EVGA 4GB GTX 760 Review

 

• Brand: EVGA
• Model: 4GB GTX 760
• Website: http://www.evga.com/products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-2766-KR
  
• RRP: £239.71 (At time of the review)

When you hear people talking about NVIDIA graphics cards, one of the first names which comes to mind is EVGA.  They were founded in 1999 by 2 men, Andrew Han and Heith Rotchford, with a huge vision of being one of the most established and illustrious brands currently on the market.

With products including motherboards and graphics cards, they were the first brand to release the first 4-way SLI compatible motherboard in the world, which goes to show how innovative and successful EVGA really are.  Today in particular, I will be focusing on one of their models from their latest NVIDIA GTX range, more specifically the GTX 760, which comes with a hefty 4GB of VRAM.

The EVGA 4GB GTX 760 comes packed with 1152 shaders and 3540 million transistors.  It also has a stock clock of 980/1502MHz with a core boost of 1033MHz.  How will it perform in a mixture of games and synthetic benchmarks?  Will it compete with a 7970 with a bigger price tag or is it a card to avoid?  Let’s find out, starting with the specifications…

Performance

NVIDIA GTX 760

1152 CUDA Cores

980 MHz Base Clock

1033 MHz Boost Clock

94.1GT/s Texture Fill Rate

Memory

4096 MB, 256 bit GDDR5

6008 MHz (effective)

192.2 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

Interface

PCI-E 3.0 16x

DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI, Display-Port

SLI Capable

Resolution & Refresh

240 Hz Max Refresh Rate

Max Analog : 2048×1536

Max Digital : 4096×2160

Operating System Support

Windows 8 32/64bit

Windows 7 32/64bit

Windows Vista 32/64bit

Windows XP 32/64bit

Requirements

Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply.

(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 30 Amps.)

Two available 6-pin PCI-E power connectors

Total Power Draw : 170 Watts

Product Warranty

This product comes with a 3 year warranty. Registration is recommended

The EVGA 4GB GTX 760 comes entombed in a mainly silver box, which has an aluminium look to it.  The model number and brand is clearly present, with information that the card supports up to 3-way SLI.

On the rear of the box, we have a very detailed guide of the 760, which includes an illustration of the card, a list of inputs on the I/O which includes 1 x DVI-D port, 1 x DVI-I port, a HDMI port and a full sized DisplayPort.  The information is displayed in 5 languages, English, German, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

The side of the box displays vital information, more specifically the minimum requirements needed for the card, which includes minimum power requirements, the connectors required to power the 760 and what operating systems the GPU is compatible with.

Bundled with the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 are 2 x 6 Pin cables, a DVI to HDMI adapter, stickers, a poster, an instruction manual and driver installation disc.  One brilliant thing is the quality of the packaging the cables come in, it just screams quality and shows EVGA have gone the extra mile to give the customer a great experience, even just from opening the box.

From a first look at the EVGA GTX 760, the cooler is black and silver, with EVGA’s regular branding across the top on the silver stripe.  The cooler itself is a reference design cooler; it will be interesting to see how the thermal and acoustic performance turns out.  The PCB is black, which is always nice to see and is very typical of EVGA; it’s unknown to me that they have used any other colour for their PCB other than black.

Taking a closer look at the reference fan, you can see the level of detail EVGA have put into this graphics card, with the etching into the fan itself.  It works really well and sets the card off brilliantly, even though you wouldn’t notice it while the card is powered on, it’s nice to see the level of detail.  Also, you can see a closer look at the design of the cooler itself, especially the rippled black effect which reflects light off it and looks nice in the process.

Connections wise, the GTX 760 has 1 x Display Port, 1 x DVI-D, 1 x DVI-I ports and a HDMI output.  Plenty of connections, especially for multi monitor configurations, something which the 4GB of VRAM will come in handy for.

Taking a look at the rear of the card, we see the PCB including some of the memory chips which we will take a closer look at next.  The card is a reference GTX 760 which as far as I am aware, all the 760 models at the time of writing this review currently are.

The EVGA 4GB GTX 760 has Hynix AFR memory chips and just in view on the right hand side, we have the cooler mounting back plate, which keeps the cooler firmly held to the card.

Finally we have the 2 x 6pin connectors which power the GTX 760, a recommended power supply rating of 500w is recommended; I would also recommend a reliable brand such as Enermax, Be Quiet or Seasonic for that added piece of mind.

CPU – Intel i7 4770k

Motherboard – ASRock Z87 Extreme3

Memory – G.Skill RipjawZ 8GB (2400MHz CAS10) 2x4GB

Graphics – EVGA 4GB GTX 760

Cooler – Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E

Storage – Intel 520 240GB Solid State Drive

PSU – Enermax 1200w Platimax

Graphics Card Test Setup

EVGA 4GB GTX 760 Stock – 1033/1502 Boost (Driver 320.49)

EVGA 4GB GTX 760 OC – 1306/1722MHz Boost (Driver 320.49)

MSI 3GB 7970 Power Edition Stock – 1100/1500MHz  (Driver 13.4)

With the latest version of GPU Boost, apply named GPU Boost 2.0, overclocking on the latest revision of NVIDIAs cards has become a very pleasurable experience and achieving a pretty decent overclock on the EVGA GTX760 was anything but difficult.  Opting for EVGAs own precision over clocking tool I set out to push the card to its limit and see what could be achieved stable.

What I managed to achieve, from the stock settings of 980/1502MHz was an overclock of 1155/1722MHz respectively, with a further boost clock of 1306MHz.  All this extra grunt on EVGAs version of a reference cooler, not only does it feel great quality but it seemed to pull the figures I was hoping for from this little powerhouse.  Increasing the power target did give a few extra MHz and every little extra helps right?  So without further a due, here is a screenshot illustrating the overclock.

I did achieve even more staggering overclock of 1367MHz but it wasn’t stable during any of the benchmarks, which was a shame but i settled for the overclock pictured above and decided to put the card through its paces at stock and overclocked.

Let’s get down to some testing…

To give an accurate power consumption result, the cards were measured the following way

Idle – This was measured while Windows Desktop was open with minimal programmes and no load placed onto the CPU or GPU.  The power was then measured and recorded via a power monitor.

Load – This was measured while the GPU was under full load via Furmarks burn in test.  The power was then measured and recorded via a power monitor.

Taking a look at the results here, the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 really shows its dominance over the MSI 7970 and without a doubt, holds a large advantage for those looking to cut down on power usage.  The load power is very surprising as with compared to the 7970, its drawing over 100w of power less which is fantastic.

To test the thermal performance of graphics cards, the temperatures are taken at idle states and when loaded.

For load, we simply run Furmark for 10 minutes to get the card going and give the card plenty of time for its stock fan profile to kick in.  The temperature after 10 minutes of Furmarks burn in test is recorded.

With the 760 having EVGAs version of a reference cooler, I wasn’t surprised in the results given today.  The overall delta temp at idle is slightly higher than the 7970 we reviewed previously, but at load the EVGA cooler really does struggle to compete and for those looking for a cooler experience but want to keep with EVGA, have a look at their ACX cooler model.

Noise levels are tested with a decibel meter and the readings of the noise levels are taken when the coolers are in idle and loaded states.  The background noise during testing is very minimal and not enough to disrupt the readings given.

One thing to take into consideration with acoustic performance is that each graphics card has its own default fan curve profile and while you can set a custom one, I left it at stock to give people a broader spectrum of results.  The EVGA didn’t do too badly and actually beat the 7970 in the load testing, very surprising for a reference style cooler.

Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.  Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

In 3DMark 11, the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 performs brilliantly, with a consistent advantage when overclocked over the 7970.  Even at stock, the 760 competes with the 7970 in the extreme preset, which is the most graphically intensive test on 3DMark 11.

Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.

With Futuremarks latest benchmark Fire Strike, the GTX 760 performed remarkably well, easily beating the 7970 when overclocked and coming in at 1 point short on the normal preset; not bad for a card that’s over £100 cheaper.

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Even though in my opinion, Heaven is a benchmark usually favourable for NVIDIAs graphics card arsenal, the 760 comfortable demolishes the 7970 even at stock.  Synthetics are a good indication, but nothing compares to actual in game performance, so let’s get on with testing out some games to see what the card is capable of.

Company of Heroes 2 is a real-time strategy game developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sega for the Microsoft Windows platform.  It is the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2006 game Company of Heroes.

In this majorly graphically intensive game, the GTX 760 really does struggle to keep up with the 7970, where the grunt under the hood of the MSI card really does show its true colours.  Although in saying that, the 760 isn’t a bad performer, and is within touching distance of its more expensive rival.

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In F1 2012, it is widely known for being a console port, which usually does better with NVIDIA graphics cards and it’s no surprise that the 760 easily comes out on top here, with a massive advantage over the 7970, although the frame rates are easily playable on any setting at 1080p with either of the 2.

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In a game coming in the Never Settled AMD Promotion, you would expect the AMD offerings to come out on top and surprise surprise, the 7970 easily beats the 760, but with a price tag of more than £100, it should do.

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In Tomb Raider, Lara Croft shows a lot of resolve and in the benchmark, the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 does also.  When overclocked, the 760 performs noticeably better than the 7970 and it’s nice to see the extra boost in performance scales nicely.  However, the 7970 is the better card at max settings due to AMDs TressFX technology.  Still a valiant effort for the mid-range 760 though.

To obtain how much performance you are getting for your money, I have devised a simple integral calculation which helps work out value for money you are getting in relative to FPS.  To calculate this, the 3 results taken (the FPS that is) are added up which gives a total FPS.  This is then divided against the value of the graphics card which gives us our price to performance ratio.

The GTX760 looks to be considerably much better value for money than the MSI 7970 Power edition.  The difference between stock and OC also makes quite a noticeable difference and it’s nice to see NVIDIA actually being ahead on a price – performance ratio.

Well it’s that time again for my final thoughts and a summary of the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 graphics card, did it impress me?  Is it good value for money or does it provide sub-par performance?  Well let’s start with the most important aspect of the review, the performance.

Overall the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 manages to keep pace with a superior 7970, which is great for NVIDIA lovers, as the 760 is a real testament to their brand.  The only game that it doesn’t match up to the 7970 is Company of Heroes 2, which is known for being heavily reliant on graphics cards with massive grunt.  You also have to take into account the 1GB of VRAM extra on the EVGA 760 as it’s usually the other way around, with AMD having the VRAM advantage.  This is useful for multi monitor setups and even those gaming in high resolutions.

The look of the card is simply gorgeous in my opinion and EVGA have gone the extra mile in taking the standard reference cooler design and making it into something rather special.  It also performs rather well in my thermal and acoustic tests respectively.  It is obviously limited being of reference design, but it performs well nevertheless and so far, I really struggled to find any faults in terms of design or performance.

Overclocking EVGAs 760 was nothing short of a doddle, achieving the maximum overclock took little effort and was just a little bit of trial and error getting stable boost clocks.  Final overclocks of 1306/1722MHz Boost is nothing short of remarkable and shows how good the 760 actually is, as with some games the extra grunt scales well, especially in Tomb Raider.

Looking at the value of the card, you get considerable value for money when you compare it with the MSI 7970 Power Edition and coming in at over £100 cheaper, you really can’t fault NVIDIA on their pricing here.  Take into account the extra you’re paying for 4GB of VRAM and you get even better value for money, although the 4GB 760 would be more desirable especially due to rumours over how much Battlefield 4 is expected to use.  The only game I thought that was suspect was Company of Heroes 2 as the 7970 is a better option in my opinion and obviously with an overclock, greater heights would be achievable.

Overall, I struggled to find any bad points with the EVGA 4GB GTX 760 and was really pleased with the performance, the design and specifically, the price.  The 760 is fantastic value for money when you compare it against the 7970, it has 1GB more VRAM and actually beats the 7970 in some situations.  Coming in at a mid-ranged price of £239.71, it would be hard not to recommend EVGAs offering and will be interesting to see how far behind a GTX 770 the GTX 760 actually is.  If I was to nit-pick a little, the cooler could have been better, but with EVGAs aftermarket ACX cooler available for a few extra pounds, it might be worth opting for that model if having a reference cooler bothers you.