NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OEM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OEM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OEM in 2025: Is It Worth Considering an Obsolete Legend?

Review of capabilities, limitations, and use cases


Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OEM is a graphics card released in 2013, yet it still appears in new budget PC builds. Despite its age, it can still be found for sale at prices ranging from $100 to $150 (for OEM versions). In 2025, it seems like an anachronism, but it remains an option for those on an extremely tight budget. Let's explore who might still find this model useful in the era of the RTX 50 series and RDNA 4.


Architecture and Key Features

Kepler Architecture: A Thing of the Past

The GTX 760 OEM is based on the Kepler architecture (GK104 chip), manufactured using a 28nm process. This is an outdated platform that does not support modern technologies:

- RTX features (ray tracing, DLSS) are not available.

- FidelityFX (AMD) is also unsupported.

- There is no hardware acceleration for DirectX 12 Ultimate.

OEM Version Features

The OEM model differs from the retail GTX 760 with a simplified cooling system and potential frequency adjustments (core frequency is 980 MHz, Boost is 1033 MHz). The number of CUDA cores is 1152.


Memory: A Weak Link in 2025

- Type and Size: 2 GB GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus.

- Bandwidth: 192 GB/s.

For modern games and applications, 2 GB of video memory is catastrophically insufficient. Even at 1080p, high-resolution textures and effects will cause FPS drops due to buffer overflow. In professional tasks (such as rendering), the VRAM limit will become critical.


Gaming Performance: Modest Results

1080p (Low/Medium settings):

- CS2: 60–70 FPS.

- Fortnite (without effects): 45–55 FPS.

- GTA V: 50–60 FPS.

- Cyberpunk 2077 (Low): 15–20 FPS (practically unplayable).

1440p and 4K: Not recommended due to insufficient VRAM and processing power.

Ray Tracing: Not supported.

Conclusion: This card is only suitable for undemanding projects and emulating older games (for example, through RetroArch).


Professional Tasks: Minimal Suitability

- CUDA: Supported, but 1152 cores are inadequate for serious rendering.

- Video Editing: Working in Premiere Pro is possible with proxy files, but exporting 4K video will take 3 to 4 times longer than on an RTX 3050.

- 3D Modeling: Blender and AutoCAD will run, but complex scenes will result in lag.

- Scientific Computing: Only basic tasks (e.g., MATLAB for student projects).


Power Consumption and Heat Output

- TDP: 170 W.

- Recommended PSU: 450–500 W (with some headroom).

Cooling:

- Due to the simple cooler in the OEM version, temperatures under load can reach 80–85°C.

- Tip: Install the card in a case with good airflow (2-3 intake fans). Avoid compact cases!


Comparison with Competitors

In 2025, the GTX 760 OEM competes not with modern GPUs, but with the used market and integrated graphics:

- Intel Arc A380: New ($120), 6 GB GDDR6, DX12 Ultimate support — 30-40% faster.

- AMD Radeon RX 6400: 4 GB GDDR6, 75 W TDP — better suited for HTPCs.

- Integrated graphics of Ryzen 5 8600G: Comparable gaming performance, but without the cost of a discrete card.

Verdict: The GTX 760 OEM is justified only under a strict budget of up to $100 and with an available free PCIe slot.


Practical Tips

- Power Supply: Don’t skimp! Even older cards require stable voltage. A Corsair CV450 ($50) will suffice.

- Compatibility:

- PCIe 3.0 x16 (compatible with 4.0/5.0, but without speed gains).

- Drivers: Official support has ended. Use the latest version from 2024 (512.77).

- OS: Windows 10/11 (Linux may have issues with proprietary drivers).


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Price under $150.

- Sufficient for office tasks and older games.

- Low power consumption by 2025 standards (for discrete GPUs).

Cons:

- 2 GB of VRAM is the primary limitation.

- No support for modern APIs and technologies.

- Noisy cooling system.


Final Conclusion: Who Is the GTX 760 OEM For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Budget office PCs, where discrete graphics are needed to connect multiple monitors.

2. Retro gaming enthusiasts, building systems from the 2000s to 2010s.

3. A temporary solution before purchasing a modern GPU.

Alternative: If the budget allows, add $50-70 and get a new Intel Arc A380 or a used GTX 1650 — it will save you headaches in the long run.


Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OEM in 2025 is a niche product. It is not suited for the gaming of the future, but it can serve as a part of history in your system unit. Remember: technology does not stand still, and even $200 today grants access to significantly greater capabilities.

Basic

Label Name
NVIDIA
Platform
Desktop
Launch Date
November 2016
Model Name
GeForce GTX 760 OEM
Generation
GeForce 700
Base Clock
993MHz
Boost Clock
1046MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Transistors
3,540 million
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
112
Foundry
TSMC
Process Size
28 nm
Architecture
Kepler

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
2GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
256bit
Memory Clock
1650MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
211.2 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
29.29 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
117.2 GTexel/s
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
117.2 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
2.868 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
1344
L1 Cache
16 KB (per SMX)
L2 Cache
512KB
TDP
170W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.1
OpenCL Version
3.0
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (11_0)
CUDA
3.0
Power Connectors
2x 6-pin
Shader Model
5.1
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
32
Suggested PSU
450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
2.868 TFLOPS
Blender
Score
160
OctaneBench
Score
37

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
3.092 +7.8%
2.989 +4.2%
2.666 -7%
Blender
1506.77 +841.7%
848 +430%
194 +21.3%
OctaneBench
123 +232.4%
69 +86.5%