semipassive video cards seem like a no-brainer to me, after all most people spend only a fraction of their time gaming compared to all the time wasted on the internet. Being video cards the noisiest component in the PC (in my experience, my pc is 6yo though so maybe it's changed in the meanwhile), this can make quite a difference.
I don't know. I'd rather have some small amount of airflow at low load just to avoid pockets or hot air around components and extend their lifetime and reliability. A fan at very low speed (sub-800 RPM for the size of fans we're talking about here, maybe a bit lower) will be 'silent' inside a case in all but the most quiet environments.
I may have missed it, but aside from software to change fan profiles, I think it would be nice if there was a hardware switch for a Stop Fans and Very Low Speed Fans profiles.
I don't even hear my 7950 when it's in 2D mode since the fan is going so slow. I have mine set to ramp of fan speed with temp. But it's never really audible and I have pretty quiet fans. My PC almost makes more noise from the sheer volume of air being pushed through it.
I purchased my 750 ti a long time ago as part of a budget PC build for a LAN party (we didn't have enough PCs) and the thing that I was most impressed with was performance vs. lack of power. Still use that graphics card on a mini ITX build to this day. Love it.
Obviously there is a segment of the market that still falls for this. It seems to be especially prevalent on notebooks - low end parts with 4GB slow VRAM. The only "logic" is that most modern engines employ texture streaming so the VRAM acts more like a texture cache than being used in total for rendering each scene. So I suppose it would reduce read times on slow Notebook HDDs. But for framerate much better to have either faster RAM or a faster GPU.
Blame a single 3rd party gouger being the only person to offer it on amazon. It's $353 on Newegg. That's $23 more than the cheapest 970 and $13 more than ASUS's cheapest card; IMO a reasonable surcharge for a low run part with a fair amount of custom engineering to design the more compact PCB.
Really? A 750Ti with 4GB of memory? I really doubt that the memory is the bottleneck on that card. I mean, that's not a bad thing. The 750Ti is a budget card. It performs as it should. But no one should spring for a 4GB card that can only run games on medium.
I suppose it could help with high-res situations. Looking at the charts, I could imagine you might find the extra RAM helps Battlefield 4 and Crysis: Warhead to keep their 1440p framerates above 30.
Yeah, it has been a bit frustrating - after checking here for the 960 review every day, I went ahead and ordered the Strix 960 last Friday. Had to put my trust in other review sites for a change :O
I suspect there's quite a lot of different vendors providing AT with cards, so full benchmarking is understandably time consuming, not to mention this is the first card of the year - new gpu benchmarks? Looking forward to my card and the article.
If you spring for a new GPU you might as well take something quicker. Allows you to crank up the DSR resolution even higher than with the 750 Ti... Now if they'd only pull the stick out of their arses and get that darn driver fixed...
That Asus might inch out the EVGA 960 SC 02G-P4-2962-KR for shortest 960 card. I have the EVGA in an Elite 110 case, and every centimeter helps. Mine reports 1555 MHz core @ 8GHz DDR running Afterburner/Riva OSD, Furmark, Heaven, Farcry3 and 3DMark11. Furmark, Heaven and Farcry will peg at 1555 and stay there. 3DMark modulates the boost GPU clock, but never below 1500 MHz.
I have a linear fan ramp that turns on at 30C / 30%. My fan is loud above 60%, never needs more than 50% to hold 60C under load, which is when stock cards are just turning on.
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Murloc - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
semipassive video cards seem like a no-brainer to me, after all most people spend only a fraction of their time gaming compared to all the time wasted on the internet.Being video cards the noisiest component in the PC (in my experience, my pc is 6yo though so maybe it's changed in the meanwhile), this can make quite a difference.
MadMan007 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
I don't know. I'd rather have some small amount of airflow at low load just to avoid pockets or hot air around components and extend their lifetime and reliability. A fan at very low speed (sub-800 RPM for the size of fans we're talking about here, maybe a bit lower) will be 'silent' inside a case in all but the most quiet environments.I may have missed it, but aside from software to change fan profiles, I think it would be nice if there was a hardware switch for a Stop Fans and Very Low Speed Fans profiles.
darkfalz - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Case airflow should be adequate for this, and you can set custom fan curves via software. Agree that a hard switch on/off might be nice.FITCamaro - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
I don't even hear my 7950 when it's in 2D mode since the fan is going so slow. I have mine set to ramp of fan speed with temp. But it's never really audible and I have pretty quiet fans. My PC almost makes more noise from the sheer volume of air being pushed through it.meacupla - Thursday, February 19, 2015 - link
On the other hand, my Asus HD7870 DCu2 is the loudest thing inside my mITX computer (that has 2x 120mm fans blowing directly at it)I was surprised at how quieter my main computer became after I swapped out that asus 7870 dcu2 with an MSI 970 gold, both at idle and load.
eek2121 - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
I purchased my 750 ti a long time ago as part of a budget PC build for a LAN party (we didn't have enough PCs) and the thing that I was most impressed with was performance vs. lack of power. Still use that graphics card on a mini ITX build to this day. Love it.YoloPascual - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
It is 2015 now, asus is still selling 4gb vram in a 128bit bus?extide - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
The issue has nothing to do with it being a 128-bit bus, really.Oxford Guy - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Other than it being a bottleneck.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
The real problem is it's a 750ti with 4GB.darkfalz - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Obviously there is a segment of the market that still falls for this. It seems to be especially prevalent on notebooks - low end parts with 4GB slow VRAM. The only "logic" is that most modern engines employ texture streaming so the VRAM acts more like a texture cache than being used in total for rendering each scene. So I suppose it would reduce read times on slow Notebook HDDs. But for framerate much better to have either faster RAM or a faster GPU.nathanddrews - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
No, the real problem is the 960 with only 2GB. 4GB VRAM should be the minimum for all GPUs in 2015.tviceman - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
It's 2015, and you still think bus width size correlates to e-peen?Oxford Guy - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
There is only so much data that can be pushed through 128 bits, even with compression.Samus - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
trololololdragonsqrrl - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Oh dear, your comment makes it sound like you have no idea what you're talking about.extide - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Was there an article on the 970 mini? Amazon wants $750 for that sucker, WTF!DanNeely - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Blame a single 3rd party gouger being the only person to offer it on amazon. It's $353 on Newegg. That's $23 more than the cheapest 970 and $13 more than ASUS's cheapest card; IMO a reasonable surcharge for a low run part with a fair amount of custom engineering to design the more compact PCB.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
TiGr1982 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
It's not "ASUS GPUs", it's ASUS videocards, apparently. There are no such thing as "ASUS GPUs".dstarr3 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Really? A 750Ti with 4GB of memory? I really doubt that the memory is the bottleneck on that card. I mean, that's not a bad thing. The 750Ti is a budget card. It performs as it should. But no one should spring for a 4GB card that can only run games on medium.dananski - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
I suppose it could help with high-res situations. Looking at the charts, I could imagine you might find the extra RAM helps Battlefield 4 and Crysis: Warhead to keep their 1440p framerates above 30.lokhor - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
When are you guys going to review the GTX 960?coburn_c - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Have you still not done a 960 review or benchmarks? Man this place is going to shit.Oxford Guy - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
The 960 isn't a very good card so you're not missing much.mobutu - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
They didn't even reviewed the GTX 960 yet, all we have is a pipeline story from 22 january (a month ago!) promising the review "next week"http://www.anandtech.com/show/8923/nvidia-launches...
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Working on it as we speak. As you may have noticed, we had a couple of other things (such as DX12 and Cortex-A57) that we prioritized first.olivaw - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Which had amazing depth! Nice job!dananski - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Yeah, it has been a bit frustrating - after checking here for the 960 review every day, I went ahead and ordered the Strix 960 last Friday. Had to put my trust in other review sites for a change :OI suspect there's quite a lot of different vendors providing AT with cards, so full benchmarking is understandably time consuming, not to mention this is the first card of the year - new gpu benchmarks? Looking forward to my card and the article.
Eilanyan - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
The 750ti with 4gb is bloody perfect for Skyrim texture mods.OrphanageExplosion - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
And Shadow of Mordor - which runs nicely on the 750 Ti - will stand to benefit too via the use of PS4-level textures.Daniel Egger - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
If you spring for a new GPU you might as well take something quicker. Allows you to crank up the DSR resolution even higher than with the 750 Ti... Now if they'd only pull the stick out of their arses and get that darn driver fixed...tipoo - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
The 960 would definitely be the bigger beneficiary of 4GB RAM...But those are slotted to come in March anyways.cramerican - Thursday, February 19, 2015 - link
That Asus might inch out the EVGA 960 SC 02G-P4-2962-KR for shortest 960 card. I have the EVGA in an Elite 110 case, and every centimeter helps. Mine reports 1555 MHz core @ 8GHz DDR running Afterburner/Riva OSD, Furmark, Heaven, Farcry3 and 3DMark11. Furmark, Heaven and Farcry will peg at 1555 and stay there. 3DMark modulates the boost GPU clock, but never below 1500 MHz.I have a linear fan ramp that turns on at 30C / 30%. My fan is loud above 60%, never needs more than 50% to hold 60C under load, which is when stock cards are just turning on.
meacupla - Thursday, February 19, 2015 - link
What I'd like to see is a 960 low profile/half height.I know 750Ti LP exists, so I don't see why it can't be done with a 960.
SyndromeOCZ - Sunday, March 1, 2015 - link
This. I've got a 750 low profile and its great. I wish there were more low profile GPU's on the market. Low profile with 4 monitor support.Namisecond - Monday, April 20, 2015 - link
Too much power. It's hard enough cooling a half height 750TI. The 960 has double the TDP.Ballist1x - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Is this an article or an advert?cramerican - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Do you walk to school or bring your lunch?Namisecond - Monday, April 20, 2015 - link
Now, what I would like to see is what can Asus do for the single slot half-height form factor. :)