NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Review: The New Enthusiast Kepler
by Ryan Smith on June 25, 2013 9:00 AM ESTFinal Thoughts
Bringing things to a close, in the last month NVIDIA has launched three different video cards, carving out the GeForce GTX 700 series. As the final and cheapest card in that launch window, GTX 760 is going to be the most affordable and highest volume card, and also the card that that will face the most competition from AMD. By launching a refresh card at a time when AMD is going to be sitting it out, NVIDIA essentially gets to dictate in what environment their products will launch and what their competition will be. NVIDIA doesn’t get to rewrite the laws of physics and is ultimately beholden to GPU clockspeeds, power consumption, and yields like anyone else, but they can still exercise a great deal of control through the clockspeeds and prices they set.
To that end this launch is a great deal like the GTX 770 launch last month, with NVIDIA improving performance, lowering prices, and putting AMD on the defensive all at the same time. Thanks to these performance improvements and price cuts, the GTX 760 ends up coming within 3% of the soon to be retired GTX 670 and easily surpasses the GTX 660 Ti, all the while coming in at a price well below both at $249. Like most mid-cycle upgrades this is more about bringing existing performance levels down to new prices, and to that end NVIDIA has delivered on those goals. Ultimately it’s not a new level of performance, but it’s a new price for what a few months ago would cost $350 or more.
With that said, like any good refresh the presence of the 700 series and the retirement of the 600 series looks to shake up the market, and once more AMD is going to be on the receiving end here. Rather unlike the GTX 770 versus the 7970 GHz Edition, the GTX 760 is not tied with any AMD product. At 1080p it is clearly ahead of both the stock and boost versions of the 7950, by 13% and 8% respectively. This is by no means a commanding lead and AMD still offers better performance in some cases, but on average the GTX 760 is faster, quieter, and $30-$50 cheaper than AMD’s closest competitor.
As a result the competitive landscape is clearly in NVIDIA’s favor for the time being. AMD has their Never Settle Reloaded bundle to boost the value of the 7950, and if this was a repeat of the GTX 660 Ti launch – where the two cards were tied – then that strategy would be solid. Ultimately with such a large game bundle only the individual buyer can truly assign a value to AMD’s bundle, but in this case we believe AMD can’t afford to be slower and more expensive at the same time. At current prices NVIDIA’s GTX 760 has AMD beat, in essence repeating the GTX 670 launch by once more undercutting the 7950.
Wrapping things up, having established the GTX 760’s current control of the $250 price point let’s talk about the wider market for the GTX 760. As a mid-cycle refresh the performance gains over the 600 series won’t knock anyone’s socks off, but then like most mid-cycle refreshes this isn’t a product targeted at existing 600 series owners. Rather this is targeted at buyers looking to upgrade their older 55nm/40nm generation video cards, or with the recent launch of Haswell, putting together a new system outright.
With a $249 price tag the GTX 760 is most straightforward successor to enthusiast cards like the GTX 560 Ti and GTX 460 1GB. In the case of the former, now one full cycle old, the performance gains are solid, with GTX 760 improving on the GTX 560 Ti by about 67%. This isn’t exceptional by any means (the GTX 570 to GTX 770 was 75%) but it’s about average for a 2 year (generational) improvement. Otherwise for a true doubling we’ll have to wait for one more year, as evidenced by the better than 100% performance gains over the 3 year old GTX 460 1GB.
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Spunjji - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Why would a faster card need to be cheaper? Shoo, shoo! Back under your bridge.UltraTech79 - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
???vailr - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Will there be a "Small Form Factor" version, similar to:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
chizow - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Sad day in the GPU industry when a part that's ~75% of the *SECOND* tier ASIC and sells for $250 can be considered "Enthusiast".It looks like Nvidia's marketing push to carve out ultra and uber enthusiast markets has worked, on the media anyways. Parts in this range used to be referred to as mainstream/midrange performance or gamer cards in the past, never once referred to as "Enthusiast".
Honestly if this $250 part is "Enthusiast" what are the $400 770, the $650 780, the $1000 Titan??? I guess we need to cough up $250 more for each Uber we place in front of Enthusiast; maybe at some point we just find new words and categories when one has been devalued and depreciated to the point it no longer holds any meaning.
Aside from the rant, the part's price and performance looks good. It's pretty clear at this point Kepler benefits more right now from the ROPs and bandwidth than SP and TMU. May change with future shader intensive titles, but the 760 pretty much confirms the 660Ti (and virtually any 30%+ bandwidth-neutered parts) was a big mistake.
thesavvymage - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
who cares what ASIC it comes from, its irrelevant. Its a $250 gpu that performs as well or better than more expensive cards. Thats not mainstream, its enthusiast. Everything above it is enthusiast. The absolutely biggest amount of gpu sales come from those south of $200, so thats what most people consider mainstream.chizow - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
People who don't enjoy getting less for the same price care what ASIC it comes from. I guess you don't mind getting smaller and smaller burgers, or less and less ounces in the food you buy at the grocery each year?There is nothing enthusiast about this product, it's mainstream performance in the same price and market bracket that litters all of Nvidia's previous marketing slides in this $200-$300 range. Was the 8800GT an enthusiast card? No. Was the 560Ti an enthusiast card? No. Yet they both satisfy the criteria you set forth.
teiglin - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I was just thinking about this after reading the review over at Tom's (they refer to the 760 as mainstream). It's an interesting sociological exercise, how different people view the term enthusiast. Given the massive stratification at the high end--I mean, Titan, ffs--what is the cutoff for being an "enthusiast" card? Why even bother with hyperbolic modifiers when nobody who spends even $400 on a GPU would do so without knowing the difference between a 770, a 780, and a Titan, not to mention the 7970 [GHz edition], 7950 [Boost], etc.?Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Ryan here. This is still a heckuva lot more graphics horsepower than, say, certain yet-to-be-released consoles, which I would argue define a "mainstream" baseline. Though if you're just commenting on how much the lowest common denominator in graphics performance has fallen, then that may be a sad day for the GPU industry, but it's a good day for consumers, who are able to get way more GPU for much less money than a couple years ago.
chizow - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Sorry but getting "way more GPU for much less money than a couple years ago" is just progress and should be expected.The context for how different people view the term enthusiast should be consistent, based on historical price and performance categories as well as physical and marketing segmentation factors. All of which indicate this is NOT an enthusiast part. Nvidia has clearly defined this in the past, and the enthusiast market did not start until $350+.
Some may say, "who cares", I guess people who actually shop in this $350+ market care, because calling a $250 part sets a terrible precedent, same as selling a tier-2 midrange ASIC like GK104 at $500 sets a terrible precedent. Why? Because if Nvidia is selling their 2nd fastest ASIC at "Enthusiast" price ranges starting at $250 all the way to $500, that gives them license to sell their actual Enthusiast parts at much more than $500.
Is it any surprise that we now have $650 GTX 780 and $1000 GTX Titan and GTX 690? Of course not. Why? Because people are doing cartwheels in the streets over the privilege of buying a stripped down, overclocked 2nd-tier ASIC for $250, because it's the new enthusiast part!
UltraTech79 - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
I put the $1000 Tital as 'Rich retard soon parts with his money.' Also, shut the fuck up elitest dumbfuck. Anyone willing to spend $200+ on a GPU is an enthusiast and is looking for more than just enough.chizow - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Yes just like the guy who rices up his Civic is now driving a "luxury sports car". Just another idiot that doesn't understand I'm actually advocating against elitest pricing and marketing brackets, move along if you don't understand the concepts and repercussions.