GeForce GTX 960: specs and benchmarks
Aggregate performance score
GeForce GTX 960 provides acceptable gaming and benchmark performance at 14.44% of a leader's which is GeForce RTX 5090 D.
Contents
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 960 sales 22 January 2015 at a recommended price of $199. This is a desktop graphics card based on a Maxwell 2.0 architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 4 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7.0 GB/s are supplied, and together with 128 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 112 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is a dual-slot graphics card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 241 mm. 1x 6-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 120 Watt.
Primary details
Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 960: architecture, market segment, release date etc.
| Place in the ranking | 378 | |
| Place by popularity | 60 | |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 7.97 | |
| Power efficiency | 9.18 | of 100.00 (Radeon 890M) |
| Architecture | Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019) | |
| GPU code name | GM206 | |
| Market segment | Desktop | |
| Release date | 22 January 2015 (10 years ago) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $199 | of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000) |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
The higher the performance-to-price ratio, the better. We use the manufacturer's recommended prices for comparison.
Performance to price scatter graph
Detailed specifications
GeForce GTX 960's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 960's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1024 | of 24064 (RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell) |
| Core clock speed | 1127 MHz | of 2670 MHz (Arc B580) |
| Boost clock speed | 1178 MHz | of 3230 MHz (Radeon RX 9060 XT) |
| Number of transistors | 2,940 million | of 185,000 million (Radeon Instinct MI350X) |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | of 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V) |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 120 Watt | of 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem) |
| Texture fill rate | 75.39 | of 2,554 (Radeon Instinct MI300X) |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.413 TFLOPS | of 126 (RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell) |
| ROPs | 32 | of 512 (Moore Threads MTT S4000) |
| TMUs | 64 | of 1280 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT) |
Form factor & compatibility
This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce GTX 960 and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).
| Bus support | PCI Express 3.0 | |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | |
| Length | 241 mm | |
| Height | 4.376" (11.1 cm) | |
| Width | 2-slot | |
| Recommended system power (PSU) | 400 Watt | |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin | |
| SLI options | + |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 960: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | |
| Maximum RAM amount | 4 GB | of 288 GB (Radeon Instinct MI325X) |
| Memory bus width | 128 Bit | of 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory clock speed | 7.0 GB/s | of 16000 GB/s (GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile) |
| Memory bandwidth | 112 GB/s | of 5,171 GB/s (Radeon Instinct MI300X) |
| Shared memory | - |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 960. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.
| Display Connectors | Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2 | |
| Multi monitor support | 4 displays | |
| HDMI | + | |
| HDCP | + | |
| Maximum VGA resolution | 2048x1536 | |
| G-SYNC support | + | |
| Audio input for HDMI | Internal |
Supported technologies
Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GTX 960. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| GameStream | + | |
| GeForce ShadowPlay | + | |
| GPU Boost | 2.0 | |
| GameWorks | + |
API and SDK compatibility
APIs supported by GeForce GTX 960, sometimes including their particular versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | |
| Shader Model | 6.4 | |
| OpenGL | 4.4 | of 4.6 (GeForce RTX 5090 D) |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | |
| Vulkan | + | |
| CUDA | + |
Benchmark performance
Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 960. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark score.
Passmark
This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.
GeekBench 5 OpenCL
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.
3DMark Ice Storm GPU
Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.
GeekBench 5 Vulkan
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.
GeekBench 5 CUDA
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.
Octane Render OctaneBench
This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.
Unigine Heaven 4.0
This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.
Send your test results of GeForce GTX 960.
Gaming performance
Let's see how good GeForce GTX 960 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
Average FPS across all PC games
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:
| Full HD | 65 | |
| 4K | 29 |
Cost per frame, $
| 1080p | 3.06 | |
| 4K | 6.86 |
FPS performance in popular games
Full HD
Low Preset
| Counter-Strike 2 | 80−85 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 30−35 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 30−33 |
Full HD
Medium Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 60−65 | |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 80−85 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 30−35 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 45−50 | |
| Fortnite | 80−85 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 60−65 | |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 45−50 | |
| PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | 55−60 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 30−33 | |
| Valorant | 120−130 |
Full HD
High Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 60−65 | |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 80−85 | |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | 190−200 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 30−35 | |
| Dota 2 | 90−95 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 45−50 | |
| Fortnite | 80−85 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 60−65 | |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 45−50 | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | 49 | |
| Metro Exodus | 30−35 | |
| PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | 55−60 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 30−33 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 50 | |
| Valorant | 120−130 |
Full HD
Ultra Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 60−65 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 30−35 | |
| Dota 2 | 90−95 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 45−50 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 60−65 | |
| PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | 55−60 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 30−33 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 28 | |
| Valorant | 120−130 |
Full HD
Epic Preset
| Fortnite | 80−85 |
1440p
High Preset
| Counter-Strike 2 | 27−30 | |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | 110−120 | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | 24−27 | |
| Metro Exodus | 18−20 | |
| PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | 140−150 | |
| Valorant | 150−160 |
1440p
Ultra Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 40−45 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 12−14 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 30−35 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 35−40 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 18−20 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 21−24 |
1440p
Epic Preset
| Fortnite | 30−35 |
4K
High Preset
| Counter-Strike 2 | 10−12 | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | 27−30 | |
| Metro Exodus | 10−12 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 20−22 | |
| Valorant | 80−85 |
4K
Ultra Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 10−12 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 5−6 | |
| Dota 2 | 50−55 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 24−27 | |
| PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | 14−16 | |
| Sons of the Forest | 10−12 |
4K
Epic Preset
| Fortnite | 14−16 |
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 960 is Radeon R9 380X, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 3 positions in our ranking.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 960:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended processors
These processors are most commonly used with GeForce GTX 960 according to our statistics.
