14 DAY TRIAL // The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 graphics card has finally been released, which opened the floodgates for all the company's OEMs to do the same. EVGA has a particularly interesting model ready to sell.
Normally, the GeForce GTX 960 has a base GPU clock of 1,127 MHz and a GPU Boost maximum setting of 1,178 MHz.
As you may expect, EVGA's model is factory-overclocked, though the memory is left alone to work at the normal 7 GHz.
This is because EVGA wanted to make it even more likely that the cooler will stay completely turned off during system operation, but didn't want to hold itself back from offering an edge in performance.
The EVGA SuperSC ACX 2.0+
The GM206 graphics processing unit has a base frequency of 1,279 MHz and a GPU Boost potential of 1,342 MHz.
Of course, this actually matters a lot less than it used to, since efficiency is the name of the game now. During regular operations, the card will not even come close to using everything.
Instead, it will keep things basic, using around 21W of power, or 31W if a MOBA game like DOTA is launched.
Only in demanding titles like FarCry 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition will it push the video card high enough for active cooling to start.
That's where the new EVGA ACX 2.0+ cooler comes in. The ACX 2.0+ cooler has a dB Noise Inverter that keeps it offline under 60°C.
Even when it starts, with its three 8 mm-thick copper optimized Straight Heat Pipes (SHP), as well as the sizable fin array and the two fans (optimized Swept fan blades, double ball bearings, and an extreme low power motor), the temperature is reduced by 5°C compared to reference. Optimized Power Target is in play here (33% more power over reference by balancing power, performance and thermal parameters).
That said, the number of CUDA cores is the same (1,024) and the 2 GB of memory are controlled via the same 128-bit interface, set at 7,010 MHz.
Availability
Like the rest of the GTX 960 crowd, the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC ACX 2.0+ should be up for sale at two hundred dollars / euro, regardless of exchange rates. Maybe a bit more since this is, after all, a custom-designed, overclocked version.
