Nvidia’s GTX 960 isn’t as fast as the card that launched it into the limelight, but it still delivers solid performance. In our 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark it scored 6,675 points, which is more than 1,000 ahead of the older GTX 760. This puts it right in the sweet spot for PC gaming, and it should be able to handle most modern titles with mid to high settings at 1080p.
The 960 also has a strong advantage over its AMD rivals when it comes to power efficiency. At peak load it draws just 120W from the wall, which is less than half of what the comparable Radeon RX 480 consumes.
However, the 960 is not without its shortcomings. The most glaring one is its limited 2GB of memory, which will limit the gaming experience on games that demand a large amount of video RAM. This includes titles like Far Cry 5, which requires a minimum of 4GB of memory to run smoothly on most PCs.
Another major issue is that the GTX 960 cannot handle demanding titles at full resolution and maximum details. For example, our test results showed that DICE’s standout first-person shooter EA Battlefield 1 can be a tough game to play on hardware of this caliber. On our test system, the 960 averaged 176 frames per second at 1920x1080 and medium detail, but dropped to an unplayable level at 4K with a minimum of just 52 FPS.