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We have unfinished business with Nvidia's GTX 960. On launch, we lauded its power efficiency, overclocking and cutting-edge media acceleration but we had two issues: firstly, there was no clear win over the competition in terms of performance, and secondly, it was a 2GB card in a world where console-level visuals were starting to demand a 3GB minimum. However, in line with its AMD counterpart - the R9 380 - 4GB variants are now available, and we've finally acquired one.The card in question is Gigabyte's GV-N960OC-4GD and we bought it ourselves from Amazon for £160. And that price-point is significant, because it's pretty much the same cost as many of the other GTX 960s on the market - cards that only feature the standard 2GB allocation. Which begs the question, is there any sign of obvious cost-cutting on this particular model? Well, the truth is that in direct comparison with our existing 2GB SKU - MSI's Gaming 2G model - it's actually a bit of a peach. Physically, the card is much smaller, making it a really good, cheap card for a relatively powerful small form-factor PC, yet there is no obvious increase in heat generation or fan noise. Even on an open air test bed, there's no sign of the dreaded 'coil whine'.
Build quality looks good, the card is more understated than many of its competitors, and even with its diminutive dimensions, there's no real loss of functionality. Gigabyte's model retains the SLI connectivity, and feature dual DVIs, HDMI and DisplayPort IO - probably more useful for a card in this price range than the three-way DisplayPort, DVI and HDMI set-up of our existing MSI Gaming 2G card.
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