970 vs 980 Ti for 1080p Gaming

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TheEternal

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Mar 31, 2014
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I am looking at upgrading my GPU, and obviously, the 980 Ti blows the 970 out of the water in terms of performance, but I play on a 1080p 60Hz TV/monitor that I have no intention of changing soon.

I have heard that the 980 Ti is an absolutely amazing card, pulling out 100-120+ fps on most current games at 1080p and maxed settings. On the other hand, I've heard that the 970 is also a fantastic card for 1080p gaming, and is pretty standard for those looking to max games with 60fps at 1080p. However, with very recent games like the Witcher 3 and GTA 5, the 970 has not been able to maintain that 60fps at max settings on a 1080p display, and even plummets to 40fps or so with hairworks enabled. As someone who is looking for a card to last me as long as possible, this is worrisome.

With that said, I'm looking for some advice/recommendations. I will definitely wait for the new AMD cards to launch to make sure there isn't something better there (and hopefully either a good deal or price drop on the 980 Ti / 970), but if I'm not impressed with those cards, I will probably end up with the 970 or 980 Ti.

Obviously the future is unknown, but I would like to get the most future-compatible GPU that I can so that I hopefully I will be able to run games at 1080p, 60fps, and high settings for roughly 5 years (similar to how the GTX 580 is still a good card today).

I have built the most future-compatible system (other than my current Radeon HD 7950) right now. My PC spec's (without the GPU) is:

CPU: i5-4690k
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Pro3
RAM: 16GB 1600 DDR3
Storage: 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD
PSU: 750W OCZ
Case: Azza Solano 1000R

Basically, I'm wondering if the 980 Ti would be worthwhile investment that would last me roughly 5 years at 1080p, 60fps, high settings gaming. Thanks!
 
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dbdarrough
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The gtx 980ti would be a good investment. If you can afford it over the 970, definitley take the 980ti. It is smart to wait for future cards as the next couple of months will be very interesting, because if AMD bring out some kind of new, revolutionary card, you can expect nvidia to do the same.
 
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People tend to like over future-proofing builds, if that makes sense.

A 970 is all you will need for your setup for the next 1-2 years or so.
IMO, ~2 years per GPU is a good upgrade cycle. You will waste money buying slower cards more often, and you will waste money buying faster cards and under-utilising them for years until games catch up.

What about a 980?
 
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GTX 970 = 3.5 GB + 0.5 GB VRAM, 145W TDP, $330
GTX 980 = 4 GB VRAM, 165W TDP, $500
GTX 980 Ti = 6 GB VRAM, 250W TDP, $650

I think the GTX 980 is your best option here. OCZ is an unfamiliar PSU brand and I would not trust running a GTX 980 Ti on that, even if it's 750w. Upgrade to a better PSU, then you can get a GTX 980 Ti.
 
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Unfamiliar does not necessarily mean bad or unreliable. As I said before, you should refer to the reviews of the "actual owners" who will give a more accurate and reliable overview.
 
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Honestly the 980 is pretty much out of the question for me because the price/performance ratio just isn't there compared to the 980 Ti and the 970. The 980 is only $150 less for a pretty significant difference in performance. I've seen around a 20fps difference in recent games and roughly the same performance in a 980 Ti as two 980s in SLI.

As for the PSU, what's wrong with it? According to the Newegg page, the 980 Ti requires a 600W PSU at minimum, and mine's 750W. Also, this upgrade from my 7950 to a 980 Ti would only be a 50W TDP difference...comparing that to my previous consideration of a 290x and 100W TDP increase, it doesn't seem like it'd be a problem.
 
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The problem is, I don't want to just have my PC be for 1-2 years. I like buying high-quality products that last. Another problem with the 970, that I forgot to mention, is that I feel like the upgrade from my 7950 to the 970 is relatively unjustified for the $325-ish pricetag...especially if it won't last over 2 years. I'd rather buy a good card, under-utilize it for the next 2 years, have it be around max utilization 3-4 years, and maybe the 5th year be having to lower some settings to maintain the performance I'd like and consider an upgrade.
 
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I tried looking up the PSU brand in the PSU tier list and it's not listed. If you know that you'll have enough headroom for an extra 50w in your PC, then by all means get the 980 Ti. Don't overclock it yet until you are confident that your PSU will handle it at higher clocks.
 
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You're right... your PSU is fine. Don't be scared off by other people's opinions. A lot of folks have their personal favorites and have a tendency to discourage other brands..so your PSU is fine. Besides, if you ever have problems in the future you could easily replace it, right?
 
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I believe this is the PSU I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4H81E87627

OCZ is now technically owned by FirePower, but when I bought it, it was an OCZ PSU (and you can still see OCZ on the label in the pictures).
 
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Thank you for the advice. Somewhat off-topic...but just curious, what could (or would likely) happen to a PC if the PSU went out?
 
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I actually think the 970 is the best solution for the money if you currently have a 1080p monitor.

Cutting edge games just 3 or 4 years from now probably won't run very well with all the eye candy on even on a 980ti. Also a 1080p monitor is going to look pretty old in a few years as 1440p is the current high end standard and 4k and ultrawide 21:9 monitors are coming up fast. With that in mind, if you plan on upgrading your monitor to a higher resolution over the next few years, even a 980ti will probably not handle those resolutions well. If you really wanted, you could even add a second 970 in SLI and run faster than a single 980ti for about the same money in the future if you really felt it was running slow on your current monitor.

I'm kind of in the same boat. I have dual 1600x1200 monitors running off of a GTX480. It still runs fine for most games but the noise and heat are ridiculous. I really want to upgrade both my monitors and my video card. I know waiting for the "next best thing" that is "coming out soon" is usually dumb because there is always something coming out soon but it seems there really are a lot of major changes happening in both monitors and video cards over the next year. I think that 4k and 21:9 screens will be standard for high end systems in a year or two and both Nvidia and AMD are releasing their next generation architectures over the course of the next year that will hopefully be better suited for these games, monitors, resolutions, G-sync, FreeSync, etc. The 980ti is great for today but it is the end of this generation's architecture and it isn't cheap. For your current 1080p monitor, I would go with the 970 and save up over the next year or two to upgrade your video card and possibly your monitor too.
 
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Last two PSU's i had die (18 months old, pre-built shop rubbish) just died without taking anything with them.
Plenty of other people haven't been so lucky and other components have died too. Usually mobo is the first to go. CPU, GPU etc from there.
 
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Not gonna lie; I have no interest in a 1440p or 4k monitor/TV. The price difference just doesn't seem worth it to me at this point for the quality difference. If I do get a new monitor/TV in the next few years, which isn't all that likely, I would much rather get a 120/144 Hz monitor and run higher framerates at 1080p. If I get a 970, I probably won't be upgrading for a while, and I don't want to feel like I should. I'll be getting married next summer and starting pharmacy school after that, so by that time I'll have other things I'll be more concerned about paying and saving for.

 
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That's cool. Everyone has different wants and needs. Based on that, the 980ti or AMD's flagship card that is about to be revealed will give you more future proofing as they are probably 30-50% faster, albeit at twice the price of the 970.
 
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Solution
Curious to know what you bought.

I think if you were asking the question again now, the answer would be the 980. It delivers 30% more, and can be found clear under £400. Also you are sidestepping RAM-gate on the 970, and that is worth paying 10% extra for in my opinion.

It does testify that Nvidia lied when they said that they did not know about RAM-gate. Before they released the 970 I mean. Otherwise why else release an astonishingly performing card at such a knock down price.
 
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I went with the 980 Ti; I love it and I don't regret my decision one bit. I use it for 1080p gaming on my (also new) 144 Hz g-sync monitor. In games like the Witcher 3, I can max it out at 1080p and get 60-75 fps, which no other card on the market can do (other than Titan X). For games that aren't as demanding, I can enjoy the high refresh rate of this monitor.

I would strongly advise against the 970 and the 980. The 980 is actually a terrible deal right now, with the cards surrounding it. I avoided the 970 mainly because it wasn't enough of an upgrade from my 7950 to justify the purchase. Honestly right now, the only two cards I can recommend are the 390 or the 980 Ti. The 980 is just at a terrible price point for what you're getting, and the 4GB of VRAM is worrisome for future compatibility.
 
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I don't know what is being released around the 980 price range but you must mean AMD. However AMD cards are hot and power thirsty so it's Nvid all the way for me. In fact the only AMD card I owned was a HD3650.)

It depends on requirements and budget as to what advise to give. If you do not need 144Hz then either the 970 and more so the 980 is a strong card. If like me you want to max your games at 60Hz then either will suffice. However you need a 980 for Witcher 3 to completely max. Or you risk a few very low min fps with a 970. However it is meant to be a solid engine that can do it. I played Witcher 2 and it dipped all the way down to 25fps and looked OK. Or you wait until next gen.

Imagine e.g. you have a high end Fermi, or mid end Kepler right now, had a strict budget. I would recommend the 980 heartily if you could wait no longer. Myself I would wait until The Witcher 3 had all the DLC added and (and de-bugged). Then wait until it was reduced in price sufficiently anyway. That means mid next year, so next gen might be with us then. The GTX1080 (or whatever it is) on 22nm fabrication will rock. We'll be looking at about 2500 cores for the same size, heat, and power, added to possibly new RAM.

Then the 980 will be discounted further. Either would be a good buy.

However if like me you decide in the end you can't wait for Witcher 3, the 970 will still do it maxed. (I have not bought W3 yet.) You just might get unlucky and run into RAM-gate as well as being restricted to 1080p though. Right now I would say the same, sidestep RAM-gate, and buy the 980......(In fact I think I would prefer a BIOS or driver that shuts off the last 512MB with a 970.)

Thank you for your thoughts though, they're truly appreciated.

NB. I think it's not worth worry too much about only 4GB RAM on cards, but I may be wrong. I was just playing through Shadow of Mordor and people were reporting playing it with the Free HD Content on 2GB cards. That's ultra all maxed. Whereas I was playing on 4GB and it was utilising almost every last MB. The max I monitored was 4076MB of 4092MB. It think it just means high RAM cards are buffering more. Lower RAM cards are moving more data in and out.
 
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I have upgraded my machine quite a bit in the last year. 4790k, asus Hero VII MB, 100W EVGA, SSD for OS, 4TB HDD 32 GB Ram, Big 'ol Be quiet fan, Easy peesey to OC (ram, cpu and gpu)
but am still running my twin sli 560ti cards.
My monitor is a 27" Asus 3D gaming screen and my second is a spin off 1080 tv monitor.
There is no game that does not run smooth as silk. High frame rates, etc (full options)....
Been waiting till just after thanksgiving to get a 980ti.
Plan is to get another next year and run sli after the latest and greatest is released this xmas (figure the next gpu release will drop the 980 under $500).
Those sli 980s will take me an easy five years+ down the road, just like my 560s did.
4k? Still over the top, don't need gear. Unless it's bragging rights you need.
 
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The 970 has the best performance per dollar.
The 980ti can play almost all maxed out games you throw at it with the framerate not going under 60fps, in 4k!
So conclusion:
If you get the 980ti you can play virtually all the games in Full HD maxed at 60fps and if the games requiere more performance you can turn down a few of those settings.
 
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Got a 980ti for xmas. It finishes a build I was doing since last xmas.
Its the evga 4998 KR. 1190 base clock, 1291 Boost Clock, 209.4 GT/s texture fill rate.
ordered with free back plate, free shipping and no sales tax. $650 at the door.
I'm going to OC it. I have a 1000w EVGA modular power supply. This card needs two power connectors, one four pin and one six pin.
Extra fan installed last night to keep box cool.
Be careful they all come with different connections. Mine has one DVI, with multiple alternate monitor connectors.
 
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I bought The Witcher 3 myself recently and love it. I think you made the right decidion getting the 980 Ti as man others did.

My 970 went funny on me. I returned it and bought a 980. When I weighed up the performance vs cost of the 980 Ti over the 980 it was fairly even. £400 for 980 and £550 for a 980 Ti. 33% more cost for about the same increase in gaming power. According to these benchmarks anyway. http://segmentnext.com/2015/06/09/nvidia-gtx-980-ti-vs-gtx-980-is-it-a-worthy-upgrade/

Their conclusion was this: Conclusion

GTX 980 Ti is 20-30% faster than GTX 980 and it costs $150 more. However in the UK it's £150 more which is just over 30% more.


I get between 33and 60 fps with everything maxed on the 980 in The Witcher 3. It has to be the best looking game ever. I mean right now I wish I has the 980 Ti. I wish could use DSR and run 1440p on 1080p monitor and still see practically 60 fps everywhere if not always.

However the 980 runs Witcher 3 maxed in 1440p anyway. I get between 29-40 fps and it still looks pretty solid. I recall The Witcher 2 was the same. very solid right down to 25fps and I ran that 1440p too. It looked great around Flotsam. Witcher 3 great looking everywhere.

Anyway I guess I am saying congrats and letting others know how it all runs. Or I am just waffling.
 
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