I purchased this card as an upgrade over a late 2012 EVGA GTX 650 Ti (see link below) for top notch 1080p gaming. That card ran most non-DX11 games maxed out at over 60 fps, but definitely couldn't handle newer games with DX11 effects on (depth of field, tessellation, etc.). I'll run through the main comparisons between the two cards in detail below. The main reason to buy this card over the ACX cooling version is for the blower setup, which will help in cramped cases without a fan between the PCIe slot and the bottom of the case.
-Installation-
First comments concern the packaging. Being a third time EVGA customer, their packaging has come a long way. Instead of a box with a poorly fitting bag stuffed in a large slot, this card came secured in a plastic holder inside the box. The actual fan cover/shroud is nowhere near as good looking as the faux-carbon fiber look of the 600 series cards from EVGA, but it doesn't look bad either. This card is quite long, nearly the full width of an ATX motherboard. If you have any headers along the length of it, they won't be able to be used. Finally, the top mounted power connectors will be nice in case you need to use a hard drive slot directly in line with the card, but if you have a tight case clearance above the card then the cables will be bent pretty tight to clear.
Installation was standard PCIe, along with the power cables. There are adapters for two 6 pin PCIe to one 8 pin and two 4 pin Molex to one 6 pin PCIe. Hopefully if you have the prerequisite 500W PSU, then you don't even need these adapters. Two software items are a must to get the most out of EVGA Nvidia cards: GeForce Experience and EVGA's PrecisionX. The current driver is a beta release (GeForce 326.80 Driver), but it is required to play the Splinter Cell game bundled with most cards right now. PrecisionX will allow you to set a temperature limit (80C is the standard) and will intelligently overclock the card for you to reach max performance. My card liked to run itself up to 1189 MHz right out of the box.
-Performance-
Performance definitely lives up to reviews all over the internet. First things first, benchmark scores prove that this thing is a beast at DX10 games, easily topping 80 fps in 3DMark Vantage tests. 3DMark 11 was a little tougher, with full DX11 effects taking their toll. The combined score was definitely limited by the CPU.
3DMark 11 Scores
GTX 760 ---- vs. ---- GTX 650 Ti
Graphics: 8582 ------------ 5099
Physics : 7114 ------------ 6935
Combined: 7090 ------------ 4100
Avg. fps: 40 ------------ 24
3DMark Vantage Scores
GTX 760 ---- vs. ---- GTX 650 Ti
Graphics: 31292 ------------ 17757
Physics : 20141 ------------ 19129
Combined: 27487 ------------ 18081
Avg. fps: 92 ------------ 52
As far as games go, the new Splinter Cell game can be pretty much maxed out and hit 60 fps without a hitch. Similar for Bioshock Infinite and most other 2013 titles. Haven't had a chance to run Tomb Raider's benchmark, but I will update later if I find anything lacking.
-Heat, Noise, and Power-
I have previously used custom fan curves to avoid running my cards too hot, but this one seems designed to hold itself at 80C for gaming. The minimum fan speed is 1600 RPM (40%), and average during gaming was 60% with the auto fan curve. I'll probably bump it up just a bit to be safe. The idle temp is no concern, around 32C in a warm room. Depending on the level of auto overclock that your game needs, 80C was the limit at 1189 MHz. Because this blower type cooler has limited waste air inside the case, most of the heat is directly eliminated right out of the back.
Power consumption is much higher than the 650 Ti this replaced. With an overclocked i5, whole system usage was around 200W as measured by a UPS. Now, this card at max normal power causes a system draw of over 300W. However, idle power has hardly changed, as this card will underclock itself to 135 MHz. Noise isn't too bad considering the cooling setup, but it can hardly be heard over a few year old case fans.
-Conclusion-
I was on the fence about upgrading to a GTX 760 for two reasons: too many options and availability of cheap GTX 660 Ti's. This is definitely the right call; the GPU Boost 2.0 isn't a gimmick, it is just a really convenient way to overclock, and the 256 bit memory bus gives huge gains in some games. Overall, the card you choose is up to which cooling solution, clock speed, and memory configuration you want. But if you want rock solid 1080p gaming at good frame rates and maxed out settings, this is probably the best value card out there.
Core i5-2500K at 4.2 GHz
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3
16 GB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz RAM
256 GB Cruical M4 SSD
EVGA GTX 760
EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti SSC 1024MB GDDR5 128bit, Dual Dual-Link DVI, Mini HDMI, Graphics Card (01G-P4-3652-KR) Graphics Cards 01G-P4-3652-KR
| Max Screen Resolution | 4096 x 2160 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 6008 MHz |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Nvidia GeForce |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | GeForce GTX 760 |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4 GB |
