Conclusion

Conclusion

MSI has a lovely offering available with the Gaming OC edition of the Geforce GTX 960. If you want sheer silence versus a good design, then the product might just be what the Doctor has ordered. It looks mega cool with the new TwinFrozr series V cooler. The benefit of that cooler is that the product will not very quickly pass 65 Degrees C when you are gaming under full load. Obviously factors like internal chassis airflow and ambient temperature have an effect here as well, but yeah that's pretty good. Even better is the noise levels, as there aren't any. This product is as silent as can be and in idle, the fans won't even spin as the a hybrid passive design works wonders here. The one thing that MSI might probably should have considered are slightly faster factory clock frequencies as the competition simply offers faster products. Relatively in your FPS you will hardly notice a difference if at all, but everybody stares are numbers right... ?

Other than that nice looks and decent performance (if you are at a monitor resolution of 1080P). The product comes factory tweaked at a boost frequency of 1279 MHz. The card has a fairly reserved power limiter, and as such we noticed it boosting on the dynamic clock frequency at roughly 1350 MHz as maximum. Cards like these do perform well in the 1080P resolution gaming space. So if you are gaming at a monitor resolution up-to 1920x1080 then this product will be pleasant in terms of price versus performance versus a nice quiet product. But as stated in my other reviews, 3 or more GB graphics memory would have been preferred. Pricing wise, expect values in the 199 USD/EURO range with the luxurious boards being a tenner or two more expensive.

Maxwell GM206 GPU Overall Experience

The GeForce GTX 960 is a pretty complicated piece of technology in terms of what Nvidia offers to its partners and what they made out of it. I am afraid though that Nvidia took it a step too far trying to make the product as cheap as possible. Many of you will not get by the fact that the 128-bit memory bus combined with 2 GB of graphics memory will cripple anything after 1080P. I think people could have lived with the 128-bit bus if the product would have had 3 GB of graphics memory or the other way around. When you place all facts into perspective then we do feel the product is rather capable, but everybody certainly expected somewhat higher specs in this 200 EURO mainstream space. As such my bet is that we'll see a 960 Ti with maybe 256-bit / 1280 shader processors as well. But performance wise the product will sit in-between a GeForce GTX 760 and a Radeon R9 280 / 7970. Like the specs or not, this is still a respectable number.

Thermals

The reference products are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C, with a product of this cooling caliber, the numbers will be much lower. MSI makes use of the TwinFrozr cooler offering 250 Watt cooling performance, it is one of the better dual-slot dual fan coolers available and heck, it looks cool as well. Expect the temperature to hover around the 65~70 Degrees C threshold with the games that are harder on the GPU. Remember, that is factory tweaked cooling performance for you. 

Cooling VS. Noise Levels

Cooling wise we can’t complain, noise wise it is a good product. You can hear only a tiny bit of airflow, that's it. So expect sound pressure values in the 38 dBA range at best under load and warm circumstances. That's measured 75 cm away from the PC, thus a normal distance in-between you and your PC. That level is to be considered silent.

Performance

The performance of the GeForce 960 series overall is okay if you stick to 1080P. The biggest danger lies in the fact that 2 GB of graphics memory these days isn't going to cut it with the modern game titles versus good image quality settings. Obviously you can forget about 2560x1440 WHQD resolution gaming, but considering the price, in all fairness we need to say, this is really a 1080P card. Again, the most tricky thing will be 2 GB, once the card runs out of memory frames will start swapping back and forth in the frame-buffer, resulting in a performance loss. The only way to solve that is to lower AA settings or image quality overall. Overall it will be a fun and sweet Full HD gaming product and yeah, though the specs are a little less exciting, really we are not disappointed by the performance if 1920x1080 is your gaming domain.

Tweaking

Without extra voltage tweaking you can expect a 1400 MHz range for the boost clock frequency. Depending on how much your board will take and allow, with voltage tweaking you’ll reach the 1500 MHz range on the dynamic boost frequency quite easily. We reached a stable 1516 MHz as maximum. Variables like your PC stability, power supply and so on are important to any overclock, keep that in mind. The memory is clocked standard at 7.0 GHz, you'll fairly easily achieve 7.5 GHz up towards 8 GHz, you should probably settle at 7.8 GHz for the best stability. Since this card is so limited with its 128-bit memory bus, tweaking that memory will help as it increases memory bandwidth and thus performance as it gives the GPU a little more space to breathe in.
 

Final Words

MSI has a great little product with the Gaming OC edition of the GeForce GTX 960. It could have been clocked higher a notch to show some muscle against the competition. Regardless of that, cooling is good, noise levels are fantastic as you can't even hear this product. From top to bottom, in terms of factory overclocked cards versus the several brands, the difference in FPS can be up-to 4 frames on average with a modern game and decent image quality settings. So what I am saying is that the ultra fast clocked version won't be heaps faster, do remember that when you open up your wallet. Purchasing this product to game at WQHD / 2560x1440 is not advised though, 1080P is the space and domain of the GeForce GTX 960. But at 1080P you can use pretty decent image quality settings. Overall the product is getting our recommended award, obviously I would have liked to see a bit more memory in this price class anno 2015, but perhaps that is wishful thinking. Other than that, we can recommend the for a decent 1080P gaming card at very low noise levels with terrific looks.

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