Shootouts

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Custom Card Shootout

By James Lu - 28 Jun 2013

Conclusion

Conclusion

We weren't entirely convinced by the reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760, but we had hopes that the factory overclocked custom card versions would perform better. While there was certainly some performance gain, it still wasn't enough for any of our cards to compete with last year's GTX 670 model and, in fact, performance was only slightly better than the old GTX 660 Ti - at best.

Consider also that with pricing on the GTX 670 dropping as low as S$499 locally, if your budget is around this price-point, you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck by opting for the GTX 670. Only Palit and Gigabyte's GTX 760 cards are priced significantly lower than that, at S$469 and S$409 respectively. If you're looking for something more in the low-to-mid S$400 range, these two might be worth considering. Between the two, we definitely recommend Gigabyte for its better performance, three-year warranty and lower price.

Having said that, unfortunately, we have noticed that current street prices do not seem to match Gigabyte's local distributor's suggested retail price and many vendors are selling the Gigabyte GTX 760 for upwards of $500. While prices should come down eventually, for now, do be careful when you're out shopping and know that there should be room for negotiating a lower price for the card.

Gigabyte is our clear overall winner in this shootout for displaying the best performance out of the box, the best overclocked performance and the best temperature performance. While, like Palit, it uses an entirely plastic cooler, it doesn't look or feel cheap. At an SRP of S$409 ($120 cheaper than ASUS' GTX 760!) it also provides the best value by far.

MSI performed quite well in our overclocking benchmark, but its actual performance scores were slightly lower than expected. Its default factory overclock was also a bit disappointing, and we expect most users will install the MSI gaming app and set it to OC mode (1080MHz) all the time. Under this setting, its performance should be quite close to that of Gigabyte's. Unfortunately, it's still rather expensive at S$499.

Palit performed well out of the box thanks to its high factory core overclock and overclocked memory, however we weren't able to push it much higher in our own overclocking efforts. Its plastic red and gold cooler also looks cheap and didn't perform as well as Gigabyte or MSI - the extra thick 2.5 slot design could also cause problems for SLI spacing or in smaller cases. While it's cheaper than both MSI and ASUS at S$469, it only comes with a two-year warranty.

ASUS didn't perform badly overall, but was hurt by its low factory overclock. The compact size could make a good choice for mini-ITX and micro-ATX builders, but the steep S$529 price tag means that there are better alternatives available. For example, at just S$30 more, you can actually get a more powerful and more compact ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini OC. Given this situation, we're not quite sure who would opt for the ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC.

  • Update as of 4th July: ASUS has revised its price down to a more manageable S$429. We expect price points to shift across the board for other vendors too as well as they adjust prices with their new stocks. Stay tuned for updates.
     
Final Ratings

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 Windforce 3X OC

Click for detailed results break-down

MSI GeForce GTX 760 Twin Frozr IV OC

Click for detailed results break-down

Palit GeForce GTX 760 JetStream OC

Click for detailed results break-down

ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC

Click for detailed results break-down

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