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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kennyG - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I for one was not happy with the out come of the 760 tested . I wanted Nvidia to totally take the 670 and enhance it and make a 760..Do the same process like they did with the 680 to 770. I really wanted to buy this card... Waiting for this one and I'm pisssed.Laststop311 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I wonder how 2 of these(500) in sli compared to the GTX 780 single gpu (650)xTRICKYxx - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
About Titan/GTX 690 levels.Ribozyme - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Ryan, could you please elaborate why the 760 draws considerably more power than a 670 while still being slower? Is this because a lower clocked 670 is compared to a pretty high clocked 760 in comparison? What would the situation be if you compared a 760 to a 670 clock per clock? And would I be able to power this with a be quiet straight power e9 400w + 3770k folding 24/7 ?And last question, are your power consumption values measured from the socket with a watt meter or with ampere meter on each cable and then added up?
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
The biggest difference between the 760 and 670 is that the 760 has GPU Boost 2.0, which is a significantly different method of adjusting clockspeeds around temperature and power limits. The 670 had a TDP of 170W, but in practice its power target (a concept that doesn't exist with Boost 2.0) was below that. Whereas the GTX 760, if not constrained by temperatures, will get closer to its 170W TDP more frequently.The other difference is as you note: clockspeeds. The GTX 760 has fewer SMXes, but it operates at a higher clockspeed and with higher voltages (1.2v vs. 1.175v). That really eats up power at the highest boost bins. The 760 is essentially a little less wide and a little deeper than 670; clock for clock the 670 is going to be faster (but it won't be able to clock quite as high).
As for your PSU question, I'm afraid I can't answer that in any confidence. Based on specs I'd think that would work, but I don't know anything about that PSU.
Finally, power consumption is measured at the wall.
JimmiG - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Many non-reference GTX 670's boost higher, though. For example, my KFA² GTX 670 almost always boosts to 1,189 MHz, sometimes higher. If you can find a cheap, non-reference GTX 670 before they go out of stock, it might be a better deal.vision33r - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
The last 3 years we saw really no innovation in the desktop GPU market. If you bought a HD 5870, you can still rock that card today in every game without any issue. We will see most of today's card get tossed when 4k monitors become a reality. Even SLI/CF top end cards today will score sub 30fps when games are played natively at 4k res.Kutark - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Ive been looking for the right price point to upgrade my GTX570, especially with BS4 coming out soon. I was hoping this would be it, but it looks like its really not enough of a jump to justify $250, especially when i could put that money towards a PS4 for some of the console games that wont be ported to PC. Any opinions otherwise?Kutark - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Haha, meant to say BF4, but yah, you get what i meant lol.mapesdhs - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
:D That was a good one. :)
I suppose it depends on what you want from an upgrade. Are you looking for at
least a 2X speedup? If so then yes, atm you'd probably have to aim higher than
a 760. Indeed, I have a hunch that 570 SLI might match a 770 (that's an option I
suppose, get a 2nd used 570 for the interim).
Ian.