GeForce GTX 760 Review: GK104 Shows Up (And Off) At $250

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With its last graphics card introduction until the end of Fall, Nvidia isn't trying to impress anyone with groundbreaking performance. Rather, the company is pulling better-than GeForce GTX 660 Ti-class frame rates to a $250 price point, creating value.

OpenGL: 2D And 3D Performance

Synthetic Benchmarks

Unigine’s Heaven and Sanctuary benchmarks show us how cards perform when rendering demanding effects in modern gaming titles using the OpenGL API. Additionally, since none of the graphics drivers contain any optimizations for the OpenGL versions of these benchmarks, you could even say it’s a fairer comparison than the super-optimized DirectX versions.

When Nvidia launched its GeForce GTX 770, the GTX 680 was the obvious choice as the baseline for comparison. Similarly, today we want to see how the GeForce GTX 760 fares against its own predecessors, namely GTX 660 Ti and GTX 670. As expected, the GTX 760 falls right between those cards. Most board partners will be selling factory-overclocked versions of the 760, and its extra memory bandwidth should help push the tweaked boards closer to GeForce GTX 670.

Maya 2013

In addition to DirectX 11 and Viewport 2.0, Maya also continues to offer OpenGL support. Our benchmark sequence, taken from the SPECapc 2009 suite, shows us that, generally, Nvidia’s cards perform very similarly. That’s hardly a surprise, since the drivers for the consumer cards don’t contain any of the optimizations necessary for professional-class performance.

SolidWorks

Newer versions of SolidWorks refuse to complete benchmark runs on anything but professional graphics cards with validated drivers, so we fall back on this older version found in the SPECviewperf11 suite. Basically we get a repeat of the Unigine results, and even at stock clocks, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 760 is faster than the GTX 660 Ti.

EnSight

EnSight is another application that forces us to revert to an older build for similar reasons. And once more, the results don’t exactly come as a surprise.

Thus far, the GeForce GTX 760 behaves exactly as expected, enjoying a comfortable and consistent lead over the GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Overclocking does not result in an appreciable performance increase. On an architectural level, it is interesting to see the 760 beat the 660 Ti. Although the older card has more CUDA cores, it's hamstrung by lower memory bandwidth.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
142 Comments Comment from the forums
  • toddybody
    Damn I love nVidia
    Reply
  • SiliconWars
    This doesn't look faster than the 7950 boost to me. Maybe you should check your scores and update your conclusion to reflect reality?
    Reply
  • TheBigTroll
    it isnt supposed to be faster than the 7950. they are about the same
    Reply
  • pauldh
    11035777 said:
    This doesn't look faster than the 7950 boost to me. Maybe you should check your scores and update your conclusion to reflect reality?

    Re-read the conclusion in question below. He doesn't say it is faster, he says this card will replace Don's recommendation for best $250 card and displace the 7950 Boost. ie. Don won't be recommending a $300 card that trades blows or barely beats a $250 card. If both were to end up $250, things change.

    quote - "A quick reference to Best Graphics Cards For The Money: June 2013 shows that Don is currently recommending the Tahiti-based Radeon HD 7870 for $250. With almost certainty, the GeForce GTX 760 will take that honor next month, displacing the Radeon HD 7950 with Boost at $300 in the process."
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    Chris, what is it about the GTX 580 that makes it so slow for the CUDA Fluidmark
    test, given it does so well for the other CUDA tests, especially iRay and Blender?

    Btw, I don't suppose you could include 580 SLI results for the game tests? ;)
    Or do you have just the one 580?


    My only gripe with the 760 is the misuse of a model number which allows one to
    infer it should be quicker than older cards with 'lesser' names (660, etc.) when
    infact it's often slower. I really wish NVIDIA would stop releasing products that
    exhibit such enormous performance overlap. Given the evolutionary nature of
    GPUs, and the time that has passed since the 600s launched, one might
    reasonably expect a 760 to beat the 670 too, but it never does. To me, the
    price drop is the only thing it has going for it. The endless meddling with shader
    numbers, clocks, bus width, etc., creates an utter muddle of performance
    response depending on the game. One really has to judge based on the
    individual game rather than any general product description or spec summary.
    I just hope Skyrim players with 660s don't upgrade on the assumption newer
    model names mean better performance, but I expect some will.

    Ian.

    Reply
  • tomfreak
    GTX760 is an upgrade for GTX460/560 user and of all of that u didnt throw in those cards to bench with. Seriously?
    Reply
  • Novuake
    Nice review as per usual Chris.
    Amazing performance at 250$. The 265bit memory interface does wonders for GK104.

    Now I am wondering if there will even be a GTX760ti, while there is a large enough gap in the product stack, I have a feeling there is a chance there may not be a "ti" version.
    Anyone know more?
    Reply
  • sarinaide
    AMD will have to release a new interim Radeon series, the existing family is not to outdated to be stretched to much longer.
    Reply
  • Mousemonkey
    For those of us who fold it ain't no show stopper is it? :lol:
    Reply
  • horaciopz
    So, maybe there will be an GTX 760 ti, for about 300 bucks with the peformance of a GTX 670... Uh? nVidia really should. This remembers the gtx 400 series and 500 series... nVidia is doing it all over again.
    Reply