ASUS Strix Edition GeForce GTX 960 Graphics Card Review

For about as long as GPU-accelerated games have existed, an ideal performance target has been 60 frames-per-second. Owing thanks to this is the standard 60Hz monitor, which delivers its best result when the framerate matches its refresh rate. To make sure the monitor’s refresh rate and game’s framerate keep aligned, to avoid visible tearing, VSync should be enabled.

While I believe our Best Playable results will appeal to any gamer, they could especially prove useful to those intrigued by livingroom gaming or console replacements. The goal here is simple: With each game, the graphics settings are tweaked to deliver the best possible detail while keeping us as close to 60 FPS on average as possible.

Because our Metro Last Light and Total War: SHOGUN 2 tests are timedemos, and because this kind of testing is time-consuming, I am sticking to six out of the eight games I test with for inclusion here.

NVIDIA’s GTX 960 has AMD’s R9 285 in its sights, something I’m sure the results on the previous handful of pages highlighted. Because the performance of both cards is about equal, all of the best playable settings are shared between them here. For the sake of reference to what NVIDIA’s last “sweet spot” card offered, I’ve also included best playable results for the GTX 760.

	Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	46		57
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Environment:	High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	47		57
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Environment:	High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	46		57
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 1920×1080	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	Very High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	On	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

While the ultimate goal is to hit 60 FPS in any of these best playable tests, we didn’t quite hit that on any of these cards. That’s because at the performance exhibited, it made little sense for me to decrease settings further. Should you really want to hit a clean 60 FPS and at least 50 FPS on the minimum, God Rays can be decreased in detail. Also, because it might appear that the GTX 760 runs higher settings than the new GTX 960, note that that card was limited to 1080p, whereas the 960 handles the game just fine at 1440p.

	Battlefield 4
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	53		68
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	54		69
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	45		61
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	High	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

Versus the outgoing GTX 760, the GTX 960 is able to handle this game at Ultra detail with antialiasing off, whereas the 760 had to go the same route while also decreasing the rest of the detail to High.

	Crysis 3
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	44		67
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 1920×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Very High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	High
	Shading:	High	Shadows:	High
	Water:	High	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	42		62
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 1920×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Very High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	High
	Shading:	High	Shadows:	High
	Water:	High	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	43		63
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 1920×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	High
	Shading:	High	Shadows:	High
	Water:	High	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

Unfortunately, 1440p is a bit harsh on a card like the GTX 960, something I’d blame on the 2GB framebuffer if not for the fact that the 3GB R9 285 suffered the same fate. So, 1080p it is, with texture detail bumped up to Very High. Interestingly, this change didn’t affect the average FPS at all versus keeping texture detail to High.

	GRID 2
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	63		69
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	High	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	57		66
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	High	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	55		62
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Low
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	Off	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

It’s not the most intensive game out there, but GRID 2 is still gorgeous – and, it’s able to be run at over 60 FPS with a GTX 960 at 1440p resolution. It’s worth noting that even the GTX 760 could handle this game at similar settings just fine; the swap has to do with decreased shadow settings versus enabling global illumination (the latter of which is more evident in game).

	Sleeping Dogs
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	65		80
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	68		81
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	61		73
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

All three of the cards here used the exact same best playable settings, fueled by the fact that only one (antialiasing) makes a huge difference in performance. Faster cards simply boost the average framerate, naturally.

	Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
	Minimum		Average
ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix	54		66
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	High
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Off
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA
MSI R9 285 Twin Frozr IV	55		63
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	High
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Off
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC	52		65
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 2560×1440	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	High
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Off
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

Wrapping up with Blacklist, the GTX 960 once again matches the settings of the R9 285, but tacks on a couple of extra frames for good measure.