Nvidia GTX760 Graphics Card Review

1. Introduction2. The Nvidia GTX7603. Overclocking the GTX7604. The Nvidia GTX760 (Super High Res Gallery)5. Testing Methodology6. Unigine Heaven Benchmark7. Unigine Valley8. 3DMark Vantage9. 3DMark 1110. 3DMark11. Alien V Predator (DX11)12. Sleeping Dogs (DX11)13. Tomb Raider (DX11)14. Dirt Showdown (DX11)15. Metro Last Light (DX11)16. GRID 2 (DX11)17. Thermal Dynamics18. Acoustics Performance19. Closing Thoughts20. View All Pages

One of Nvidia's greatest success stories in recent years has been their GTX 660 ti. This discrete solution targeted the high end enthusiast gamer – hitting a sweet spot between £200 and £250. Put two GTX660 Ti's in SLi and you had a configuration able to battle head to head against the flagship GTX Titan, at half the price. It was not a shock to find out they have been widely adopted by discerning gamers who want the most bang for their buck. Today we look at Nvidia's replacement for this much loved solution, the GTX760.

The new Nvidia GTX760 is built on the 28nm process and ships with 6 SMX units, providing 1152 CUDA cores. The memory subsystem consists of four 64 bit memory controllers (256 bit) with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory onboard.

Unfortunately we were unable to get any retail GTX760 cards in time for launch today but Nvidia sent us one of their reference samples which will feature at the heart of our review.

The base clock speed of the GTX760 is 980mhz with a typical boost speed set at 1,033mhz. The memory clock speed is set at 1,500mhz, or 6Gbps effective. We would expect many of Nvidia's partners to ship with custom coolers and enhanced clock speeds, especially if our overclocking results today are anything to go by.

This review will feature the GTX760 against some of the leading solutions available today. Nvidia informed us before publication that a standard reference GTX760 will hit a £210 inc vat price point. This would mean that overclocked custom solutions are likely to retail around £230-£240 inc vat. As we would expect this is much the same price zone as current GTX 660 ti models.

To make it more interesting AMD have been actively stoking the fire behind the scenes forcing recent price drops in the same price zone. A handful of HD7950 models are now available for around £220 inc vat, such as the MSI HD7950 OC model. The popular HD7870 Tahiti LE can be picked up now for as little as £165 inc vat.

To cover all bases we will be throwing in comparisons against a Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X, a VTX3D HD7870 Tahiti LE, an MSI GTX670 Power Edition, an eVGA GTX660 Ti SC, and an Asus Direct CU II OC GTX 660. All cards on test today are running the latest drivers from AMD and Nvidia (Catalyst 13.6 Beta and Forceware 320.39 respectively).

As most of these solutions are overclocked and we were unable to get hold of an enhanced partner card for launch we felt it was important to break with tradition and overclock our GTX760 sample at the start of the article and include these results in the findings. This should give a good early representation of the fastest GTX 760 solutions that Nvidia partners will be selling in the retail channel over the coming weeks.


No retail box or accessories with an Nvidia reference sample. We can see that the card is based around a single fan dual slot cooling system.

The PCB on the reference card is the same black colour as the cooling system. The PCB is only around 3 quarters the length of the cooler however, with a plastic panel resting underneath the fan above (shown in the image above right). The reference card measures 9.5 inches.

The card takes power from two six pin power connectors.

It is SLi compatible in 2, 3 and Quad configurations.

The card has two dual link DVI connectors, alongside a single HDMI and DisplayPort connector.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, the GTX760 cooler is longer than the PCB underneath. The cooling base isn't that large, but most of it is copper and the offset fan forces cool air across the fins and outside the back of the case. The VRM's on this card are cooled by a large, dedicated heatsink, shown above.
Our review today focuses on the reference Nvidia GTX760 sample. While we imagine there will be some rebadged GTX760 reference cards available around £210 inc vat, most of our audience will be interested in the overclocked, custom solutions that proliferate the market shortly after launch.

For this reason we wanted to see how the GTX760 would perform when overclocked, especially when all of the comparison cards tested today exhibit enhanced core and memory speeds, out of the box.

Both sets of GTX760 results (stock speeds and overclocked speeds) will be included in the review today, to show how the reference card performs and how a highly overclocked sample will enhance the frame rate results.

We used the latest version of MSI Afterburner for overclocking today.


Our sample exhibited substantial headroom on the core clock speed, overclocking from reference speeds of 980mhz to a whopping 1,180mhz. This translates into a 20% core clock improvement, which should impact performance results significantly. The GDDR5 memory on this sample seemed much more limited, allowing another 60mhz before artifacting would occur.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

For our review today we are using the latest AMD and Nvidia drivers (Catalyst 13.6 Beta and Forceware 320.39 respectively).

GTX770 samples weren't available in time for the review today.


We built a very high end liquid cooled Core i7 3960x system and overclocked it to 4.4ghz. We paired it up with 16GB of 2,400mhz memory and an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard. We decided to push the testing today, focusing when possible on performance at 2560×1600 via the native resolution of a 30 inch panel.

Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX760 Reference Sample (@ 980mhz core and 1,180 mhz core)
Cooler: Antec 920 H20
Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1250W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung
Monitors: Dell U3011

Other video cards:
Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X (£260 inc vat) (Catalyst 13.6 Beta)
VTX3D HD7870 Tahiti LE (£165 inc vat) ((Catalyst 13.6 Beta)
MSI GTX670 Power Edition (£310 inc vat) (Forceware 320.39)
eVGA GTX660 Ti SC (£250 inc vat) (Forceware 320.39)
Asus Direct CU II OC GTX 660 (£168 inc vat) (Forceware 320.39)

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
Alien V Predator
Sleeping Dogs
Tomb Raider
GRID 2
Metro Last Light
Dirt Showdown

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited, with courtesy from Wikipedia.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We test at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.



The Nvidia GTX760 reference card at default 980mhz clocks is ever so slightly outperformed by the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X at 2560×1600, but when we switch to 1920×1080, the scores are reversed. In fact the GTX760 achieves a 4 frames per second lead at these settings.

When overclocked to 1,180mhz the GTX760 is not far behind the MSI GTX670 Power Edition and easily outperforms the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X at both resolutions.

Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark.

The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal.

This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

We test at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.



The Nvidia GTX760 reference card scores extremely well in this benchmark, outperforming the overclocked eVGA GTX660 Ti SC solution. When we overclock the Nvidia GTX760 to 1,180mhz, it almost catches up with the MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.


At 980mhz, the GTX760 is just slightly outperformed by the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X in this Direct X 10 benchmark. When we overclock the GTX760 to 1,180mhz however, the score increases by a staggering 4,000 points, putting it just behind the MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance.

Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

At 980mhz the Nvidia GTX760 reference card scores 8,683 points which is closely matched to the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X. When we overclock the core to 1,180mhz the card gains another 1,100 points, putting it just behind the overclocked MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.

To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”


The latest Direct X 11 benchmark shows the GTX760 @ 980mhz being outperformed by the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X. With the substantial overclocking headroom however at 1,180mhz the card screams past the Sapphire card, almost catching the class leading GTX670 Power Edition.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.

At 2560×1600 the GTX760 scores well, maintaining playable frame rates at all times and slightly outperforming the overclocked eVGA GTX660 Ti SC. When we overclock the core to 1,180mhz however the GTX760 manages to match the MSI GTX670 Power Edition at the very top of this chart.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

We are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack.

At these settings this is a very demanding game, however all of the discrete solutions on test today are able to maintain playable frame rates, except the GTX660 which suffers a little, dropping the frame rate below 25 in some of the environments.

The MSI GTX670 Power Edition claims top spot, averaging 49 frames per second. At reference 980mhz clocks, the GTX760 matches the overclocked eVGA GTX660 Ti. When we push the core to 1,180mhz, the GTX760 almost matches the class leading MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.


We used the Ultimate quality setting at 1920×1080 with the settings detailed above.

No problems powering this engine, averaging 47 frames per second at reference core clock speed of 980mhz. When we overclock to 1,180mhz the average frame rate increases to 51, only a little behind the overclocked MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 2560×1600 resolution and 4x MSAA.

We can see that this game is very strong when paired up with AMD hardware/drivers. That said, all solutions are able to maintain smooth frame rates at 2560×1600 with 4 MSAA, which is impressive.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike.

4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.


This is a beautiful engine and it runs very well on Nvidia hardware. The MSI GTX670 Power Edition takes top spot, followed closely by the GTX760 when overclocked to 1,180mhz. With the core at 980mhz, the GTX760 outperforms the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X.

Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid.  It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.


We tested at 2560×1600 with 8x AA and ULTRA settings, shown above.

At 980mhz core, the GTX760 averages 45 frames per second, which is just behind the HD7870 Tahiti LE GPU. When we overclock the GTX760 core to 1,180mhz, the card climbs to the top of the charts, almost matching the MSI GTX670 Power Edition.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature.

We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.



The reference cooled GTX760 is the hottest running GPU on test today, however most of the other cards incorporate custom coolers. The small single fan and modest cooler design maintains perfectly stable load performance, but we are looking forward to seeing some custom solutions in the coming weeks.

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The small single fan has to work quite hard under load, as exhibited by both the eVGA GTX660 Ti SC and the Nvidia GTX760. The dual fan custom cooled cards perform much better acoustically, claiming the best spots at the bottom of this noise chart. That said, the GTX760 reference cooler isn't too bad when gaming.
The GTX760 is a very important card for Nvidia going forward in 2013. It is the direct replacement for the extremely successful GTX660 Ti which has sold very well for Nvidia and their partners.

Testing a vanilla reference card on launch day is far from ideal and I really dislike focusing a review completely on these solutions. Many partners will ditch the reference cooler and focus on custom coolers while enhancing the core clock and memory speeds.

Often what we have for review on launch day is not what you will buy in the coming weeks after launch.

To try and negate this problem a little, we published overclocked performance results with the reference results today. Many of the comparison cards in our review incorporate enhanced clock speeds, so it seemed appropriate to see what an enhanced GTX760 could bring to the performance table.

We weren't disappointed.

The GTX760 reference sample is clocked at a modest 980mhz and at these speeds it is closely matched with the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X Edition. This only tells part of the story however.

The core on our reference sample could be overclocked from 980mhz to 1,180mhz – an exceptional headroom percentage of 20 percent. This had a huge impact on frame rate performance, ensuring that the GTX760 was never too far behind an overclocked GTX670. We would make an educated guess that some partners will be releasing models clocked at 1,100mhz+ in the coming months. Obviously every sample will be different, but it is a good indication that core headroom on the reference GTX760 is exceptional.

At 1,180mhz, the GTX760 can bat at a similar level to the GTX670, and it is worth bearing in mind that Nvidia claim a reference style GTX760 will retail for £210 inc vat. The GTX670 which we tested against today has recently seen a price cut to £309.99 inc vat. This is a price difference around £100 and certainly worth bearing in mind.

If you are in the market for a new video card this year and only have £250 to spend, then the GTX760 should be right at the top of your shortlist. We look forward to getting a hands on with some of the custom, overclocked partner cards in the coming weeks.

Pros:

• our sample could be overclocked to 1,180mhz. A 20% increase.
• reasonably quiet for a single fan reference cooler.
• Price set to start around £210 inc vat.

Cons:

• Very modest clock speeds on this reference card.

Kitguru says: We love this video card. It should continue the GTX660 Ti success story from the last generation.

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