Let's break it down. Texture resolution, and the amount of textures matters. The resolution is not the only factor of VRAM usage. My Skyrim with 2k textures currently uses over 3GBs of VRAM, still 1080p.
You can today. You may not be able to tomorrow, or in a month, or in 6. See my entire post.
"Again, speculation vs what is actually happening. I play this game with fantastic results, and have the ability to upgrade my card for the full cost. This is something that you should consider when 1080 is the resolution you are currently gaming on. Gah, I'm done."
Speculation was my whole point. It's speculation. You can't know how long a 960 will last you in this game, and that's what you asserted. If it lasts a month before it's not enjoyable, it was a huge waste of money. Reselling a used 960 in 6 months? Good luck on getting anything for that never mind actually selling it. The entire value of a 960 for SC comes down to how long it will be usable, and you're already pushing the limit of your VRAM. If you think VRAM = resolution, then no. It's a big factor that's all. Pop in an Bengal into Cryengine right now, and see how your FPS does. And remember that the Bengal is no where near the quality standard they have today. An Idris might be well over the impact a Bengal has because it's higher res. Right now, you have very few high res textures around you other than your ship and asteroids, and you don't have AA which is definitely going to be added.
There's more value in doing something like getting a 980 now, then another 980 when you need more. You don't lose performance, and you don't resell your card for nothing. SLI scaling isn't perfect, but you're going to be paying less for a 980 in the future anyways because of the higher nm manufacturing and the worse performance in comparison. Right now it's top of the line. 970 works too. They'll last much longer because they don't have that 2012 VRAM, something that's already a limiting factor in other games. Frankly it's incredibly dumb to be buying a 2GB VRAM card in 2015 for a game that considers itself a 2016 high graphic fidelity game. People we're finding that limiting and selling their 680s in 2014.
I'm not saying don't go test and enjoy this game today. I'm saying don't do it with a 960. If you want a GPU to play it in the PU, you should probably wait. If you want to play SC today, buy a GPU that will at least last until the launch of the PU in 2016 and one where you have a choice of SLI being a viable option down the line. With the 960, you wouldn't be able to try SLI as a viable solution in the future because you'd still be stuck with the VRAM cap.
You're advising based on a game that is in Alpha, that expects changed throughout the year, the most serious of changes compared to years before now that they've ramped up. You cannot resell a 960. There is 0 market for non-certified, out of box, used GPUs if you're not on craigslist for 30 bucks. Look around. A 780 ti gets ~45 fps average on very high right now where there's just your ship, some static objects that are mostly far far away, and some asteroids that are also pretty far away. A 960 is a poor choice because as far as future proof goes, it isn't. It isn't future proof for a year, and that's what you need to get to the 2016 next nVidia lineup, which would be a great time to upgrade to the top of the line and the next gen of games. In 2016, if you still want to be value oriented you could pick up another 970, which would be significantly less than it is now and you'd get a 30% to 40% performance boost depending on what game you're playing and what the limiting factor was. I rarely recommend SLI, but 20m is going to be more expensive to produce, especially in the start. Every generation of manufacturing process improvements before have been too.
If you think SC is going to be less taxing on the GPU than Black Flag or Shadows of Mordor, that'd be interesting to me. Both of those games are hard on the VRAM, and that's the problem. The second you cap it, performance chucks.
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-960/performance