Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 960 2GB Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing (accurate at the time of writing)

The Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 960 2GB is to be priced around $230, a $30 increase over the reference MSRP. A small increase for that premium look, feel and overall build quality. Don’t forget that in the UK, Gigabyte holds the fastest turn around time for faulty cards and one of the longest RTB periods of 3-5 years depending on model.

In the UK, the G1 Gaming demands a price of £194.99 from Overclockers UK which is great value considering the extreme cooling solution and great after service.

Summary

The performance is a little lackluster in gaming, but its compute scores tie in well with the new Maxwell Architecture. However, with every new process, you expect more performance, something that this graphics card didn’t provide. I hope this is pinned down to using older graphical drivers and in the coming days NVIDIA will release a new driver to help perk up this card.

Its temperatures were amazing and its passive mode really brought this card into its own. Many months, or even years ago, suggesting a graphics card with a 160W TDP could run passively without water cooling and you would have been laughed at; this card does it with ease.

Power consumption is very impressive, some of the best I’ve seen. Maxwell has been a big success for Nvidia in this respect and the GTX 960 doesn’t let them down one bit. For a card on this budget level, it’s very impressive and while it may not have a huge amount of gaming grunt compared to its bigger brothers, it’s certainly balanced out in terms of cost and features.

Gigabyte has produced a very high end card for a very wallet happy price. The lashings of metal shrouding, the premium back plate and engravings will suit any computer build perfectly. However, with the turning times, ITX has become much more popular and the days of the long length cards seems to be diminishing.

Pros

• Silent operation, passive feature
• Very premium feel with the lashings of metal shrouding and the engraved metal back plate
• Very good overclocker
• Strong 1080p and 1440p performer, but lacks the power to give inspiring 4k results
• Excellent cooling

Cons

• Very large, a very tight squeeze for some smaller cases such as the Corsair 250D

“If you love premium metal shrouds, feature packed technology, complete silence and budget friendly graphics cards, then the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 960 is exactly what you need.“

Thank you to Gigabyte for providing this review sample.