Flapdrol, on 02 April 2015 - 07:07 AM, said:
Calling a gtx 960 "overpriced garbage" and an R9 285 a "solid choice" is a bit silly Kshat, gets more silly under dx12 where the 960 will do conservative rasterisation and the 285 will not.
And a good quality psu is nice, but I don't buy the story about maxwell's supposed power characteristics and psu strain.
You won't have to buy anything, these are modern times, it would be enough to read. For example:
http://www.tomshardw...ll,3941-12.html
And yes, 128 bit interconnect on the GTX960 is utter garbage. Right now you gain more FPS per percent OC if you OC the memory. The 960 is not only limited in VRAM-size but in throughput, too. And selling them for over 200$ makes them garbage.
If the 960 would cost you about ~160 to 170$, it would be a decent card. Limited for future use, but that's to be expected in that pricerange.
And that's the deal, anything relates to the price it's sold. And what nVidia charges you for this card makes it garbage. Because you get worse FPS than with a GTX770 which had been sold for a similar price not long ago.
Not to mention the option to buy a R9 280X or R9 290, which is almost in the price range of a GTX960 with 4GB...
And the price is what makes the R9 285 a good choice: you get at least the same power as the GTX960 offers - but pay less. it's easy math...
To your information: GCN uses Asynchronous Shaders which doesn't need special coding, it will boost performance in any titles as long as Dx12/Vulkan is used. 3D Mark actually shows that this will lead to more than a measurable increase in drawcalls, whereas any of the "maybe Dx12 supported" features of Maxwell will have to be supported by the game, which might happen by the end of the year or maybe even further in the future. To a point where it won't help a GTX960 at all, because memory interface and raw GPU power will limit this card. Ofc a R9 285 will be limited there, too. But up to that moment, Tonga had delivered at least the same power, if not more, for a lower price. And that's all that is to this. A GTX960 is vastly overpriced.