EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SSC GAMING ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling Graphics Card 02G-P4-2966-KR

Specific Model Reviewed:EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ (04G-P4-3966-KR)Packaging:The video card is packed in a clear plastic clamshell suspension 'box.' This 'box' is then placed in cardboard display box. On the back of the box is a clear plastic window which lines up with the sticker on the video card showing the model and serial numbers of the video card. A duplicate of the sticker is placed on the exterior of the display box. There is a cautionary note which warns the purchaser to ensure all the numbers match on the two stickers before purchasing the video card.I had not seen this security measure in use before and found it intriguing. However, since I purchased this video card from Amazon.com I obviously could not make this comparison until after I had purchased the video card. Nonetheless I like the idea.Unboxing:I sliced through one of the two security stickers (one on each end of the display box), opened the flaps and easily pulled out the clamshell suspension 'box.' I pried open the clamshell 'box' and then pulled the video card out from the bottom half of the 'box.' The only thing left to do was to remove the three pieces of plastic film protecting the front, back and top of the video card and remove the I/O port covers. Unboxing complete!Observations Regarding the Physical Aspects of the Video Card:The card looks good, with obvious attention to detail regarding the quality of design and engineering, selection of components, and build. The card has a heft to it which projects a feel of quality and durability. It feels like a solid piece of work, with pride of manufacturing very much in evidence.The back plate is a nice addition to the card. Does it offer a tangible increase in the card’s performance (due to the possibility of providing additional cooling), I don’t know, although I am suspect it does. It certainly does add heft and rigidity to the card. I feel it is a positive addition.The fans are large and well balanced. The sweep of the fan blades certainly looks good, although, since I am not an airflow engineer, I haven’t a clue as to whether or not the design of the fan blades makes a measurable difference regarding the ability of the fans to move larger volumes of air, more quietly, than do regular fan blades. Due to the design of the video card, most of the hot air is exhausted out the rear of the card (when the fans are running, where the I/O connections are made. This should certainly help to keep the interior of the computer case cooler than it would be otherwise. (On my particular computer, the single case fan resides immediately above the video card slot, exhausting hot air out the back of the case. This should help in keeping the video card, and the other components of the system, cool.)Installation:My computer is a Lenovo K450e, with an Intel Core i5 (4460). I had no problem removing the OEM video card (GT 720) and installing the GTX 960. There is plenty of room on all sides for installation and air flow. The card was very easy to insert into the graphics card slot. Connecting the 8-pin power connector was just as easy, although it did require a bit of force to insert all the way in.Boot Up and Installation of Software:The computer booted up just fine when I pressed the power button. (I am running Windows 8.1.) As I already had an NVidia video card installed, I did not remove the original video card drivers, but I did use the NVidia’s “GeForce Experience” program to check for video card driver updates. An update was found and installed. I rebooted the computer again, in order to ensure any system settings, which needed to be reset due to the new video card, could be adjusted as the system determined.NoiseIn short, I have not yet heard the fans on the video card. (I have had the card five days.) I have not adjusted the default factory settings for when the fans turn on and at what RPM, and expect I will not need to do so. The longest opportunity I have had to use the card, in one session, has been approximately three hours straight. During the entire time, I did not once hear the video card’s fans. (Although I did hear the power supply fans and the case fan. Fortunately, none of them are extremely loud or annoying.)Video Game Quality(Note: The native resolution of my monitor is 1920 x 1200 pixels and this is what setting I use for all of my games, if they allow it.) World of Warcraft, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Skyrim, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, Witcher II, Crysis III, Archage, etc. all look beautiful. As I use the settings for each game recommended by NVidia’s “GeForce Experience,” most of which are ‘high’ or ‘ultra,’ I won’t list specifically what they are.I will say I am more than happy and pleased with the results. For the first time since I have been playing video games on a computer, I find myself immersed in each game. I am not distracted by poor video quality or slow frame rates. The games just play, and play very well indeed. It is almost a liberating experience. Video effects which I didn’t even know my games could display are displayed in their full glory and without introducing video artifacts.Will I tweak each of the games’ settings as the weeks go on, of course! However, this will be more for academic reasons than for actually trying to improve the video quality.4GB versus 2GB of VRAMAs this card is still new to the market, there are many people performing reviews and posting them online. Many of these reviewers perform tests which try to ascertain if the extra two gigabytes of VRAM are actually useful in the real world and if it is worth the extra money. I will let those sites try to answer those questions. What I will say is your extra cash goes not only for an extra two gigabytes of VRAM, but also for the back plate. Whether or not this makes a difference to you, only you can decide. As for me, I feel the extra VRAM and addition of the back plate is worth the extra money.One more note on this discussion: As video cards with 4GB of VRAM become more prevalent, I believe video game programmers will code their games to take advantage of the extra storage space. How soon this will happen, who knows? But at least for now, my system can play those games which require (or can take advantage of) the extra VRAM.ConclusionWill this card satisfy hard core video game enthusiasts? No. That is why NVidia offers the GTX 970, 980 and Titan video cards. If you have the disposable income, get one of those cards. And even then, those cards will have hard core enthusiasts looking for more. For the remaining 99% of the buying public, I feel the GTX 960 offers an outstanding balance of graphics quality, power efficiency and price-to-performance ratio to more than meet our PC gaming needs. I heartily recommend this card to anyone who wants to play their video games with excellent graphics quality, while not having to spend a fortune doing so.Two thumbs up!

I've been running a EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti SC and was looking to get another card that would fit into my system's case but without having to move stuff around to much. (System: Inspiron 3847, i5 4460 3.2 gig. 16 gig RAM) I don't have the budget to get a GTX-980 and the GTX-970 still had a price that hit my budget wrong and both were long cards so I looked at the GTX-960 cards. This item caught my eye as it is the same kind of short card as the GTX-750 that I had and would not cause any problems fitting into the case. (The long card on this system can cause a bit of trouble with the HD caddie and I really didn't want to have to tackle that. At any rate, the main requirements for me to get a new card were: 1. 4 gigs GDDR5 RAM, and 2. able to fit into my computer case without having to do major case surgery. In my case, I had just brought a 750 power supply that had all the needed cords etc. so this wasn't a concern but would have been if I hadn't upgraded my old one. At any rate, after checking out all the specs I decided this would drop right in and fit in well. I ordered it and got it in two days later. The first thing that surprised me was when the delivery man handed me the package. It had a very heavy feel to it and I wondered what was going on. I opened it and unpacked the card. It was a very heavy card with a very large heat sink that ran the entire length of the card. Also, as in the GTX-750 Ti SC, the card takes up two slots and can cover up any slot below it. (This didn't brother me as the 750 I got did the same.) The weight of the card made installing it a bit of a hassle as on my system I had to sort of hold it up while I positioned it in the PCIex16 slot, and that was a bit tricky given the weight. At first it didn't want to snap into place all the way down into the slot and I had to reposition it a bit to get it in. Finally it snapped into place solidly and after making sure the back snap tab had snapped down I replaced the front snap holder and the card was firmly in place. Before I had turned off my system, I had removed the old GTX-750 card from the device manager and since this was another card in the GTX line, I was hopeful that a full system uninstall and reinstall of drivers wouldn't be needed. (When I upgraded to the GTX-750 from the GT-730, I was able to just remove the old card in the device manager and when I rebooted after installing he new card, the system had "seen" the new card and installed the correct driver from the NVidia app. The same thing happened this time, on the reboot, the NVidia experience picked up the new card and updated the system and it was up and running. (If this had been a install from a NVidia to an AMD, I would have had to completely uninstall all the NVidia drivers and then install the AMD drivers but since the driver version was the same for the 960 as the 750 I got away with this.) Anyway, after cranking back up and testing out a few games with this new card, I'm very glad I made the purchase. Since the new PS has more than enough power to handle this card and the system as a whole, I'm very pleased with this upgrade. There was one thing that at first worried me a bit till I did a few checks and that eased my fears. It's been my habit to leave the case cover off for a bit after the first start up so as to check and make sure everything is working OK, before sliding the system back under the desk where it normally sits. I noted that when the system first booted up, the 960's fan would come on then spin a bit and idle off. This concerned me a bit as I'm used to graphic card fans that stay on all the time. After checking this out, I found out that this card's fan is set to power on if the card's GPU temp rises above 62c. I decided to see how well this worked. I ran GPU-Z and ran the rendering item that came with it. The card's fan consistently came on at around 61 to 62c and he GPU's temp would stabilize around 72c and didn't go any higher once the fan really cranked up. I tried this test a number of times with almost the exact same results each time so the card's fan was working as it was suppose to with the card getting the cooling it needed. (An aside to this, I have the HD caddie on this system full with two 1 TB HDs and had run into a bit of a heat problem caused by not enough circulation around the HDs. This I solved a with a case fan mounted to the left of the HD caddie that pulled air in from the bottom front case slots, thru the caddie and blew it toward the back of the case. This caused a slight air flow over the graphic card and I noted that this set up had the additional benefit of lower the graphic card temp to solid 70c under load with it's fan going. A sort of unexpected outcome.) At any rate, I'm very happy with this card and so far it's performed well for me.