gtx960 or gtx970

2Mad2BeMad

Going to help build a pc with for my mate

trying to decide between a gtx960 or a 970?

I understand their are somewhat biggish differences between the two but
hes on a budget and prices seem to be a good bit different between these


Anyhow

he will be running it along side an I5-4690, GB-z97 Motherboard,8gb ddr3 Kingston ram, corsair 450w ps.

He will be using it for gaming purposes
mainly counter strike (my teammate ) starcraft and h1z1, would prefer to play it on the highest settings on these games,
is the gtx960 in anyway future proofed? or would he just be best of spending the extra few bits for a 970?

Meesared

If you want future proofed, go for the 970, its a beast of a card for the price. To be honest the 960 was pretty disappointing in its benchmarks. I have a similar setup to yourself with a 970 but I do have a bigger PSU (which I might suggest for you too) and it runs everything at max.

2Mad2BeMad

Meesared wrote: »

If you want future proofed, go for the 970, its a beast of a card for the price. To be honest the 960 was pretty disappointing in its benchmarks. I have a similar setup to yourself with a 970 but I do have a bigger PSU (which I might suggest for you too) and it runs everything at max.

its for a mate

(I own same build above with the 970 except a different MB)


I heard the r280/290 (even though their alot more cheap compared to the 970) also tend to over heat? also are noisy as well? so I guess they would be a no.

Would 550w be enough? I don't think he'd need anymore then that 550w would probably be abit overkill if anything as I know the 970 have excellent power usage

Meesared

I have a 550W PSU in my own setup, runs it fine, though I wouldn't like to go much lower than that! I'm not sure about the r280/290s, I know they require a considerable amount more power than the 970, and run hotter and noisier (in general) but thats about as far as my knowledge goes with them

2Mad2BeMad

Meesared wrote: »

I have a 550W PSU in my own setup, runs it fine, though I wouldn't like to go much lower than that! I'm not sure about the r280/290s, I know they require a considerable amount more power than the 970, and run hotter and noisier (in general) but thats about as far as my knowledge goes with them

cheers for the fast feedback mate, I'll pass the bad news on to him , his wallet is going to take a dive but it will be worth it in the long run for him

Meesared

I'm delighted with my 970, its well worth the outlay!

vibe666

The R9's do use more power than the their Nvidia counterparts, and consequently they run hotter and *some* of them can be quite loud.

That said, my main rig has two R9 290 Tri-X OC's, 7x SP120 quiet fans and a 1000W BeQuiet PSU and it's barely audible, even when gaming most of the time unless I'm doing heavy benchmarking.

The GTX970 is on a par (performance wise) with the R9 290X (give or take), and would be similar in price, *but* if you were on a budget and looking to save some cash, you might consider one of the quieter non-X 290's as you'd shave about €100 off your build cost and still get great 1080p gaming performance.

It would also be worth checking into how well your favorite games perform with each card on your shortlist, and buy according to you're gaming needs.

SterlingArcher

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

cheers for the fast feedback mate, I'll pass the bad news on to him , his wallet is going to take a dive but it will be worth it in the long run for him

Get it off amazon and then ask for 20% off the 970 because of the memory iasue and get 70 euro back.

TerrorFirmer

I don't agree with this line of thinking that says that the GTX970 is a 'beast' of a card.

It's not, really....it's a good performer at an OK price point.

Since huge drops were brought in on the 290, you can get something like the R9 290 Tri-X for significantly less, with similar performance. Price per euro is what matters, not raw performance....otherwise we'd all be recommending the GTX980.

And then there's also the memory issue on the 970, not going to make or break the card, but let's be realistic here, it IS a factor, no matter how often people try to pretend it makes no difference.

Not everyone upgrades their card annually, some people do plan having the card for years. People are constantly leaping to the cards defense with statements like "I game at 1440p and it's perfect, the memory issue is totally overblown!". It's 2015. The card only came out a few months ago. Some people will plan having this card until 2017/2018 and beyond.

Yes, the 290 uses more power, but it's not fair to say it's a much louder card, I had a Tri-X 290 and a Vapor-X 290, both were extremely quiet. The acoustics on cheap 970's aren't stellar either, no more then they are on cheaper 290's.

In closing, I wouldn't be rushing straight out to spend on a 970. The 280X is a better buy than the 960 which is just priced stupidly rather than being a bad card.

Not an AMD fanboy by any means, prefer Nvidia, but I don't think things are as clear cut as is often suggested around these parts.

di11on

I'm looking at a new build myself and am also wondering whether to get the GTX 960 or 970. The GTX 960 seems to be pretty much on a par or marginally better than the GTX 760 but the higher efficiency, and quieter running are pushing me towards the GTC 960. I also have a 500MW power supply which might be cutting it a little close with the 970. Then add in the 970 memory issue. All things considered, I'm edging towards the 960.

I woundn't minimise the power consumption issue when choosing between cards... more of a concern for some than others depending on your setup.

For me, my case isn't great- I will be modding it to add a new fan or two... but I want a stable, cool and not too loud system. Going with the 970 for me might mean a new case and PSU to boot (no pun intended :-) )

TerrorFirmer

If it's a good quality PSU it's more than enough. A stock 970 would be perfectly fine on a good quality 400w supply with room to spare.

Also remember that the 960 is only a 2GB card which is a bad decision by Nvidia in my opinion at this stage of the game. The r9 280 is slightly cheaper, performs the same or better, and is a 3GB card.

The 960 needs to come down a bit in price to make sense.

EoinHef

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I don't agree with this line of thinking that says that the GTX970 is a 'beast' of a card.

It's not, really....it's a good performer at an OK price point.

Since huge drops were brought in on the 290, you can get something like the R9 290 Tri-X for significantly less, with similar performance. Price per euro is what matters, not raw performance....otherwise we'd all be recommending the GTX980.

And then there's also the memory issue on the 970, not going to make or break the card, but let's be realistic here, it IS a factor, no matter how often people try to pretend it makes no difference.

Not everyone upgrades their card annually, some people do plan having the card for years. People are constantly leaping to the cards defense with statements like "I game at 1440p and it's perfect, the memory issue is totally overblown!". It's 2015. The card only came out a few months ago. Some people will plan having this card until 2017/2018 and beyond.

Yes, the 290 uses more power, but it's not fair to say it's a much louder card, I had a Tri-X 290 and a Vapor-X 290, both were extremely quiet. The acoustics on cheap 970's aren't stellar either, no more then they are on cheaper 290's.

In closing, I wouldn't be rushing straight out to spend on a 970. The 280X is a better buy than the 960 which is just priced stupidly rather than being a bad card.

Not an AMD fanboy by any means, prefer Nvidia, but I don't think things are as clear cut as is often suggested around these parts.

I hear you on the price point,unless you want a 970 for a specific reason a 290 at sub €300 looks the better value. But are we really suggesting 4gb is that much more future proof? I mean most of the vram intensive games are using up to 6gb from what i see,making the 290 unsuitable also going forward. To me these games have not been optimised for PC,lazy porting from the devs who have used the unified memory on consoles and then port it over. Hardly any of this larger vram requirements is there because the games look so good it needs monster rigs to run it. There just poorly optimised on the memory front for PC. In saying that i think in the future more games will have this problem on PC

2Mad2BeMad

Only noticed that memory issue on the 970 thats very annoying considering the price of it. Is their anyway to fix it or do we have to waot for a driver update

EoinHef

There will no be no fixing it unfortunately,its designed that way. Its working as Nvidia intended,they just forgot to tell everyone that it worked that way:( Its not technically a flaw,more of a hardware limitation.

It may be a problem that will crop up more often in time. 99% of todays games will be fine,even at 1440p,but games two years from now it could be more of an issue. Personally ill get by with it,terrorfirmer has a good point though. I will upgrade graphics card fairly regularly,i may buy another card in a year or so. By that time it may not be an issue and ill have moved to whatever is the standard then,never having had it be a real issue for me. But if someone wants to keep the card long term,it may become more of an probpem over time. Its an unfortunate spot the 970 finds its self in,personally i think the card is great. Im very happy with the performamce in the games that i play. Thats not to say i will be in future.

In summary the 970 is a great card IMO,but,if you can get a 290 sub €300 or a 290X for close to €300 it represents better value and you wont ever have to worry about any hardware limitations regarding vram. Again though,long term i can see 6gb vram being the standard,which is crazy imo,but is a possibility. In that case neither 970 or 290(X) will be sufficent in that department.

PS. If you do go 290(X) make sure to get a decent higher wattage psu as the lads said. While i think the whole AMD cards overheat thing is way overblown,if you have a decent cooler there absolutely fine. They do use a good bit of juice though so better to be a bit safe

Dcully

I don't agree with this line of thinking that says that the GTX970 is a 'beast' of a card.

Considering ive gone from a 660ti which is no slouch to a GTX 970 SC to me its a beast of a card.
Any card and by that i also mean any brand that can destroy any game thrown at is a great card in my book.

The 970 in any benchmark ive seen is always up around the top 5 cards on the planet, if thats doesnt make it a great card i dont know what does.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

game4it70

At 1080p the 970 is fine but at higher resolutions it may start to suffer due to the vram isssue.

Most people keep their cards for a few years and we may see games that will have higher requirements vram wise in the future so who know how the 970 will stand up.

EoinHef

Hilarious really that any game would need that much vram @1080p imo,shoddy work from devs dressed up as "HD Texture Packs" cough *looking at you mordor* cough. These games are certainly far from being the best looking on PC also. Morodrs texture quality doesnt stand up to arma 3's texture quality,which is far superior imo,and max ive seen that use @1440p with 4x AA is 3GB.

challengemaster

Dcully wrote: »

Considering ive gone from a 660ti which is no slouch to a GTX 970 SC to me its a beast of a card.
Any card and by that i also mean any brand that can destroy any game thrown at is a great card in my book.

The 970 in any benchmark ive seen is always up around the top 5 cards on the planet, if thats doesnt make it a great card i dont know what does.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

It's the latest gen high end graphics card costing €350+. Being able to play all current games on high settings & high resolution shouldn't be a surprise - that should be the minimum expectation.

Being in the top 5 cards on the planet only holds true until the next generation of graphics cards are released. Again, you'd expect new cards to be better than old ones. I really don't see why you think this is surprising..

Dcully

challengemaster wrote: »

It's the latest gen high end graphics card costing €350+. Being able to play all current games on high settings & high resolution shouldn't be a surprise - that should be the minimum expectation.

Being in the top 5 cards on the planet only holds true until the next generation of graphics cards are released. Again, you'd expect new cards to be better than old ones. I really don't see why you think this is surprising..

All that is obvious , it goes without saying.
I dont see it as surprising at all, how do you make that out?
Im simply saying its a great card or a "beast of a card" as mentioned earlier hence the quote in my earlier post.

At 1080p the 970 is fine but at higher resolutions it may start to suffer due to the vram isssue.

I have 3 monitors here, catleap 2560x1440 , LG ultrawide IPS 2560x1080 and Dell IPS 1920x1200 .
I use the 2560x1080 as my main screen as it has higher specs of others in terms of contrast,brightness,colours etc games just look better on it.
Its the newest monitor but before that for a short while i was running the catleap as my main screen and the 970 performed flawlessly on every game, everything from arma3 to really demanding racing sims and everything in between.
I have no means of telling you how much vram was being used but i can tell you games were liquid smooth with no issues at all at max settings.
Arma 3 being the only one i had to drop some eye candy on but who doesnt with that game?

challengemaster

Dcully wrote: »

All that is obvious , it goes without saying.
I dont see it as surprising at all, how do you make that out?
Im simply saying its a great card or a "beast of a card" as mentioned earlier hence the quote in my earlier post.

TBH I'd associate "a beast of" with extraordinary. Not something that does exactly what is expected of it.

No doubt its a great card (for now) though :P