Nvidia GTX760 Graphics Card Review

The GTX760 is a very important card for Nvidia going forward in 2013. It is the direct replacement for the extremely successful GTX660 Ti which has sold very well for Nvidia and their partners.

Testing a vanilla reference card on launch day is far from ideal and I really dislike focusing a review completely on these solutions. Many partners will ditch the reference cooler and focus on custom coolers while enhancing the core clock and memory speeds.

Often what we have for review on launch day is not what you will buy in the coming weeks after launch.

To try and negate this problem a little, we published overclocked performance results with the reference results today. Many of the comparison cards in our review incorporate enhanced clock speeds, so it seemed appropriate to see what an enhanced GTX760 could bring to the performance table.

We weren't disappointed.

The GTX760 reference sample is clocked at a modest 980mhz and at these speeds it is closely matched with the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X Edition. This only tells part of the story however.

The core on our reference sample could be overclocked from 980mhz to 1,180mhz – an exceptional headroom percentage of 20 percent. This had a huge impact on frame rate performance, ensuring that the GTX760 was never too far behind an overclocked GTX670. We would make an educated guess that some partners will be releasing models clocked at 1,100mhz+ in the coming months. Obviously every sample will be different, but it is a good indication that core headroom on the reference GTX760 is exceptional.

At 1,180mhz, the GTX760 can bat at a similar level to the GTX670, and it is worth bearing in mind that Nvidia claim a reference style GTX760 will retail for £210 inc vat. The GTX670 which we tested against today has recently seen a price cut to £309.99 inc vat. This is a price difference around £100 and certainly worth bearing in mind.

If you are in the market for a new video card this year and only have £250 to spend, then the GTX760 should be right at the top of your shortlist. We look forward to getting a hands on with some of the custom, overclocked partner cards in the coming weeks.

Pros:

• our sample could be overclocked to 1,180mhz. A 20% increase.
• reasonably quiet for a single fan reference cooler.
• Price set to start around £210 inc vat.

Cons:

• Very modest clock speeds on this reference card.

Kitguru says: We love this video card. It should continue the GTX660 Ti success story from the last generation.

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