Testing Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 960 2GB Graphics Cards In SLI

Final Thoughts

Multi-GPU systems seemed to have gained a negative reputation in the past for bugs, glitches and a lack of performance scaling. I myself have never experienced any similar issues unless one of the cards was faulty. Today the tests have proven immense scaling at 1080p and 1440p, with at least 85% performance increase, and I didn’t notice any glitches or bugs throughout.

I really liked the SLI performance of the GTX 960 range, as shown with these 2 cards which have been pretty amazing overall. Near 100% scaling in most of the tests and some very playable FPS scores at 1080p and 1440p throughout.

Here I’m torn, the price point of these cards is around $199, which is very good for those on a tighter budget. They’re very capable at lower resolutions, but I feel that the 2GB of VRAM is holding these cards back at 4K, the performance drop at 4K compared to 1440p is massive. I believe an extra 1GB would really liven up these cards and prove a fantastic budget gaming solution for 4K resolutions.

The results speak for themselves, compared to a single GTX 960 graphics card, the performance gain would be silly to ignore, but choosing SLI relies on more factors than that. Generally only those on a tighter budget would choose to SLI two mid range cards. It’s typical to buy the first card brand new and purchase the second card once it’s available on the second-hand market. Looking at the figures, two GTX 960’s would cost $398 current MSRP, where a single GTX 970 would cost $329 MSRP, that’s 21% more expensive and only 13% performance gain. When these do start cropping up on the second-hand market, the second card would need to be priced around $150 to be worth considering this configuration.

I would recommend this SLI setup solely on the fact that these can run passively at idle and during general usage, perfect for those with a HTPC with 2 accessible PCI-e slots, silent for movies and packing more than enough grunt for gaming. How long before we see some higher-powered, premium graphics cards come on the scene with the same claim to fame? only time will tell.

Pros

• Amazingly quiet and cool for an SLI setup
• Outstanding performance and scaling
• Energy efficient

Cons

• Lacking at 4k resolution
• Poor SLI performance/ cost ratio compared to a single GTX 970 option

“Perfect for the average gamer with a typical 1080p or 1440p monitor setup. The ability to give exceptional performance at these resolutions while staying cool and quiet is a great deal in my books.”

Thank you to Asus and Gigabyte for providing these review samples.