To get the index we compare the characteristics of video cards and their relative prices.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960: specs and benchmarks
- Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
- Core clock speed 1127
- Max video memory 2 GB
- Memory type GDDR5
- Memory clock speed 7.0 Gbps
- Maximum resolution
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 960 sales 22 January 2015 at a recommended price of $199. This is Maxwell architecture desktop card based on 28 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 2 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 dual-width card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 9.5" (24.1 cm). 1x 6-pins power connector is required, and power consumption is at 120 Watt.
It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at
of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.
General info
Of GeForce GTX 960's architecture, market segment and release date.
Place in performance rating | 241 | |
Value for money | 16.70 | |
Architecture | Maxwell (2014−2018) | |
GPU code name | GM206 | |
Market segment | Desktop | |
Release date | 22 January 2015 (7 years ago) | |
Launch price (MSRP) | $199 | |
Price now | $232 (1.2x MSRP) | of 49999 (A100 SXM4) |
Technical specs
GeForce GTX 960's general performance parameters 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 18432 (AD102) |
CUDA cores | 1024 | |
Core clock speed | 1127 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
Boost clock speed | 1178 MHz | of 2903 (Radeon Pro W6600) |
Number of transistors | 2,940 million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | of 4 (H100 PCIe) |
Thermal design power (TDP) | 120 Watt | of 900 (Tesla S2050) |
Texture fill rate | 72 billion/sec | of 939.8 (H100 SXM5) |
Floating-point performance | 2,413 gflops | of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo) |
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on GeForce GTX 960's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
Bus support | PCI Express 3.0 | |
Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | |
Length | 9.5" (24.1 cm) | |
Height | 4.376" (11.1 cm) | |
Width | 2-slot | |
Recommended system power (PSU) | 400 Watt | |
Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pins | |
SLI options | + |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 960: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don't have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.
Memory type | GDDR5 | |
Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
Memory bus width | 128 Bit | of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
Memory clock speed | 7.0 GB/s | of 21000 (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti) |
Memory bandwidth | 112 GB/s | of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260) |
Shared memory | - |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 960. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
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 |
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 support
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 GTX 1080 Mobile) |
OpenCL | 1.2 | |
Vulkan | + | |
CUDA | + |
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 960. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
Overall score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
- 3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
- 3DMark Fire Strike Score
- 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
- 3DMark 11 Performance GPU
- 3DMark Vantage Performance
- 3DMark Ice Storm GPU
- Unigine Heaven 4.0
- Passmark
- Octane Render OctaneBench
- GeekBench 5 CUDA
- GeekBench 5 OpenCL
- GeekBench 5 Vulkan
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.
3DMark Fire Strike Score
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 seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic enough graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
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 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.
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.
Passmark
This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mining hashrates
Cryptocurrency mining performance of GeForce GTX 960. Usually measured in megahashes per second.
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) | 318 Mh/s | |
Decred / DCR (Decred) | 0.92 Gh/s | |
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) | 8 Mh/s | |
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) | 0.27 kh/s | |
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) | 141.47 Sol/s |
Game benchmarks
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.
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:
Full HD | 66 | |
4K | 29 |
Full HD
Medium Preset
Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 21−24 | |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 21−24 | |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry New Dawn | 21−24 | |
Forza Horizon 4 | 21−24 | |
Hitman 3 | 21−24 | |
Horizon Zero Dawn | 21−24 | |
Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 21−24 | |
Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24 |
Full HD
High Preset
Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 21−24 | |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 21−24 | |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry New Dawn | 21−24 | |
Forza Horizon 4 | 21−24 | |
Hitman 3 | 21−24 | |
Horizon Zero Dawn | 21−24 | |
Metro Exodus | 21−24 | |
Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 21−24 | |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 50 | |
Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24 |
Full HD
Ultra Preset
Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 21−24 | |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry New Dawn | 21−24 | |
Forza Horizon 4 | 21−24 | |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 28 | |
Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24 |
1440p
High Preset
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 21−24 | |
Hitman 3 | 21−24 | |
Horizon Zero Dawn | 21−24 | |
Metro Exodus | 21−24 | |
Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 21−24 |
1440p
Ultra Preset
Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 21−24 | |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry New Dawn | 21−24 | |
Forza Horizon 4 | 21−24 | |
Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24 |
4K
High Preset
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 21−24 | |
Hitman 3 | 21−24 | |
Horizon Zero Dawn | 21−24 | |
Metro Exodus | 21−24 | |
Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24 | |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 21−24 | |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 21−24 |
4K
Ultra Preset
Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 21−24 | |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
Battlefield 5 | 21−24 | |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry 5 | 21−24 | |
Far Cry New Dawn | 21−24 | |
Forza Horizon 4 | 21−24 | |
Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24 |
Relative perfomance
Overall GeForce GTX 960 performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.
AMD equivalent
The nearest GeForce GTX 960's AMD equivalent is Radeon R9 380X, which is faster by 3% and higher by 4 positions in our rating.
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.