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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YukaKun - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
And where's my beloved GTX670?! Are you guys hiding something here that nVidia doesn't want me to see?No, but really; I know it's not it's direct replacement, but I'd really like to see the numbers how they stack up.
Cheers!
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
The GTX 670 is in all of our charts. All of this data is also on Bench.YukaKun - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Yeah, just realized it is... I wonder why I didn't see it, lol.Selective reading at its finest indeed.
Thanks Ryan!
HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
AMD is now saying the Never Settle Reloaded bundle is running out at retailers. That means, you should be mentioning that it isn't going to last much longer and doesn't really factor into the value of the 7950/7950B unless they decide to renew it.I suspect though they'll do a price drop soon.
DanNeely - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I'd expect them to create a new bundle instead.kallogan - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Too big, barely better than 660 ti at higher power consumption. What's the point ?MrSpadge - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Too big: there will loads of custom coolers, just like on the current cards. Shorter ones as well.barely better than 660 ti at higher power consumption: the additional performance is approximately proportional to the added power draw, so efficiency hardly suffers. Of course I'll stick with my OC'ed 660Ti, but this newcomer is just more balanced for everything but the most pure compute tasks.
What's the point: cheaper for nVidia to produce (one SMX less) and sold cheaper. It's a win-win.
jimwatkins - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I suppose this is of little interest to most readers, but since your doing computer performance, how about a bitcoin GH performance chart. Video cards are actually of waning value in the bitcoin arms race but it's an interesting aspect of compute performance nonetheless and the high end AMD cards certainly still produce value.dcianf - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I'm excited to see them maintain compatibility with my 660Ti/670 full card waterblock. PLEASE LET THIS BE A NEW STANDARD!JimmiG - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Well it's hotter, more power hungry and louder than the GTX 670 while still being slower, which is kind of disappointing for something that's supposed to be an evolution of the GTX 600 series. Still, it does feel like "GTX 660 Done Right" in some ways, as that card was always too slow, forcing people to pay $400 for the GTX 670.It's sad that prices have been creeping up so much without people noticing. $499 used to be the "ultra-enthusiast" segment, and $199 would buy you a very decent card. In 2012 and early 2013, $400 was the "mid-range" and $999 the "ultra high-end". GTX 760 brings the mid-range back to $250 again, at least until the GTX 860 come out at $499...