Purchased for my first ever desktop computer custom build, designed for heavy gaming, but without blowing the bank account to smithereens, this graphics card really hit the right spot for me. To start with, I chose NVIDIA over AMD for two main reasons:
1 - AMD cards ALWAYS require more power, and use more power (substantially more) than the comparable NVIDIA cards (for example, this card will draw about 108 Watts in a gaming scenario, whereas the comparable AMD Radeon R9 285 in a comparable gaming scenario will draw about 176 Watts). No, this difference isn't going to destroy an electric bill, but over time, it would add up, making the AMD card more expensive in the long run.
2 - AMD cards typically run hotter than the comparable NVIDIA cards as well, not as much of a difference here, but I preferred to play it safe.
Now why I chose the EVGA model?
It didn't come down to much, just really chose something I figured would be solid. I really liked that this card had a backplate, as well as so many connectivity options. I also purchased the Super SuperClocked version, giving this card the biggest possible advantage for it being a 960, and EVGA's overclocking software is fairly convenient to use, especially when you're using one of their cards.
On to actual thoughts:
I really like this card. I had really high hopes for how it would perform, and it holds up to most of those. You won't be playing Dying Light or The Witcher III: Wild Hunt on completely maxed Ultra settings, that I can guarantee you. But it does stand up very well to modern titles and is completely capable of playing anything on the market right now, at varying qualities, but it can play most titles around about one step down from Ultra. It runs fairly cool, I need to rework my fan setup and some other cooling things in my case, but it does cool itself just fine, no worry of thermal bottlenecking.
I was surprised by the weight when I got it out of the package, not to mention the size, this card is hefty to say the least. The coating is a matte finished black with some decals, and the backplate is a glossy black (nice feature by the way). The connection ports all come with black port blockers to keep dust and debris from causing connectivity issues, and it also comes with a power cable adapter, which most people will need to use, and it comes with a DVI to VGA adapter, so this can literally use nearly every display connection type there is, granted there is a clear bias towards Display Port with 3 of them being included.
The card fit just fine in my Zalman Z11 Plus case, and works well with my ASUS Z97-A motherboard.
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I will include game benchmarks scores for my rig with this graphics card in it:
My Rig:
Intel i5-4690K
EVGA SSC NVIDIA GTX 960 4GB
ASUS Z97-A
8GB DDR3
Corsair CX600M PSU
Windows 10 Pro
BioShock Infinite: Ultra ~ Maxed Settings -
AVERAGE: 72
MINIMUM: 26
MAXIMUM: 117
Tomb Raider (2013): Ultra Preset -
AVERAGE: 86
MINIMUM: 70
MAXIMUM: 102
Hitman: Absolution: Ultra Preset w/ MSAA OFF -
AVERAGE: 70
MINIMUM: 58
MAXIMUM: 82
Thief: High Preset -
AVERAGE: 60
MINIMUM: 49
MAXIMUM: 78
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Very High Preset -
AVERAGE: 64
MINIMUM: 46
MAXIMUM: 90
ARMA 2: ALL Settings on High -
Benchmark 1 AVERAGE: 60
Benchmark 2 AVERAGE: 24
Metro 2033 Redux: High Preset w/ Tesselation on High, Texture Filtering on AF 16X, SSAA OFF, Advanced PhysX OFF -
AVERAGE: 71
MINIMUM: 21
MAXIMUM: 222
Metro: Last Light: High Preset w/ Tesselation on High, SSAA OFF, Advanced PhysX OFF -
AVERAGE: 69
MINIMUM: 22
MAXIMUM: 153
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat: Extreme Preset -
Day AVERAGE: 67
Day MINIMUM: 35
Day MAXIMUM: 99
Night AVERAGE: 72
Night MINIMUM: 44
Night MAXIMUM: 102
Rain AVERAGE: 76
Rain MINIMUM: 53
Rain MAXIMUM: 111
Sun-shafts AVERAGE: 51
Sun-shafts MINIMUM: 35
Sun-shafts MAXIMUM: 73
Just Cause 2: ALL Settings Maxed -
The Dark Tower AVERAGE: 69
Desert Sunrise AVERAGE: 77
Concrete Jungle AVERAGE: 64
Far Cry 2: Ultra High Preset -
Ranch - Long Benchmark AVERAGE: 117
MINIMUM: 66
MAXIMUM: 253
Sleeping Dogs: High Preset w/ NO HD Texture Pack -
AVERAGE: 58
MINIMUM: 46
MAXIMUM: 63
| Max Screen Resolution | 4096 x 2160 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 7010 MHz |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Nvidia GeForce |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | GeForce GTX 960 |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4 GB |
