Is the GeForce GTX 960 worth the extra cost over the GTX 750 Ti?

[RjL190365]

Today I acquired an eVGA GeForce 960 FTW card with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM to test against my main PC's existing GeForce GTX 750 Ti (also with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM).

But first, here's my impetus:

Despite the fact that the GTX 750 Ti was newer than my now-sold GTX 660, I felt that the GTX 750 Ti was a sizable downgrade from the GTX 660 in some ways, and equal to the GTX 660 in others. In particular, the results of the GTX 750 Ti during the encoding test from the PPBM8 MPEG-2 DVD timeline was nearly 30 percent slower than the GTX 660 (50 seconds versus 36 seconds) - but in the encoding test from the H.264 Blu-ray timeline, the two cards were practically equal in performance (at about 135 seconds).

And today, when I shopped for an eVGA GTX 960, I found four different models: The Superclocked edition (slightly overclocked but with the reference NVidia blower-type cooler), the ACX 2.0 (upgraded cooler but only reference GPU and memory clocks), the SSC edition (overclocked to 1279 MHz on the GPU, with the ACX 2.0 cooler) and the FTW edition (ACX 2.0 cooler, overclocked to 1304 MHz). All the listed clock speeds are the non-Turbo clocks.

Back to my purchase:

At my local chain big-box store, the FTW edition sells for $220 - but another big-box store wants $230 for the SSC edition.

I brought home the FTW edition, and installed it into my i7-4790K main rig. The CPU is set to its default Turbo clocks while the system's DDR3-1600 RAM is set to run at its XMP profile.

Here are the MPEG-2 DVD and H.264 Blu-ray scores with both cards:

MPEG-2 DVD (MPE On)

MSI GTX 750 Ti OC Edition: 50 seconds

eVGA GTX 960 FTW Edition: 44 seconds

H.264 Blu-ray (MPE On)

MSI GTX 750 Ti OC Edition: 135 seconds

eVGA GTX 960 FTW Edition: 114 seconds

As one can see, the GTX 960 is 13.6 to 18.4 percent faster than the GTX 750 Ti. However, while my GTX 750 Ti cost $155 (and still costs that much at the big box store I went to earlier in the day - the one that sells the GTX 960 SSC for $230), is the FTW edition of the GTX 960 worth the extra $65? Well, that depends on which GTX 750 Ti and which GTX 960 that you might be considering for a PC based on a mainstream quad-core Intel platform.

So, based on the particular results that I posted in this post, do you think that the GTX 960 is worth the extra bucks over the GTX 750 Ti? I would love to hear/see your opinion(s).

[JEShort01]

Randall,

While I certainly value the PPBM6 benchmark to compare various hardware and configuration settings, the GPU performance that is most important to me is simply playing back timelines smoothly with playback set for full resolution (vs. 1/2, 1/4, etc.) and scrubbing with the upmost in responsiveness. It may be difficult to measure playback smoothness, but you can use the dropped frame counter to compare various hardware.

If playback is smooth and I can scrub my timelines effortlessly, then how fast it takes to render a finished project out just really doesn't matter that much.

Even though you are mostly working with 1080 resolution media now, it may not hurt to try some more difficult media as well (aka RED 4k, PPBM H.264 timeline, etc.)

Regards,

Jim

[RjL190365]

Jim,

That might have been the case with your particular workflow. However, there have been rare cases in which timeline performance is fast but rendering (exporting) performance remains excruciatingly slow. What good is a particular GPU if playback is very fast but exporting takes a whopping 10 hours for every hour of 1080-resolution video used even with only a single video layer?

[RjL190365]

‌An update:

After a couple of months with the GTX 960, I came to the conclusion that while it might have been worth the $50 price premium for gaming, it currently isn't worth the extra cost for Adobe Premiere Pro (even the CC 2014 release). Therefore, I am trying out an eVGA GTX 970 SC card to determine whether it's my PC's CPU or the GPU that's limiting my PC's overall performance.

My findings will be posted in another thread.

[RoninEdits]

as far as gtx 960 vs 750 ti, it will come down to the media and effects being used in the project. in some cases even the gtx 960 would be underpowered. the new version of premiere, soon to be released, will be featuring speedgrade tools inside of premiere. this may place more demand on the gpu and make the gtx 960 worth having.

if you need to find out your systems bottlenecks, you can use windows resource monitor and GPU-Z‌  to see instantly while rendering/exporting how the system hardware is performing. premiere still mainly uses the cpu for exporting/rendering, so you may find the cpu maxed and the gpu usage somewhat low.

[Bill_Gehrke]

Randall

The only problem with the 900 series that I have seen is that nVidia has sacrificed CUDA performance to gain lower power (that is my guess)  No matter what memory clock rate they advertise you cannot achieve it running any CUDA application.  So buying a superclocked or the SSC model is not of any value.  If you look at the actual memory clock speed while using any CUDA application it will not be their advertised memory clock speed.  For non-CUDA applications like gaming it will run at the proper speed.  Also overclocking does not help with CUDA applications.  Now, yes, the 900 series is much better at handling 4K and higher resolution media and of course also is capable of driving 4K HDMI monitors

Bill

[RjL190365]

Bill,

The only reason currently to buy a superclocked or an SSC model (to me) is that in my particular case, I was unable to find a reference-clocked GTX 970 priced anywhere close to what I wanted to pay for it. In fact, the reference-clocked cards with underperformance blower-type coolers that I looked at are priced equal to or higher than the SSC model I looked at.

I did promise to post the GTX 970 results in another thread. But I will post them here instead.

Here are the results (along with updated results from the GTX 960 and the GTX 750 Ti):

MPEG-2 DVD (MPE On)

GTX 970 SC: 26 seconds

GTX 960 FTW: 44 seconds

GTX 750 Ti OC: 50 seconds

H.264 Blu-ray (MPE On)

GTX 970 SC: 88 seconds

GTX 960 FTW: 110 seconds

GTX 750 Ti OC: 131 seconds

So far, it appears that there is a bigger difference in performance between the GTX 970 and the GTX 960 than between the GTX 960 and the GTX 750 Ti.

[ISFotografie]

Nice Info!

I'm still unshure... 750 for 150.- EUR or 960 for 230.-EUR 😕
is the 750 fast enough? I think it has lower power needs then the 960.... im no gamer so need it only for photoshop and maybe later premiere.

At the moment i only use the HD2000 ....

[RoninEdits]

the gtx 950 should be out very soon. its a cut down version of the chip in the gtx 960, and should perform somewhere between the gtx 750 and gtx 960. it should be fast enough to be allow for several gpu effects and moderate lumetri use. the gtx 750/750ti should handle a few gpu effects and light lumetri usage. the prices on the gtx 750/750ti should be dropping to make room for the gtx 950 too.

[ISFotografie]

950 is out now..

but... i pay 160 for a 750Ti and 205 for the 950 ......... make it sense to buy the 950 ??

[RoninEdits]

it depends on how much gpu power you need for your projects. the gtx 750 should handle a few gpu effects and/or light use of the lumetri color panel in real time playback. if you plan on using more than that or just want extra power to be safe, the gtx 950 is a good budget option.

[ISFotografie]

At the moment i have a HD2000 only... so in the Bench it needs about 1200 seconds vor h.264 .. i think the 750 should be enoug... dont wanna pay 40% more Money vor 10% more speed 😕

and h.265 is only in e few years important i think... then i can buy a better and faster card

And at the Moment i need it more for Photoshop. The HD2000 has there also no accerlation.