MSI impress with its GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G OC Edition video card, with its great cooling setup in the Twin Frozr V down to the overclocking headroom. A great splash of style also doesn't hurt, either.

Introduction

And so we continue our onslaught of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 reviews, where we started off with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, continuing with the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC ACX 2.0+, and now, the MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G OC Edition.

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Most of you know who MSI is by now, but if you don't, they've been around for quite some time making motherboards, and eventually shifted into video cards, where they've become a true wrecking ball against their competitors. Mainly because of their kick ass cooling setup known as TwinFrozr, of which the new GTX 960 GAMING 2G OC Edition features the latest version of it, TwinFrozr V. We'll go over that more in the review.

Quick Specs

MSI has chosen to also stay very close to the reference GTX 960 board, offering up 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 128-bit memory bus. As for display outputs, we have one dual-link DVI output, one HDMI 2.0, and three DisplayPort outputs.

Then we have the TwinFrozr V cooling, which also has 'Zero Frozr' technology, which will turn the fans off when the card is idle, making the card completely silent. Again, we'll go into more detail about that shortly.

Availability & Price

NVIDIA has hit a great price range with the GeForce GTX 960, with MSI selling its overclocked GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G OC Edition for $219 on Amazon. There's plenty available, and your local retailer should also be keeping these in stock. As usual, call up before you walk in, or check your favorite e-tailers website.

PRICING: You can find the MSI Computer Graphics Cards GTX 960 GAMING 2G for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

The $200 segment of the video card market is where the bulk of the mainstream PC gaming buyers run towards. It is a safe market to aim for just for the sheer number of interested parties, yet oddly enough the variant offerings introduced with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card are far from predictable, milquetoast and boring, especially when they could easily have and get away with it. A major release that would usually be met with contemptous cynicism instead was met with wide-eyed enthusiasm, especially now that the Maxwell GPUs have made it possible for silent gaming to be a reality.

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MSI has been improving their Twin Frozr cooler over the years, now in its 5th revision. But with such an aggressive and competitive market space to fight for, they knew they had to offer more than what everyone else had as well. Like some GTX 960’s, MSI’s offering has a zero-RPM fan setting at idle and low loads but the silent operation does not stop there for they have also outfitted their Twin Frozr V cooler with a pair of large 10cm fans with a unique paired blade design that remains silent even under full GPU load. Extending towards the non-physical space, MSI has also improved their Gaming App and Afterburner software bundle to provide an all-encompassing feature-rich gaming experience for beginners and overclockers alike.

Packaging and Accessories

As with all MSI Gaming Series products, the GTX 960 Gaming 2G packaging is decked in black and red with the MSI Dragon emblem prominently displayed at the front. The standard NVIDIA GTX 960 features are printed at the front while all the MSI-specific features are printed at the back including updates to the Twin Frozr V cooling system and MSI Gaming App. The package is doubled boxed, with the internal container having a convenient cut-out for easier pulling and arrows indicating which side the video card is positioned upward.

The secondary box is partitioned into two: the top compartment has a box containing the accessories which includes the driver disc, a quick user’s guide, an MSI Gaming series product catalog, a power cable adapter for 6-pin PCI-E to 8-pin PCI-E and a DVI-to-VGA adapter.

The second partition contains the video card inside an anti-static bag and protected further surrounded by closed-cell foam padding on all sides. The SLI, PCI-E and display output connectors are all protected with their own matching red color themed cover. There is also a protective transparent sticker above one of fans promoting MSI’s ZeroFrozr feature that shuts off the fans when the GPU temperature is below 50C.

There might be concerns that the sticker might have strong glue as with MSI’s initial GTX 970 release cards but as you can see in the video below, MSI has learned from that mistake and this one peels a lot easier.

Is the GTX 960 2GB good?

Based on current gaming requirements the GeForce GTX 960 2GB is considered one of the weakest cards and wont meet modern AAA game specs. This card meets game requirements up to DirectX 12. Here is a performance review on how capable the GeForce GTX 960 2GB is at running the more popular games of 2023.

Can GTX 960 run all games?

GTX 960 will run mid to high settings in most newer titles at 1080p, with some manual tweaking. Be sure to utilize nvidia driver software to monitor FPS count and tune game to your desired performance level.

Do you need a power supply for GTX 960 2GB?

Requirements. 400 Watt or greater power supply. PCI Express, PCI Express 2.0 or PCI Express 3.0 compliant motherboard with one graphics slot.

What is the AMD equivalent of GTX 960 2GB?

r9 380 is AMD's equivalent.