New $200 Nvidia Geforce GTX960 Video card 4k and HEVC

[BoredSysAdmin]

So towards end of Jan '15 GTX960 was announced and now several sold on amazon.
If we forget about it's gaming engine and concentrate on HTPC usage - it has some very interesting features like:
HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 support
Support for 4k and UHD resolutions
Hardware support for H.265 (HEVC) Decoding and encoding - it's the latter that got me very interested.
Now I won't really consider a $200 gpu for htpc box - it's just me but 120W TPD doesn't belong there.
But I hope Nvidia will bring same features to low end - low power cards.

 

[ice cube]

If I have it .. Do I have to have a sound card for music.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

If you connect with hdmi, then no

 

[fuzz092888]

I was thinking I'd getting this one for the hackintosh, but its still a bit new and the guys on the forums over there weren't sure if it would be a seamless transition. I may switch over. Or can I simply add it on as a second video card?

 

[bompus]

That's a great price for a video card that can handle 4K. I'd definitely put one in a HTPC if I were building one.

 

[jcparks]

IIRC you run a GTX 770 right? Nvidia will only run SLI with the same graphics chipset, so if you wanted a dual card solution you would have to get another of the same. So you will have to have 2 770's or 2 960's.
AMD will run crossfire with 2 different models, but the faster card will will slow down to the same performance as the slower card. In other words if you are running a r9 290 with an r9 280, the 290 will only run as fast as the 280.
How picky is the hackintosh?? will it only run with certain GPU brands? Or is it just the chipset that matters? I notice they dont have OSx drivers on nvidias website.

 

[jcparks]

the other good thing about the 960 is how efficient it is. It sips power and runs extremely cool. On most non reference designed cards like the MSI or the ASUS the fans wont even turn on until you really start to tax the card... so in the home theater environment, unless your running a modern game, it will run completely silent.