GeForce GTX 760 review - Article

Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 - Rebadged but kickin' hard !

Nvidia today unleashes its all new GeForce GTX 760. Well all new ... really the GeForce GTX 760 is a re-spin product, meaning NVIDIA took a GPU you guys all know very well, rebadged it, tweaked some parameters and injected it back into the market at better price-performance point. You might like that, or not. But the fact remains that the GeForce GTX 760 can be considered a mainstream to high-end product, yet comes at a competitive price with the very same chip used in the GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 680. And these two where the second and top high-end graphics cards a year ago. As such, I find he release of the GTX 760 to be very interesting in terms of performance. See the GK104 GPU (used on the GeForce GTX 680) itself being used will have two out of eight shader cluster disabled. This gives the GK104 GPU 1152 CUDA cores to work with, with in total, 96 texture and 32 raster operating units. The GPU being used is tagged as GK104-225 A2. The graphics card also has slightly slower clock frequencies than big daddy GTX 680. However the GTX 760 comes with a Boost clock which is set at 1033 MHz. The core clock frequency (for the reference products) is 980 MHz with the 256-bit DDR5 memory clocking in at 6008 MHz. In fact, this is the same memory subsystem that was found on last year’s flagship GeForce GTX 680 GPU.
 

With a TDP at roughly 170 Watts the card isn't really energy friendly but, considering its performance level, won't draw too much power either. The GTX 760 surely packs power, it is silent and the GPU core temperatures remain completely under control. Board partners will be free to launch their own SKUs, all pimped  and beefed up, and that's where we start the next chapter. Nvidia's board partners will offer a wide variety of GeForce GTX 760 configurations at launch. Most GeForce GTX 760 cards will initially ship with 2GB of memory but 4GB versions are possible as well; the GTX 760 will be tailored to meet the needs of gamers with 1080p displays. 1080p is the most common screen resolution used by gamers today, followed by 1920x1200. The vast majority of gamers in this market segment game at 1920x1200 or lower. 

The Base clock speed of the GeForce GTX 760 is 980MHz, while the Boost clock speed is 1033MHz. However, NVIDIA board partners will also offer factory overclocked GeForce GTX 760 boards that run at even higher clock speeds. In addition, their partners will also provide GeForce GTX 760 cards with their own custom cooling solutions. The GeForce GTX 760 reference board measures 9.5” in length. Display outputs include two dual-link DVIs, one HDMI and one DisplayPort connector. Two 6-pin PCIe power connectors are required for operation. The GeForce GTX 760 will be replacing the GeForce GTX 660 Ti in the Nvidia lineup. 

But lets head onwards into the review, next page please.