NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Review: The New Enthusiast Kepler
by Ryan Smith on June 25, 2013 9:00 AM ESTThe Last of the 700 Series & The Test
In something of an unusual move, along with announcing the GTX 760, NVIDIA also laid out their desktop video card plans for the next several months, leading through the fall. Typically NVIDIA doesn’t announce the non-existence of something, but then again since they apparently have nothing left to hide, there’s little reason not to.
In any case, the GeForce GTX 760 will be the last desktop 700 series card for the next several months. NVIDIA will not be introducing any further desktop cards according to the schedule they’ve provided us, so their lineup will be stable from here on. The 700 series allowed NVIDIA to introduce GK110 based cards and refresh their GK104 based cards, while GK107 and GK106 based products will not be changing. This means that rather than introducing a GTX 750 for example for GK106, NVIDIA will simply keep the top GK106 as the GTX 660.
This move is admittedly a bit weird for how NVIDIA normally does things, as with Fermi they updated their lineups top-to-bottom. Whether this means NVIDIA is planning a late update based on new chips – ala the GeForce GT 200 series, NVIDIA’s 40nm pipe cleaner – or if they simply don’t see a need to roll out new product numbers remains to be seen. But since NVIDIA has added GK106 parts as recently as March, and their top GK106 part doesn’t leave them much room for growth, there’s also a lack of technical opportunity to refresh the rest of their lineup like there was for their GK104 parts. Then again, AMD hasn’t bumped up the series number of their competing retail parts, so there’s little incentive (for once) to play number games in retail.
In any case the current lineup is most likely what we’ll be looking at through the rest of the year, until Maxwell sometime in 2014. This will leave the GTX 760 as NVIDIA’s top 1080p card, while the GK106 based GTX 660 will remain as NVIDIA’s more budget oriented 1080p card.
The Test
The press drivers for the GTX 760 are 320.39, a further bug fix of the existing R319 series drivers that also add support for the GTX 760. On the AMD side we’re using a mix of Catalyst 13.5 (7970) and Catalyst 13.6 (7950, 7870).
For comparison purposes we’ve also dug up a few older cards. Naming aside, NVIDIA’s GTX 560 Ti was their last $250 card and the class of card most 2 year cycle buyers will be coming from. Meanwhile we’re also including AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 and NVIDIA’s GTX 460 1GB. Finally, we’re going to include both the Radeon HD 7950 and 7950 Boost in our charts. The Boost edition has largely supplanted the original in retail, but frustratingly there are still some non-Boost (or otherwise sub-850MHz) cards on the market, so this covers both scenarios.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (256GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Case: | Thermaltake Spedo Advance |
| Monitor: | Samsung 305T |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 7950 Boost AMD Radeon HD 7950 AMD Radeon HD 7870 AMD Radeon HD 6870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 NVIIDA GeForce GTX 560 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 320.18 NVIDIA ForceWare 320.39 AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta 2 AMD Catalyst 13.6 Beta 2 |
| OS: | Windows 8 Pro |
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Spunjji - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Why would a faster card need to be cheaper? Shoo, shoo! Back under your bridge.UltraTech79 - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
???vailr - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Will there be a "Small Form Factor" version, similar to:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
chizow - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Sad day in the GPU industry when a part that's ~75% of the *SECOND* tier ASIC and sells for $250 can be considered "Enthusiast".It looks like Nvidia's marketing push to carve out ultra and uber enthusiast markets has worked, on the media anyways. Parts in this range used to be referred to as mainstream/midrange performance or gamer cards in the past, never once referred to as "Enthusiast".
Honestly if this $250 part is "Enthusiast" what are the $400 770, the $650 780, the $1000 Titan??? I guess we need to cough up $250 more for each Uber we place in front of Enthusiast; maybe at some point we just find new words and categories when one has been devalued and depreciated to the point it no longer holds any meaning.
Aside from the rant, the part's price and performance looks good. It's pretty clear at this point Kepler benefits more right now from the ROPs and bandwidth than SP and TMU. May change with future shader intensive titles, but the 760 pretty much confirms the 660Ti (and virtually any 30%+ bandwidth-neutered parts) was a big mistake.
thesavvymage - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
who cares what ASIC it comes from, its irrelevant. Its a $250 gpu that performs as well or better than more expensive cards. Thats not mainstream, its enthusiast. Everything above it is enthusiast. The absolutely biggest amount of gpu sales come from those south of $200, so thats what most people consider mainstream.chizow - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
People who don't enjoy getting less for the same price care what ASIC it comes from. I guess you don't mind getting smaller and smaller burgers, or less and less ounces in the food you buy at the grocery each year?There is nothing enthusiast about this product, it's mainstream performance in the same price and market bracket that litters all of Nvidia's previous marketing slides in this $200-$300 range. Was the 8800GT an enthusiast card? No. Was the 560Ti an enthusiast card? No. Yet they both satisfy the criteria you set forth.
teiglin - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I was just thinking about this after reading the review over at Tom's (they refer to the 760 as mainstream). It's an interesting sociological exercise, how different people view the term enthusiast. Given the massive stratification at the high end--I mean, Titan, ffs--what is the cutoff for being an "enthusiast" card? Why even bother with hyperbolic modifiers when nobody who spends even $400 on a GPU would do so without knowing the difference between a 770, a 780, and a Titan, not to mention the 7970 [GHz edition], 7950 [Boost], etc.?Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Ryan here. This is still a heckuva lot more graphics horsepower than, say, certain yet-to-be-released consoles, which I would argue define a "mainstream" baseline. Though if you're just commenting on how much the lowest common denominator in graphics performance has fallen, then that may be a sad day for the GPU industry, but it's a good day for consumers, who are able to get way more GPU for much less money than a couple years ago.
chizow - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Sorry but getting "way more GPU for much less money than a couple years ago" is just progress and should be expected.The context for how different people view the term enthusiast should be consistent, based on historical price and performance categories as well as physical and marketing segmentation factors. All of which indicate this is NOT an enthusiast part. Nvidia has clearly defined this in the past, and the enthusiast market did not start until $350+.
Some may say, "who cares", I guess people who actually shop in this $350+ market care, because calling a $250 part sets a terrible precedent, same as selling a tier-2 midrange ASIC like GK104 at $500 sets a terrible precedent. Why? Because if Nvidia is selling their 2nd fastest ASIC at "Enthusiast" price ranges starting at $250 all the way to $500, that gives them license to sell their actual Enthusiast parts at much more than $500.
Is it any surprise that we now have $650 GTX 780 and $1000 GTX Titan and GTX 690? Of course not. Why? Because people are doing cartwheels in the streets over the privilege of buying a stripped down, overclocked 2nd-tier ASIC for $250, because it's the new enthusiast part!
UltraTech79 - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
I put the $1000 Tital as 'Rich retard soon parts with his money.' Also, shut the fuck up elitest dumbfuck. Anyone willing to spend $200+ on a GPU is an enthusiast and is looking for more than just enough.chizow - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Yes just like the guy who rices up his Civic is now driving a "luxury sports car". Just another idiot that doesn't understand I'm actually advocating against elitest pricing and marketing brackets, move along if you don't understand the concepts and repercussions.