Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 G1 Gaming, Bigger Is Better!

Once in a great while you find a product that the vendor got right on the first try. It clicks a check mark in every requirement box you’ve built up in a 30 year-long journey to kick the computer habit. Of course we will never kick the habit, we wouldn’t even want to try. We are pleased, amazed, and stunned to introduce the Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming. It’s big, it’s bad, it’s got three fans attached to a huge cooler, and is under heavy guard, so don’t even think about it.

The Gigabyte GTX 960 is based on a 28nm process and based on the GM204 GPU core. It is however, a core variant and bares the core designation GM206 with a 228m2 die. The core contains 2.94 billion transistors and 1024 shaders, with 54 TMUs and 32 ROPs. Sporting 2GB of GDDR5 with a 128-bit memory bus, the memory bandwidth tops out at 129 GB/s. Both the GM204 and GM206 are true Maxwell class GPU cores and contain all the good features Maxwell has to offer.

Overclocked at the factory, the core on the Gigabyte GTX 960 Gaming G1 has a base core clock of 1295MHz with a boost clock of 1359MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at 2025MHz and its Maxwell core supports DX12, Shader Model 5.0, Open GL 4.5 and Open CL 1.2.

In short, the Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming packs more technology into its $204.99 price tag than any sane person has a right to expect. OK, lets get past the belly moaning and get it over with. Yes take a GTX 980 and cut all its equipment in half and you have a GTX 960. However, some will argue the 128-bit bus is too narrow. You have the option to go pick up a $400 GTX 970, so save the moaning and groaning. We have had our hands on a few of the GTX 960s, and if we are happy with the value and performance they represent, you should be to. There are points we agree with, mostly the memory bus at 128-bit. 192-bit would have had us dancing naked in the street. Don’t put a modified GTX 960 (965) out of the picture, as Nvidia is very responsive to their end users. Until then, the GTX 960 has run every game we’ve thrown at it and it’s a good product. A good product that Gigabyte has made even better.

Gigabyte is one of the first Nvidia AIC (Add in card) partners to put out a modified GTX 960, and they have stretched the card out to a full 11.61 inches. They also managed to fit three Windforce fans on top of the custom-designed PCB, along with a tricked out heat sink. The Windforce 3x cooling system is maxed out with three specially-bladed fans and pure copper, direct contact heat pipes. By direct contact Gigabyte means the copper heat pipes directly touch the GPU core and increase the rate of heat dissipation.

	Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 960	GeForce GTX 960	GeForce GTX 760
Chip	GM206-300-A1 Maxwell	GM206-300-A1 Maxwell	GK104 Kepler
Process	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm
Transistors	2.94 billion	2.94 billion	3.54 billion
GPU clock	1241 MHz	1126 MHz	960 MHz
GPU Boost clock	1392 MHz	1178 MHz	1033 MHz
Memory GDDR5	2048 MB	2048 MB	2048 MB
Memory clock	1703 (7012) MHz	1750 (7010) MHz	1500 (6000) MHz
Memory interface	128 Bit	128 Bit	256 Bit
Memory bandwidth	112,200 MB/s	112,160 MB/s	192.200 MB/s
TMUs	85	85	96
Shader Cores	1024	1024	1’152
ROPs	32	32	32
TDP	160 Watt	120 Watt	170 Watt
Slots	2	2	Reference Design
Cooler	WindForce 3X 300W	NVIDIA Reference	NVIDIA Reference

Lets take a quick peek at CPU-Z just to make sure they didn’t sneak in any extra hardware.

Well shucky darn, they didn’t sneak in an extra 64 bits of bus, but the GPU-Z shot shows us the card is at advertised specifications.