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How We Tested
The evaluation today focuses on MSI’s GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G graphics card and its specific merits and shortcomings. Tests will be run on this card and a Zotac GTX 960 AMP! Edition with the same drivers and settings. Power draw and thermal numbers are compared against past GTX 960 reviews.
All of the tests we've run thus far on GM206 have employed Zotac's card clocked down to reference speeds. This time around, the MSI card is used for that test. One of the three presets from MSI specifies Nvidia's stock frequencies. Zotac’s offering is consequently benchmarked at its factory settings.
As always, thermal capabilities, power consumption and acoustic levels will be measured, and we’ll be teasing the maximum clock rates out of both the GPU and memory.
All tests were performed on the lab PC. Each one of our locations has a system with the exact same specifications to keep our tests normalized across the website. The current test rig has the following specs:
Test Bench Components
Software & Drivers
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
|---|---|
| Graphics Driver | All tests were performed using Nvidia 353.06 driver |
Benchmark Suite
| Battlefield 4 | Custom THG Benchmark, 100-sec Fraps, Ultra preset |
|---|---|
| Far Cry 4 | Version 1.9.0, Custom THG benchmark, 60-sec Fraps, Ultra preset |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Build 350, Online 1.26, In-game benchmark sequence #5, 110-sec Fraps, FXAA: On, MSAA: Off, Texture Quality: Normal, Shader Quality: Very High, Shadow Quality: High, Reflection Quality: Very High, Water Quality: High, Particles Quality: Very High, Grass Quality: High, Soft Shadows: Softer, Post FX: Very High, Anisotropic Filtering: 16x |
Comparison Units
