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  • Mondozai - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    When can we expect a review? Will you guys be buying one to review or did you get a card before the launch?
  • Dahak - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    The said next week in the article

    "Meanwhile on a quick housekeeping note, as today's launch comes at the tail end of Intel's IDF 2015, timing constraints mean that we won't be posting our review of the GTX 950 today. Our full review will be up next week once the show has concluded, so be sure to check back a bit later this month."

    I am guessing the later this month is a typo
  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Next week is later this month. Next week is not this week :)
  • wyewye - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Next week is lazy.
    Later this month is lazier.
    Arguing about how lazy you are is laziest.
  • Tegeril - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Last time I checked Anandtech was praised and heavily visited because of thoroughness and completeness of reviews, not rushing to complete.
  • hrrmph - Saturday, August 22, 2015 - link

    +1
  • jospoortvliet - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    Amen. I for one look forward to their take on the news that DirectX 12 seems poised to re-ignite the NVIDIA vs AMD war - see http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2015/08/directx-12...

    Ars made something nice but a real deep dive on this from Annandtech would be invaluable...
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Received a card before the launch. Given the short amount of time we had before IDF though, we weren't able to wrap up everything before leaving for the show.
  • Mr Perfect - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Can you touch on the 960 as well? Unless I missed it, I didn't see AT release a review of it.
  • dananski - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link

    Nearly 2 months later no review. GTX 960 came out in January. I don't think we're going to get anything useful from AT on these mainstream cards :(
  • Denithor - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link

    4 months in now and still no review. I'm pretty much finding Anandtech to be almost useless for product reviews anymore.
  • creed3020 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Still no review 6 months later....Was really hoping for one too!
  • meacupla - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Most of these GTX950 cards are massive.
    You would think the manufacturers could make them smaller than GTX960, but it looks like all they did was reuse the same PCB and heatsink, so these GTX950 cards have no real advantage over the GTX960.
  • WithoutWeakness - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    I'm in the same boat as you. There is no reason these cards need double-slot double-fan coolers on them other than OEMs re-using old designs (GTX 960) to make their lives easier. I would love to see a single-slot design or a short-PCB-single-fan-dual-slot design. No reason that these cards need to be 8-10 inches long with dual fans to dissipate 90W.
  • just4U - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    supposedly the design for the 960..70 allows for what your asking. That's why we see some mini's. I'd assume the 950 would be similar.
  • kaidenshi - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    I'm with both of you. I have one of the short GTX 650 Ti cards, and I love that it can fit in a micro-ATX case or a massive full ATX, depending on how I want to do my next build.
  • xdamm - Monday, August 31, 2015 - link

    That is exactly what EVGA is doing, their standard $159 card comes with a single fan, compact cooler design while their $169 and upwards come heavily overclocked form the factory and use their ACX 2.0 cooler design (which will obviously bring down temperatures quite a bit).

    Personally, I'd spend the extra 10 bucks to get much better cooling performance just for peace of mind.
  • eanazag - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    I'm not all that impressed with the 950 on paper either. The 750ti was and is still of interest to me. The big thing to me is DX12 support, which I'm guessing will be far more limited on the 750 series since it is Nvidia wanting to push profit. I have Windows 10 on all my home PCs, so I'm looking to leverage that.

    I'd be interested to see the power effect of a downclocked 950, specifically on RAM. How far can you bring it down to the 750ti TDP with parity or better performance? 2GB of RAM is a disappointment; I'd like to see a bump to 3-4GB in this segment ($150+).

    In comparison to the AMD 370 I'd opt for the 950 because of features - Pitcairn is too old for me. Now this 950 leaves a larger opportunity for AMD Nano Fury. At the same TDP and the 960's price I'd be looking at AMD for a board size advantage.
    No one seems to be caring for a single slot design, which I'd welcome.
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    GTX950 and Fury Nano within one sentence? Fury Nano is going to be placed against GTX970 (throttled at 145 W, as suggested by nVidia) regarding poer consumption. It may well beat or tie that performance and be at least as expensive.
  • Cryio - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    You'd opt for the 950 because of what features compared to the 370?

    The 370 is just as fast and it's slightly more efficient than the 950, hilarious considering that we're talking about Maxwell 2 vs GCN 1.0 and AMD is winning in efficiency.
  • Schecter1989 - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Its hilarious watching morons like you post stuff that has no facts. Go to anands launch review of the 300 series. The 370 draws 110w, the 950 draws 90w. So theres no win on efficiency for AMD there. GCN 1.0 also isnt fully DX12 compliant. Its 11.1 the subset of 12 whereas Maxwell 2 is fully DX12 Compliant. Go find facts before trying to sound smart.
  • Schecter1989 - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    HA! Do some research fanboy before before posting stupid crap like that. 950 draws 90w compared to the 370's draw of 110w. No win on efficiency there. GCN is DX11.1 while Maxwell 2 is fully 12.0 So keep dreaming with those retarted claims. Think im wrong go watch the 300 series release video from AMD or even just go read the 300 series launch review here on Anand.
  • D. Lister - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    @Cryio

    370? Which is a rebadged 270, which was originally a rebadged 7870? C‘mon!
  • medi03 - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    Except it is slightly different, enough that it shows quite noticeable differences in both power draw and performance.
  • D. Lister - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link

    Those differences are there, but despite that the efficiency of the 370 is nowhere near that of the 950. That is basic grade-school math, not an opinion.
  • meacupla - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Hint: Asus and Gigabyte offer a GTX970 that are only 17cm (6.7in) long.
  • Morawka - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    yeah but the 750ti cost the same as the 950 so 950 wins.
  • Morawka - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    well now with the price drop it doesn't, but the 950 is still a amazing card for the money. last month $150 would get you a 750ti which is only maxwell gen 1
  • RussianSensation - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    What are you talking about? 750ti 2GB can be regularly purchased for $95-110 and has been on sale as low as $80. It's regular price hasn't been $150 in a long time. Also, 950 is not an amazing card for the $ at all. $155 R9 285 beats it in price/performance, and so do GTX960, R9 280, 280X and R9 290 cards. 950 is barely faster than the $130 R9 270X as well.

    The hard reality is in the $130-250 range, 950 offers the worst price/performance besides overpriced cards like the R9 380.

    http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-...
  • Oxford Guy - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    If DX12 is your interest then you should be looking at AMD not at Maxwell.

    See the ArsTechnica article about the latest benchmark that has a 290X beating a 980 Ti, for heaven's sake.
  • Gigaplex - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    The 290X didn't beat it, it tied. Still impressive, no need to exaggerate. The NVIDIA performance was worse than DX11 though indicating a potential issue in the driver which could be fixed later.
  • limitedaccess - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Has it been mentioned if the GTX 950 will also bundle Phantom Pain?

    If not then it seems like a terrible in terms of value as the effective price would make it the same if not higher than the GTX 960 (which is hardly a value proposition either).
  • dagnamit - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Looking at the specs and recalling the performance numbers of the 750ti with that TDP still impresses me.
  • Daniel Egger - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Totally not impressed but let's what what the performance figures say and then again whether companies decide to pack that into a more reasonable package than the standard design...
  • Beaver M. - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    First tests show a performance rating all in all at 1080p (no AF, no AA) of about 24% slower than the GTX 960, 28% faster than a 750Ti, which puts it about at the same levels as a GTX 660.
  • Cryio - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Actually same levels as a 760 (which Nvidia intentionally crippled) most of the time, which is impressive given how 750 Ti was slower than a 660.
  • Daniel Egger - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    28% more performance at 50% more power consumption, larger footprint and the need for a 6pin connector? Doesn't exactly whisper "MUST BUY" here...
  • Beaver M. - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Wait till you see the overclocking power consumption. Draws almost as much as a 970, but is much slower of course.
  • D. Lister - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Your estimate for power consumption is significantly off the mark.

    http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_...
  • D. Lister - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    It is actually much closer to the 960 than 24%.

    http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_...
  • leopard_jumps - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Performance GTX 950 = R9 270X but GTX 950 ref has 90W TDP but R9 270X ref- 180W TDP
  • RussianSensation - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    TDP does not mean power consumption. TDP stands for Thermal Design Power and it's related to the cooling system of the card, not its typical or maximum power usage.

    "The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, is the maximum amount of heat generated by the CPU that the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate in typical operation."

    After-market 950 uses about 97W of power vs. 119W for R9 270X. You quoting 90W TDP for 950 and 180W TDP for R9 270X is absolutely meaningless and makes you sound not knowledgeable on the topic of TDP vs. power usage.

    http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_950_SS...
  • leopard_jumps - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link

    It was the easiest way to show which card draws more power . You don't expect from me to post for very card the power draw !? There are factory overclocked/superclocked versions and whatnot .
  • leopard_jumps - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link

    It was the easiest way to show which card draws more power . You dont expect from me to post the power draw for every card !? There are factory overclocked/superclocked and whatnot . Also I didn't want to post data from other sites , kind of loyalty
  • jardows2 - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    About Time! While the 750Ti was great for low power use, from a pure performance standpoint could not compete at all with the AMD offerings. A good low-end competitor, maybe this will spark a little more innovation by team Red on the low end. Maybe an extra cut-down Tonga? Some of us just can't afford $300 + for video cards, but still want good performance options!
  • Xean - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    50% increase in power input (relative to a GTX 750), 50% more transistor count. Seems fair to me.
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Lots of disabled transistors though, because it uses the same die as the 960 but has less SMMs. So your counting doesn't really make sense.
  • Cryio - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Hilarious to me as the 950 is 0-5% faster than a 370, we're comparing Maxwell 2 vs GCN 1.0 and the 370 has better efficiency across the board from the other reviews.
  • Schecter1989 - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Lolz. Keep dreaming scrub. Go read Anands 300 series review, or even better yet, watch it directly from AMD. No wins comparing GCN 1.0 to Maxwell 2.
  • RussianSensation - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    "No wins comparing GCN 1.0 to Maxwell 2."

    It's funny you accuse him of being a fanboy but you sound like one yourself.

    R9 285 costs $155 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    R9 280 3GB costs $175 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    R9 280X costs $200 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    R9 290 costs $230 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    MSI Gaming 950 costs $160 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    And now Price/performance at 1080P:

    R9 285 = 19% faster
    R9 280/380 = 26% faster
    R9 280X = 34% faster
    after-market R9 290 = 290 OC = 80% faster
    http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-...

    in all comparisons, GTX950 loses to any AMD card in the $130-230 space.

    $150 950 is also a worse buy against a $180 GTX770, $175 GTX960 or $100 GTX750Ti.

    At current prices, 950 offers the worst price/performance compared to nearly any NV or AMD card in the $130-250 range.
  • Schecter1989 - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Hilarious to me you make the same claim on a tech site that has the facts proving you WRONG. For god sake try doing some research about what you say. The facts are even at this site too so obviously you just come online to make ridiculous claims with nothing to support it.
  • bill.rookard - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Shame that they couldn't keep it below the 75w threshold for avoiding the PEG connector, although I wonder if these are SLI capable as opposed to the 750ti. If they are, that would make for an interesting little build.

    The 750ti still strikes me as the ultimate HTPC card though.
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    If only the 750ti had HDMI 2.0....

    And the first picture shows the card with an SLI connector. :)
  • richardginn - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Sucks that this card needs that 6-pin connector.

    This would be a perfect 750TI replacement.
  • ScottSoapbox - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Typo: The launch date for the 950 is wrong in the table.
  • Computer Bottleneck - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    For this card, I would hope to see a lot of reference cooler designs if some OEMs re-use the PCB from the GTX 960.

    GTX 960 Reference cooler on a GTX 950....that has got to be pretty quiet.
  • meacupla - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Look at the pictures, they did reuse PCB and cooler.

    And why? There are very quiet to inaudible 960 and 970 designs already.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    I admit I'm underwhelmed by the 950 and its largely due to physical size and power requirements. Some attention and improvement to graphics cards in the 40-70 watt range would be nice, but here we are, still left out in the cold waiting for smaller transistors and more sensible power demands.
  • jwcalla - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    That segment will likely have to wait for Pascal. There's only so much you can do with GM206 and I can't see nvidia making an entirely new Maxwell GPU this late in the game, especially for the low end.
  • Computer Bottleneck - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Nvidia does have GM208 for the low end though. (They are currently using it in mobile).

    Its 384 Maxwell CUDA cores and 64 bit memory interface.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    *sigh* Yes, I think you're absolutely correct about this situation. Unless Pascal is significantly delayed for some reason, I doubt there'll be any dramatic change in the performance per watt equation which probably means that the best GPU I'll get my hands on in the sub-60 watt category is the 740 GT. As it stands, it'd still be an upgrade from my old, tired 8800 GTS, but if I do upgrade, I want to lower my power requirements significantly and that means something that uses a lot less than the 120-ish watts of the 8800. These days, I'm just not interested in having my desktop double as a space heater.
  • xdamm - Monday, August 31, 2015 - link

    Why not go the the 750 Ti? At 60 watts TDP it should draw pretty close to half the power of the 8800.

    Until Pascal arrives, I really don't think you'll find a much better option without diving into low end hardware (the 740 and downwards perform horribly for their price).
  • jeffrey - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Has the GTX 960 even been reviewed yet?

    Wasn't that review also one more week, that changed to two weeks, then a month, then six months, then turned into a mythical unicorn...

    Almost like AnandTech had some sour NVIDIA grapes after the GTX 970 spec correction and swept the GTX 960 under the rug.
  • garbagedisposal - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    Almost like the writers are busy and just didn't have time to finish the review you mean?
    Idiots like you with your looney theories about bias
  • jeffrey - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link

    You sounded uninformed..., let me help.

    Here is a quote from January 22nd:
    "Editor's Note: Due to personal matters we won’t have a GeForce GTX 960 review published today. But in lieu of that we wanted to go over the basics of NVIDIA’s latest Maxwell card
    ...
    Be sure to check back in early next week for our complete look at GeForce GTX 960, including performance, overclocking, HEVC support, and more."

    Okay, that was January 22nd and it's now August 20th..., so say 7 months.
  • Oxford Guy - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    Not to mention the fact that they have plenty of people applying to write for them.
  • Oxford Guy - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    "Almost like AnandTech had some sour NVIDIA grapes after the GTX 970 spec correction and swept the GTX 960 under the rug."

    More like didn't review the 960 because it's a turkey. : )
  • jeffrey - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    "More like didn't review the 960 because it's a turkey. : )"

    I just don't get why Ryan Smith posted in the forums repeatedly that the GTX 960 review was coming and then 7 months later still nothing.

    When I saw the comment on the GTX 950 that the review was coming next week I got a really bad case of deja vu.
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link

    Marketing magic.

    Tease a product to get interest in it but don't review it so you don't have to tell people it isn't a good product (which the 960 wasn't).
  • SydneyBlue120d - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Please test HEVC and VP9 encoding and decoding in the upcoming review, thanks a lot.
  • beast6228 - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    And....the AMD R9 280X beats every single card listed in this review and for less than $200
  • takeship - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    One: this isn't a review. More like a fleshed out news/PR announcement.
    Two: name one released game, just one, that a 280x beats a 980 in. Unplayable 4k frame rates don't count, because you know, they're unplayable.

    Sorry to be trollish.
  • Doobs - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    There is no mention of 980 in the article.
  • takeship - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    No, but there's also no mention of a 290x. The comparison is just as valid for a 290 & 970, which were mentioned.
  • takeship - Friday, August 21, 2015 - link

    Err...280x. It would probably help if I could get the product numbers right at some point.
  • RussianSensation - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    I think you need to read more carefully. His statement is actually true even if there is no review in this article. 280X beats 280/285/380/950/960.

    With after-market GTX950 selling for $160, they are overpriced when a 280X can be had for $195 and it's 46% faster at 1080P vs. a reference 950 and at minimum 26% faster than the fastest 950. 280X also has 50% more VRAM.
    http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-...
  • medi03 - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    So, to the slide guys.
    PS4 has something between 7850/7870.

    How on earth could 950 be "3 times faster" than that?
  • RussianSensation - Sunday, August 23, 2015 - link

    It's not. What the slide is saying 3X faster than NV's previous gen GTX650Ti. PS4 has a GPU between HD7850/7870. I believe PS4's GPU has 32 ROPs, 72 TMUs, 1152 shaders and 800mhz clocks. Roughly, that's on par with R9 265/HD7850 ~ R7 370.
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/9387/amd-radeon-300-...
    http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-...
    Best case scenario for the GTX950 is ~20% faster than the PS4 but since it has 2GB of VRAM vs. 8GB of GDDR5 for PS4, in practice it's going to be worse long-term. The bigger bottleneck in PS4 is the CPU. Technically speaking GTX950 paired with an i7-6700K would provide a better gaming experience because of the CPU component.
  • medi03 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link

    Thanks for your comment.
    Slide states:

    "3x performance
    60fps, faster than console"

    There is nothing else mentioned in the context, that you could compare it to.
    And knowing nVidia, it is hardly by mistake.
  • Peeping Tom - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link

    Just picked up a factory overclocked 960 for retail price of the 950.
  • adithyay328 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link

    This launch was super anticipated. It seems that Nvidea is just doing what they did to the 700 series to the 900 series. Nothing new.

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