Buying new GPU

[DarriaNCZE]

Hello guys,

I am thinking about selling my current GTX680, and buying a new one. I'd rather not exceed 420 dollars limit, but if it would be more beneficial, I am willing to extend that limit to 620 dollars. I am from Czech Republic, so probably prices are little bit different.

What would be the best? GTX980 for approximately 620 dollars, or GTX970 for approximately 420 dollars. Or something completely different? I am a huge PC gamer, and I play at 1080p. I have given 4K a thought, but I think that I wouldn't benefit from it.

Thanks, and I am looking forward to your answers! 🙂

Rest of my build.

Intel Core i7 3770K OC to 4.3 GHz
16GB RAM (I need RAM this huge for something else than PC games)

 

[glamdringfh]

The GTX 970 is currently the best price/ performance card on the market right now for an enthusiast build. Tom's just updated that for October 2015 here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-4.html

The prices might be slightly different in your market, but the 970 is a great grab. If you're really set on 4k gaming then you will want to look more towards the 980/ 980ti, but if 4k isn't your main goal the 970 would be the one I recommend.

 

[xtremealu]

If you have the budget, go for GTX980. It's a great GPU. If you don't want to spend too much, go for GTX970. It's a great GPU too.

 

[Hotthuizen]

And if you havn't got that budget go for a AMD r9 380 4gb version, its a great card for a good price.
Or if you have a bit more to spend , the r9 380x is comming soon. It's also a GCN 1.2 architecture, witch is the newest version. Check this link if you want to know way : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-dx12-asynchronous-shaders-gcn,28844.html

i play at 1080p with my r9 270x ( with is arount 30% below the r9 380) and i'm verry happy with it

 

[Grimwinder]

At 1080p stick with the much better valued 970. If you go to 4k, you'd need 2 of the 980s to really take advantage of the resolutions (or a 980ti or Titan, or AMD Fury). The 970 will do you great at 1080 and even well at 1440 if you go "2k".

 

[mapesdhs]

xtremealu is correct, 970 is the 1080p sweetspot atm (alas, I can't recommend AMDs atm, not until their drivers are better, benchmarking AMD cards is always a pain, especially CF and DX9 mode; they have the price advantage in some cases, but the drivers need a lot more work), though if you wanted to save some money you could try winning a used GTX 980 on eBay - I've seen used 980s selling for about the same cost as a new 970. A 970 should suffice unless you're the kind of gamer who likes to crank up the detail settings in games, in which case the extra oomph from a 980 would help.

For future proofing 4K though, I'd go for a 980 Ti.

Ian.

 

[DarriaNCZE]

Thanks VERY much for your replies. I have the budget for 980, but if the 970 is really better at price/performance, then I wouldn't like to spend that much.

Also I have little experience with AMD, so I am not sure if I should try it 🙂

 

[DarriaNCZE]

And which manufacturer would you recommend? I have a great experience with Gigabyte.

 

[mapesdhs]

I'd say you're probably fine with any of them, just avoid the weird brands, but normally I tend to go for EVGA, though MSI looks ok too. Gigabyte... well I've used a fair few, but some of their cards seem to have bizarrely large coolers. If the pricing is comparable, I'd get an EVGA, though atm one of the Palit 980 Ti models looks like good value among the 980 Ti range, so it does vary.

However, do read reviews on each model before choosing, because sometimes certain models are said to have more coil whine than others (oddly enough, I've heard some EVGAs suffer from this, though it's not an issue with any of my EVGA 980s). But if it were my own money, I'd normally get an EVGA, MSI or ASUS; watchout though, some models use more than 2 slots! ie. this might be important if you ever wanted to add a 2nd card for SLI. ASUS often does this, and even some supposed 2-slot cards are a bit wider than they should be.

Typically I begin by looking at a seller site & checking which model gives the best value based on the price vs. clock speed, eg.:

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/gpu-nvidia/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-graphics-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-graphics-card

Looking at that list, atm I'd get the EVGA 970 SC ACX 2.0 (1165MHz base clock), ditto the EVGA @ 1291MHz for the 980 range, but pricing value does vary between seller sites, eg. the MSI 980 @ 1216MHz might be a better deal elsewhere.

Ian.

PS. In the UK, a number of 980s have been selling used on eBay in the low 300s, though other brands have sold for much less, eg. item 111773188064 is an MSI that went for 255 UKP.