主板选用了技嘉B85N-Phoenix，作为一款ITX主板规格强悍，而且还有呼吸灯设计，搭配非超频的i5处理器也很合适；显卡部分，影驰的GTX760黑将是我们常说的甜品级显卡，而非公版设计在性能表现上更为出色，也是玩家们希望看到的。●一线硬件群英会：主流性能且尚有自由度CPU部分：Intel酷睿i5-4570（盒装）Intel酷睿i5-4570（盒装）&&&&&&酷睿i5-4570是Intel&Haswell架构处理器中的四核性能中坚，原生四颗物理核心，22nm的工艺制程是目前桌面平台最先进的，在功耗和发热量控制上优势明显，盒装的原装散热器也能保证平台稳定。虽然酷睿i5系列都具有四核心四线程的规格，但相比i5-4430这样的i5入门产品，其主频更高（默认主频3.2GHz，最高睿频可达3.6GHz），对于一些需要高主频的游戏或应用程序，高主频的优势还是非常明显的。&&CPU正反面实拍图（点击图片可看大图）&&Intel原装散热器实拍图（点击图片可看大图）&&&&&&另外本着实用的原则，定制主机的目标群体是游戏玩家，所以i5-4670K这款超频CPU也就不再我们的考虑范围之内了，不超频反而省去的新手的学习成本，而且应对大型3D游戏i5-4570的性能绝对不会成为瓶颈。内存：威刚4GB&DDR3&1600&*2威刚4GB&DDR3&1600&万紫千红系列普条&&&&&&既然打造的是一台性能游戏平台，入门办公休闲的4GB容量显然是存在瓶颈的，主流4GB&*2的双通道组合是玩家们的标配。硬盘：影驰&虎将&120GB影驰&虎将&120GB&&&&&&自从去年开始，固态硬盘（SSD）就延续了一年的降价势头，确实随着内存颗粒厂商纷纷涉足前景广阔的固态硬盘，SSD也从原来的高档品成为了更多主流性能用户的标配。所以在硬盘部分，我们选择了近期SSD市场中的一匹黑马：影驰虎将&120GB，作为一款仅有7毫米宽度的超薄产品，其性能也不容忽视，高品质的东芝24nm&MLC闪存保证了软件、游戏、视频的高速处理能力。&&影驰&虎将&120GB（点击图片可看大图）&&&&&&&在整机硬件配置中，相信一些网友会对硬盘部分颇有微词，仅配备一块120GB固态硬盘是不是有些欠妥呢？这里主要还是考虑到了用户对机械硬盘的容量大小需求不同考虑的，对于一般的游戏玩家，可能1TB的容量就够了；但对于高清影音爱好者来说，2TB、3TB，甚至选择多硬盘装机也是非常常见的情况。当然对于准备升级新平台的用户，当前主机上的硬盘依然可以装到我们的定制主机中使用，从而避免了多余的费用。所以在硬盘部分，我们在保证整机性能的前提下，也给大家更多的自由度，另外机械硬盘的价格也比较平稳，各位自行选择方案即可。●影音游戏最高享受：ITX凤凰板配GTX760主板：技嘉B85N-Phoenix&&&&&&既然CPU部分选择了酷睿i5-4570，那么在非超频平台上选择一款B85主板就成为理所当然的事情，但作为定制主机，酷炫的外观也是非常重要的一部分，而技嘉B85N-Phoenix则承担起了主板部分的重任。主板采用了ITX迷你板型设计&&&&&&&技嘉这款B85凤凰版基于Intel&B85芯片组设计，采用了ITX迷你板型。作为一款ITX主板，该板的用料还是延续了技嘉一贯的高水准：超耐久第四代技术的应用，让主板的稳定性和耐用性有了保证。在核心CPU供电上，主板拥有成熟的4相供电规格，针对于非超频平台这样的规格足够用了。凤凰的大杀器：烈焰背光系统&&&&&&技嘉B85N-Phoenix的最大特色是其业界首创的LED背光系统：该主板之所以命名Phoenix（凤凰），那是因为该板拥有独创的烈焰背光系统，三面烈焰LED灯管可以在主板的BIOS中进行设置，甚至可以开启呼吸灯效果，搭配侧透机箱，炫酷十足！主板提供了齐全的插槽接口&&&&&&作为一款ITX小板，技嘉为其添设了齐全的插槽接口：mini&PCI-E以及mSATA接口应有尽有，玩家们还可以接驳无线WiFi模块等设备，提供给DIY玩家的自由度还是相当高的。3个SATAIII接口的规格也能满足用户多硬盘拓展需求。为PC&Hi-Fi发烧友配备了魔音USB接口&&&&&&背板I/O接口部分，主板提供了1个PS/2键鼠通用接口，4个USB2.0接口，2个USB3.0高速接口，1组DVI/HDMI数字高清视频输出接口，1个RJ45网络接口，1个光纤音频输出接口，1组多声道模拟音频接口。当然作为一款规格丰富的主板，凤凰版还加设了一个魔音USB接口，打算组建PC&Hi-Fi影音平台的用户应该会非常中意这个设计。显卡：影驰&GTX760黑将影驰&GTX760黑将&&&&&&组建一台高性能的游戏平台，除了拥有一颗强劲的CPU核心提供整机的运算性能以外，图形性能就得看压轴显卡了。定制主机在显卡部分选择了NVIDIA&7系显卡中的当之无愧的甜品之王：GTX760，作为NVIDIA性能与价格兼顾的最好的一个型号，X6X永远是老DIY玩家们青睐的首选。而影驰也是NV显卡厂商的一线合作伙伴，GTX760黑将更是一款非常经典的非公版显卡。&&影驰&GTX760黑将正反面实拍图&&&&&&影驰&GTX760黑将显卡供电方面使用了分离式的独立供电技术，全固态电容可以有效提高显卡的滤波能力加强电气性能，6pin+8pin外接电源接口组合可以辅助显卡稳定输出在MHz的超高默认频率之上。显卡视频输出接口部分&&&&&&影驰&GTX760黑将显卡接口输出端利用的是双DVI+HDMI+DP的全面组合搭配，玩家可以根据自己的喜好选择不同的显示器进行连接，双DVI和DP接口面对4K分辨率也能应对自如。●550W电源充足&NVIDIA定制机箱万里挑一电源：ANDYSON&AX550W&&&&&&定制主机的核心硬件各个精良，不过为了能够充分的发挥出性能硬件的全部实力，并且保证平台的稳定运行，在机电组件上自然也需要严格把关。ANDYSON&AX550W是一款主动式PFC电源&&&&ANDYSON是一家血统纯正的台系厂商，在电源制造、设计方面的优势明显，在高端定位的大功率电源上有很多经典的产品，虽然在国内并不多见，但也被很多DIY老玩家们奉为经典，例如曾经的金字招牌：Ultra&X3&1600W。当然针对于主流用户，ANDYSON&AX550W则是一款定位主流的电源，550W的额定功率对于i5-4570+GTX760这两个平台主要用电的硬件，还是可以轻松带动的。电源参数标明清晰&&&&在电源的上方，电源的实际参数标明很清晰方便用户浏览。这款电源通过了80&PLUS白牌设计标准，在满载的情况下，其电源转换效率可以达到81.13%，达到了主流标准。机箱：NVIDIA&GeForce&GTX&PC定制机箱&&&&&&既然采用了ITX迷你主板进行装机，那么在机箱选择上我们也应该门当户对的选择小机箱，才能将主板的小巧特点发挥出来。虽然市场中有不少针对mATX、ITX板型设计的机箱，但ZOL定制爆款主机自然有自己的杀手锏：那就是NVIDIA&GeForce&GTX&PC定制机箱。机箱采用了倾斜式设计& & & 机箱采用了框架结构设计，下部有一个镂空，上部为两个提手，从后到前有一个倾斜角度，搭配机箱的亚光面板材质，气势十足。侧面提供了2个USB3.0接口，1个耳机接口、1个麦克接口，日常使用也很方便。机箱侧面板：GEFORCE&GTX彰显定制身份！&&&&&&从机箱左侧面板中，我们可以清晰的看到GEFORCE&GTX字样，而这就是该定制机箱的一个重要标示。配合侧透板设计，点亮主机后的绿色LOGO非常轧眼，当然对于很多高端玩家来说，随时可以瞄一眼酷炫的主机运行效果，可以说是个性定制主机的最大魅力之一。安装完成效果图：很有质感吧！&&背后及侧面效果图（点击可看大图）&&&&&&装机完成的效果图，还是非常有质感的。NVIDIA&GeForce&GTX&PC定制机箱的独特外形绝对是亮眼的设计，其中机箱内部对细节部分的处理也值得称道，不仅可以搭配完整规格的独立显卡，同时电源、硬盘、主板的走线也并不凌乱复杂，这在其他迷你机箱上可并不常见。至于所有关乎性能表现的硬件，就都被封印在“黑匣子”之中了。&&&&&&慢！慢！慢！大家不要忘了，该主机的技嘉凤凰版和NV定制机箱可是会发光的，笔者就先放出一张主机运行效果图，眼馋的玩家们咱们先睹为快：烈焰呼吸背光搭配NVIDIA的绿毒：充满神秘感
微星N760 GAMING 2G
芯片厂商：NVIDIA
显卡芯片：GeForce GTX 760
显存容量：2048MB
显存位宽：256bit
核心频率：MHz
显存频率：6008MHz
散热方式：散热风扇+热管散热
I/O接口：HDMI接口/双DVI接口/DisplayPort接口
接口类型：PCI Express 3.0 16X
CUDA核心：1152个
3D API：DirectX 11.1
最大分辨率：
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Eurogamer.net
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 review
The green team's 1080p 'sweet spot' card is good, but not great.
Does Nvidia's sub-?200 enthusiast-level Maxwell card deliver?
Published 24/01/2015
Version tested PC
UPDATE 18/10/15 12:20pm: We've now had the opportunity to review both 2GB and 4GB versions of the GeForce GTX 960, where we compare them with AMD's updated rival, the R9 390 - also available in 2GB/4GB SKUs. Check out this
for a more recent take on Nvidia's 1080p 'sweet spot' hardware.Original story: Nvidia's
took no prisoners, reshaping the high-end desktop graphics market by outperforming both AMD's R9 290 and its top-end 290X, brutally under-cutting both with an excellent price-point. Its only drawback? At around ?250, the value on offer was - and is - tremendous, but that's still a hefty outlay for a graphics card, its charms remaining out of reach for the majority of PC gamers. All eyes were on Nvidia to deliver the same kind of seismic shift to the GPU market at the ?150-?180 sweet spot. The bad news? GTX 960 doesn't offer the same kind of mindboggling value as its pricier sibling. The good news? It's keenly priced for its position in the marketplace, offering competitive - though not exactly spectacular - performance. Despite its lack of a killer edge, the GTX 960 shouldn't be written off - it has charms of its own that AMD cannot offer, particularly in terms of power efficiency. With a 120W TDP and a relatively meagre power draw, this card runs cooler and quieter than its competition, draining far less juice from the mains. Even running in concert with an overclocked Core i7 CPU, total system power consumption is still under 200W - a remarkable achievement.The arrival of the GTX 960 sees the debut of a new mid-range graphics core based on the Maxwell architecture, dubbed GM206, fabricated on the existing, mature 28nm process and featuring eight SMM CUDA core clusters for a total of 1024 processors. That's up against 2048 cores in the top-end GTX 980, and 1664 found in the GTX 970. ROPs are pared back from 64 to 32, while the memory interface is compromised too - there's a 128-bit interface here as opposed to the 256-bit version found in the higher-end cards. Memory bandwidth is the key concern then, owing to the constricted interface. Nvidia's solution? To begin with, it's using top-end 7gbps GDDR5 modules - pretty much the fastest RAM the firm has access to. On top of that, the second-gen Maxwell memory compression interface is in full effect, with Nvidia offering a notional 9.3gbps throughput as data between GPU and RAM is compressed and decompressed on the fly.Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 specsBased on a new 'GM206' design from Nvidia, the GTX 960 is effectively the GTX 980 halved: memory, CUDA cores, ROPs, bandwidth, RAM bus, L2 cache - they're all just 50 per cent as large as the Maxwell flagship. However, core and memory clocks remain reassuringly high, and there's good overclocking potential here. With GM206, Nvidia has full hardware encoding and decoding for the HEVC h.265 standard, along with HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 support.CUDA Cores: 1024Base Clock: 1126MHzBoost Clock: 1178MHzMemory: 2GB GDDR5Memory Clock: 7010MHzMemory Bandwidth: 112.16GB/sTexture Mapping Units 64ROPs: 32L2 Cache Size: 1048MBTDP: 120WDie Size: 227mm2Manufacturing Process: 28nmWith the MSI GTX 960 we're reviewing here, core clocks are boosted by 100MHz out of the box. While there is a reference GTX 960 design, all the cards we're aware of on the market now are customised by third-party manufacturers.The GTX 960's clock-speeds are broadly comparable to its bigger brothers, with core clock running at 1126MHz, boosting up to 1178MHz if thermal headroom allows (and it almost certainly will). Nvidia reckons that the new card is a bit of an overclocking monster, and to that end, many of the 960s reaching the market are factory overclocked out of the box. Our review unit - an MSI GTX 960 Gaming 2G - actually has 100MHz of extra clock-speed added as standard, and there's additional OC headroom on top of that, with Nvidia stating that 1450MHz is achievable with ease, with no fan speed or voltage increases required.
from Amazon with free shippingKicking off our performance testing, we turn to our 'go to' game for hardware stress-testing - Crytek's Crysis 3, running on our new test system featuring a Core i4 4790K running at 4.6GHz, working in combination with 16GB of DDR3 RAM operating at 1600MHz. A fully updated Windows 8.1 is our base operating system, running from a 512GB Crucial MX100 SSD. Our aim with Crysis 3 is to play the game at as close to a locked 1080p60 as possible with v-sync engaged, matching the most popular gaming PC monitor resolution and refresh rate used by gamers today. In order to do this, we need to run Crysis 3 at the high quality settings, one notch down from the maxed out very high we used in our
and , but otherwise identical.Stacked up against Nvidia's new card are its two AMD competitors in the same price segment - the recent , a 2GB card with a 256-bit memory bus based on the new Tonga architecture, and the older (but arguably more desirable) Radeon R9 280, effectively a rebadged Radeon HD 7950, a definite 'oldie but goodie' in GPU terms, based on the Tahiti design with its mammoth 384-bit memory interface and 3GB of onboard RAM. AMD's newer card is faster in some benchmarks but not remarkably so, and in the age of PS4 and Xbox One's unified RAM set-ups, the more GDDR5 memory you have the better, making the cheaper R9 280 our preferable buy out of the two AMD products tested here.Despite its smaller memory bus and massively reduced power consumption, the GTX 960 is clearly competitive with its AMD rivals, but unlike the GTX 970, there is no conclusive 'winner' in our three-way face-off in terms of the overall quality of the gameplay experience. Looking at the metrics reveals that the 960 wins in terms of the fewest number of dropped frames overall, but the numbers between all three contenders are very close to the point where we suspect we're well within the margin of error. We'll need to go deeper to separate these offerings.
Crysis 3 running at 1080p on high settings with very high quality textures in concert with v-sync and SMAA T2X anti-aliasing. Here we're attempting to run an extremely demanding game with resolution and refresh rate matched to the most popular monitors used for gaming today. None of our tested cards can claim outright victory here and the overall experience is much of a muchness.
Crysis 3 1080p60/V-Sync Gameplay
Lowest Frame-Rate
Dropped Frames (from 18650 total)
689 (3.7%)
840 (4.5%)
724 (3.9%)
Buy the graphics cards tested on this page from Amazon with free shipping:
This brings us quite nicely to our revised 2015 gaming benchmark suite - a new series of tests that retains a few old favourites, but concentrates mostly on modern titles that are built from the ground up with DirectX 11 in mind. We carry out all of our testing using Nvidia's FCAT tool, individually marking every single frame displayed on-screen with a coloured border. We capture everything, using our own frame-rate analysis software to scan through the FCAT mark-up, giving definitive results. This allows us to present all of our benchmarking data to you via the videos below. Not only do you get metrics for every single frame captured, you get the context too - you see what's being analysed.Joining the three cards used for our Crysis testing, we also have another comparison point - Nvidia's outgoing GTX 760, the card that is effectively replaced with by the GTX 960. This presents an intriguing series of data points: usually we are comparing multiple cards based on the same architecture. Here we're seeing AMD's GCN 1.0 in Tahiti take on GCN 1.2 in Tonga, while from Nvidia, the new Maxwell architecture challenges the firm's outgoing Kepler technology. We're going to see some fascinating results here, as we kick off with 1080p testing at max settings (though we have disabled super-sampling where appropriate, favouring post-process anti-aliasing elsewhere - except in Battlefield 4). To add some further spice to the mix, we've also overclocked the GTX 960 and included our results. The MSI card already has a factory overclock, but we were still able to add 160MHz to the core, and a healthy 700MHz to the RAM. That still seems a little low compared to the claims made for the card's overclockability, but it clearly makes a difference. It's worth pointing out that the GTX 760 is a reference design, and not overclocked at all - this explains its lowly scores to a certain extent, though even if all of our tested cards were running at stock clocks, it would still be the weakest of the bunch.
1080p is the most popular gaming resolution - here we run a suite of demanding benchmarks at maximum settings to see what this graphics card is capable of. All benchmarks are produced using FCAT - you get the at-a-glance averages below, but the video shows you how each featured GPU performs on a frame-by-frame basis.
GTX 960 (OC)
Battlefield 4, Ultra, 4x MSAA
Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA
Assassin's Creed Unity, High, FXAA
Far Cry 4, Ultra, SMAA
COD Advanced Warfare, Max, SMAA
Ryse: Son of Rome, High, SMAA
Shadow of Mordor, Ultra, Medium Textures, no SSAA
Tomb Raider, Ultimate, FXAA
Metro Last Light Redux, Max, no SSAA
Sledgehammer's new Call of Duty engine produces very good results on Maxwell - moving performance a step beyond both of AMD's cards and wiping out the old GTX 760. However, the new Lithtech engine in Shadow of Mordor shows a significant performance boost on the AMD cards, at the expense of both Maxwell and Kepler - a similar state of affairs seen in Far Cry 4. Meanwhile, our new star attraction - Assassin's Creed Unity - produces the best results on the GTX 960, but the old R9 280 is very competitive, while the newer R9 285 suffers badly. What's interesting to note is that in all cases, Maxwell is a clear winner over its predecessor. However, the same cannot be said for the R9 285 - its predecessor actually beats it in some tests and offers ballpark performance in others. Bearing in mind that the R9 285 has less RAM than its processor, and is around ?30 cheaper, that's definitely food for thought.What's clear though is that while the Kepler-powered GTX 760 is left in the dust, AMD's offerings clearly are in the mix. Of the nine titles tested, there are wins for the GTX 960 in just four titles (ACU, COD, Tomb Raider, BF4), while the R9 285 wins four (Crysis 3, Metro Redux, Shadow of Mordor, Ryse) and the R9 280 emerges triumphant on Far Cry 4. However, there's plenty of devil in the detail, and in our videos - showing the benching process in context - you can see that in several cases, different scenes favour different architectures. Most of the other results show much of a muchness between the three cards, with only minor differences evident that are unlikely to be noticeable during play. What is curious is the appearance of obtrusive stuttering on the R9 285 on Assassin's Creed Unity - crippling performance in a way we don't see on the R9 280. We've run this test several times over with identical results.Moving on to
testing on the same settings, frame-rates drop significantly - as you would expect with a 77 per cent increase in pixel-count. In many cases, presets require lowering to get good, playable, consistent performance, but it's interesting to note that that the distribution of 'wins' for each card varies in this second round of testing. The 384-bit memory bus of the R9 280 brute-forces its way to victory in Assassin's Creed Unity (beating the GTX 960), also besting the R9 285 in Metro Redux and Ryse. To be honest, we'd recommend moving up to an R9 290 or GTX 970 for
gaming - but with appropriate settings tweaks, the cards tested here can still deliver playable, very attractive results.
At , the demands on the GPU increase significantly over 1080p. Significant adjustments downwards on the quality presets of several titles are required to get what we'd consider good, playable performance.
GTX 960 (OC)
Battlefield 4, Ultra, 4x MSAA
Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA
Assassin's Creed Unity, High, FXAA
Far Cry 4, Ultra, SMAA
COD Advanced Warfare, Max, SMAA
Ryse: Son of Rome, High, SMAA
Shadow of Mordor, Ultra, Medium Textures, no SSAA
Tomb Raider, Ultimate, FXAA
Metro Last Light Redux, Max, no SSAA
The story so far is pretty straightforward - while AMD and Nvidia have particular games that suit their particular hardware architectures resulting in benchmark 'wins', the GTX 960, R9 280 and R9 285 offer very similar capabilities overall. Crysis 3 is an interesting case in point - according to the raw benchmark runs, the Crytek game is 'better' on an R9 285, but going back to our original gameplay comparison, there's very little difference between all three cards and we'd be happy to play the game on any of them.What the GTX 960 requires is a differentiating factor or two, and thanks to the Maxwell architecture, it has at least one - power consumption. Looking at peak draw from the wall, the GTX 960 is competitive with the Radeon cards from a performance standpoint, but absolutely annihilates them in terms of efficiency. The more powerful GTX 970 manages to draw 100W less than its AMD competitors at peak load, and remarkably, the GTX 960 almost manages to achieve the same trick at the lower end of the GPU scale.The implications here are obvious. The GTX 960 saves you money in the long term (admittedly this is probably not the number one consideration for a PC gaming enthusiast) but in the here and now you're getting a cool, whisper-quiet, relatively potent GPU that's equally at home in a small form-factor gaming PC with a low wattage power supply as it is in a standard desktop chassis. The GTX 960 is so power efficient that, even when overclocked, it's still way ahead of the AMD cards in terms of power consumption, handily beating the GTX 760 in the process.We use the demanding Metro Last Light Redux benchmarking sequence running on a loop to discern power consumption for our GPUs. CPU overclocking is turned off as clock-speed spikes can see huge increases in power draw.
GTX 960 (OC)
Peak System Power Draw
And efficiency isn't just a matter of hardware, it's about the software too - something that is all too readily overlooked. In producing this article, we've followed basic GPU benchmarking procedures used by virtually every hardware review publication. Put simply, you set up a powerful PC with the fastest processor available, eliminate the CPU as an overhead while at the same time ramping up the quality settings. What is left is GPU performance in its purest form, and from there a hierarchy of 'which graphics card is better than the next' is produced. This is all well and good, but the reality is that it also eliminates the GPU driver as an overhead - and as we'll see, this appears to be a very important component for a certain level of gaming PC. We'd say that this kind of way of assessing graphics performance isn't really a problem in scenarios where GPUs are likely to be paired with powerful quad-core Intel CPUs or better. However, in the entry-level and mainstream segments, that assumption cannot be made.In our recent , we noted that while the established GPU hierarchy was maintained with a Core i7 powering the show, R9 280 performance fell off a cliff when paired with a dual-core i3 - something that didn't happen with Nvidia's GTX 760. At the time, we put it down as a one-off and contacted both AMD and Sledgehammer Games with our findings in the hope that a solution would be forthcoming (right now, nothing has changed). However, we noted something very similar in our recent testing of The Crew. Pair a Core i5 quad-core CPU with an R9 270X or R9 280, and it's possible to enjoy 1080p60 gameplay. However, in complex environments, the same GPUs produce big performance drops when paired with the Core i3. Once again, the GTX 760 emerges without a similar hit to performance, and it's the same state of affairs with the GTX 960, as you'll see below.This topic still needs to be studied in depth, but the suggestion from these results is that - in some titles at least - GPU driver overhead is significantly higher on AMD cards, meaning that a more powerful CPU is required for the Radeons to maintain their competitiveness with the GeForce cards. This has fundamental implications for a certain section of the established graphics card hierarchy, where AMD typically dominates the value-orientated end of the market. There's a sporting chance that these cards will not be paired with powerful CPUs, making the buying decision sway much more in favour of Nvidia - particularly with the GTX 960, where performance is so close to its rivals.
Overall, this is a topic that needs more exploration on a wider variety of CPUs. It's not so easy to test because sequences need to be found that specifically target CPU load, and historically benchmarking runs concentrate very much on GPU performance. Our range of test processors is limited, but we have confirmed similar behaviour by lowering clocks and disabling two cores on an i7 on an entirely separate PC. In the here and now, we'd say that if you're an i3 owner considering a graphics card upgrade, the established GPU hierarchy might not work for you in choosing the best possible product. To give some idea of the extent of the issue,
where a GTX 750 Ti outperforms a significantly more powerful R9 280 in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in gameplay conditions where 1080p60 at PS4 quality settings is the target.While indications suggest that those with lower power CPUs may be better off with the Nvidia card even if the AMDs are notionally more powerful, a big disadvantage with the GTX 960 is its limited 2GB of GDDR5 memory (and remember the R9 280 is cheaper and has an extra gig of RAM). In the age of the new consoles with their vast pools of unified RAM, it's essential that your PC GPU has as much video memory as possible. 2GB works fine on the majority of titles out there, but releases like Ryse: Son of Rome and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare are already recommending that extra 1GB. Meanwhile, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's high quality textures look considerably better than its medium equivalents, but you'll need a 3GB GPU to use them without awful stutter creeping in to the gameplay experience. There's even an optional texture pack that requires a mammoth 6GB of video RAM, though the advantages there are less apparent.Right now, we'd say that a 2GB graphics card is fine for the majority of games. Even titles like Ryse and Call of Duty look virtually indistinguishable whether they're running on a 2GB or 3GB card, despite the recommended specs. However, Shadow of Mordor shows us the future - and it's looking somewhat blurry for GPUs with limited video RAM like the GTX 960, as you can see in the shots below. Assuming you have a decent CPU, AMD's Radeon R9 280 looks like the most future-proof card out of the quartet of products tested for this feature.Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs nicely on all of the GPUs tested in this piece. However, only the Radeon R9 280 has the 3GB of RAM necessary to equal texture quality found in the PS4 version of the game without incurring a crippling performance penalty. Ultra textures are limited to cards with 6GB of RAM, and to be honest, the increase in detail level isn't that stunning at 1080p resolution.Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs nicely on all of the GPUs tested in this piece. However, only the Radeon R9 280 has the 3GB of RAM necessary to equal texture quality found in the PS4 version of the game without incurring a crippling performance penalty. Ultra textures are limited to cards with 6GB of RAM, and to be honest, the increase in detail level isn't that stunning at 1080p resolution.Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs nicely on all of the GPUs tested in this piece. However, only the Radeon R9 280 has the 3GB of RAM necessary to equal texture quality found in the PS4 version of the game without incurring a crippling performance penalty. Ultra textures are limited to cards with 6GB of RAM, and to be honest, the increase in detail level isn't that stunning at 1080p resolution.Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs nicely on all of the GPUs tested in this piece. However, only the Radeon R9 280 has the 3GB of RAM necessary to equal texture quality found in the PS4 version of the game without incurring a crippling performance penalty. Ultra textures are limited to cards with 6GB of RAM, and to be honest, the increase in detail level isn't that stunning at 1080p resolution.Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: the Digital Foundry verdictThe GTX 960 is a solid, but not spectacular performer. Priced at ?160/$199, it falls slap bang in the middle of AMD's two offerings in the same price range. It runs some games better than its competitors, but falls short in others - sometimes significantly so in the case of Far Cry 4 and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Generally speaking though, all three contenders do a similar job at similar price-points, assuming you're running a PC with processing power equivalent to a quad-core Intel chip, or better.
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However, while the GTX 960 fails to live up to the expectations generated by the sensational GTX 970, it has charms of its own. It's more flexible than the AMD cards in the kind of systems it can be integrated with, and you don't need to worry much (at all) about heat or noise. The AMD cards draw a lot more power, and you really need to choose a cooler design that's quiet and efficient (for the record, the XFX R9 280 and the Gigabyte R9 285 we tested have really meaty cooling assemblies that do a fantastic job - and are quiet to boot). However, the ?160/$199 market is enthusiast territory and while low power consumption is a nice thing to have, we'd venture to suggest that it's not a primary reason behind a GPU purchase.With that in mind, the GTX 960 is either a little under-powered or over-priced, depending on how you look at it - a surprising state of affairs as the GPU market still reverberates to the aftershock of the GTX 970 megaton Nvidia dropped at the end of last year. Given a 192-bit memory bus with 3GB of RAM, we can't help but feel that Nvidia could have reshaped the so-called 'sweet spot' sector of the graphics market, but there's a genuine sense that this card has been designed with financial considerations first and foremost in mind, rather than the needs of the gamer - the inclusion of just 2GB of RAM is the biggest misstep here in particular, just as it was for the Radeon R9 285.The notion of a 'sweet spot' product offering lower quality textures than console versions of multi-platform titles just isn't going to sit well with enthusiast gamers and while it's not a huge problem now, we suspect it will be before the year is out as developers aim to extract more from the prodigious amounts of RAM offered by PS4 and Xbox One. In the meantime, the problem is compounded for Nvidia as AMD is offering a 3GB card that offers competitive performance with a ?10-?20 saving. Overall, while there's much to commend the GTX 960, there's a feeling that there are just one or two compromises too many to make it a must-have product for the more budget-conscious PC gaming enthusiast. It's a good effort capable of some sterling performance, but it could have been so much more.
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