Educate me on the GTX 970

[Dog Soldier]

Hi, I'm looking at upgrading my gpu and with tax returns coming soon it's seems like a great time to do so. I'm currently running...

i5 3350p
MSI 650 Ti Boost 1gb
8gbs of Ram

I have a Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H motherboard and a Seasonic S12II 620 Bronze PSU.

I know my CPU is far from high end but I'm hoping it will get the job done with another year atleast after upgrading my GPU. I don't play a ton of different games but I tend to get really into competitive online games. I'm currently playing Chivalry Medieval Warfare which is poorly optimized so I doubt I'll see a big difference with that one but I'm also into games like Battlefield, GTA, Elder Scrolls and I'm anxiously anticipating Kingdom Come Deliverance. I have a 144hz monitor so being able to run games at 120fps is important to me in some cases specifically the online competitive ones. I'd be happy getting games like KCD or GTA running at 60fps on high setting but games like BF and CMW I'd like to run at 120fps with hopefully atleast medium setting.

Anyways I've heard of some weird V-Ram issues with the GTX970 but I'll be gaming at 1080p for the time being so I'm not sure if it will effect me? I've heard that if you do max out the V-Ram on the card you'll get serious frame drops which would be a huge issue for me with games I want to play at 120fps. Can someone help explain this a little more and tell me how I could avoid this issue or what I would have to do to cause the card to do this?

At the end of the day I'm not set on a GTX970 I just want something around that $300 price point that will get me 120fps 1080p gaming with medium/high settings as well as 60fps high/max setting for other non competitive games and will be future proof for atleast the next few years. Thanks for any help you can provide I appreciate it

 

[Deleted member 362816]

GTX 970 o R9 290 would be a great choice for what you are looking for. Can't go wrong with both of those @ 1080p

 

[Dog Soldier]

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Daniel Sudakov]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

 

[questionslol]

The GTX 970 is a beast and the memory issue is really a non-issue. Perhaps a few years down the line when games use even more vram it could be an issue, but for the time being, it really isn't a huge deal. I've done several builds, all with the 970-980's and no one has had any issues with even the most demanding games even at higher resolutions than 1080p.

The 970 will eat anything at 1080p and even 1440 and usually at max settings. The only game i've had issues with is Rome 2, and pretty much everyone has. I don't think that game is possile to max out unless you're running an sli config. All of the game you've listed will be just fine with the 970 or R9 290.

 

[RobCrezz]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

 

[King_Potato]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

Don't forget to mention overclocking capabilities. The GTX 970 can be overclocked to speeds you haven't ever seen before. Got mine running at 1500MHz and +500MHz extra memory clock speed (I think that makes 8000 MHz effective, not sure though). People tend to forget this as one of the GTX 970's sale points.

 

[Daniel Sudakov]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

That may be so, but that's my opinion, not factual.

Honestly, they're comparable, but how much are you really losing with going with a 290? It's only a bit slower then the 970, and it costs a lot less. Secondly, heat isn't a big deal. If you have a decent/good active airflow system inside your case, why worry?

 

[Deleted member 362816]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

Don't forget to mention overclocking capabilities. The GTX 970 can be overclocked to speeds you haven't ever seen before. Got mine running at 1500MHz and +500MHz extra memory clock speed (I think that makes 8000 MHz effective, not sure though). People tend to forget this as one of the GTX 970's sale points.

Majority of people that buy video cards do not overclock them from what I have seen. This really isnt a selling point IMO.

 

[King_Potato]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

Don't forget to mention overclocking capabilities. The GTX 970 can be overclocked to speeds you haven't ever seen before. Got mine running at 1500MHz and +500MHz extra memory clock speed (I think that makes 8000 MHz effective, not sure though). People tend to forget this as one of the GTX 970's sale points.

Majority of people that buy video cards do not overclock them from what I have seen. This really isnt a selling point IMO.

Yes, we call those people blasphemists... 😛 The majority not having done overclocking doesn't mean you shouldn't. It gives quite a boost for maxwell-based graphics cards

 

[Daniel Sudakov]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

Don't forget to mention overclocking capabilities. The GTX 970 can be overclocked to speeds you haven't ever seen before. Got mine running at 1500MHz and +500MHz extra memory clock speed (I think that makes 8000 MHz effective, not sure though). People tend to forget this as one of the GTX 970's sale points.

Majority of people that buy video cards do not overclock them from what I have seen. This really isnt a selling point IMO.

Yes, we call those people blasphemists... 😛 The majority not having done overclocking doesn't mean you shouldn't. It gives quite a boost for maxwell-based graphics cards

You gotta understand, overclocking isn't for everyone. New users are actually scared, or worried about overclocking. Like, will it catch fire, will it kill my hardware faster, will it damage my hardware, so on so on.

Just because you can overclock one card to the max, it doesn't mean everyone is going to do it as well. Yes, overclocking will help boost performance, but overclocking has a bad side to it as well.

 

[questionslol]

IMO, it's hard recommending a 970, with the memory issue going on ATM. The R9 290 IMO is a better, budget choice.

Ignorant statement. Regardless of the spec of the 970, the important information is the benchmarks, and the 970 performs.

The 970 is still a better choice than the 290 in terms of performance, power consumption and heat.

Don't forget to mention overclocking capabilities. The GTX 970 can be overclocked to speeds you haven't ever seen before. Got mine running at 1500MHz and +500MHz extra memory clock speed (I think that makes 8000 MHz effective, not sure though). People tend to forget this as one of the GTX 970's sale points.

Majority of people that buy video cards do not overclock them from what I have seen. This really isnt a selling point IMO.

Yes, we call those people blasphemists... 😛 The majority not having done overclocking doesn't mean you shouldn't. It gives quite a boost for maxwell-based graphics cards

You gotta understand, overclocking isn't for everyone. New users are actually scared, or worried about overclocking. Like, will it catch fire, will it kill my hardware faster, will it damage my hardware, so on so on.

Just because you can overclock one card to the max, it doesn't mean everyone is going to do it as well. Yes, overclocking will help boost performance, but overclocking has a bad side to it as well.

Not overclocking also has its detriments eg. buying a new graphics card when overclocking could have saved you a few hundred dollars for a few more years.

Typically, people who do not overclock wont buy a higher-end card anyway. One of the major selling points of the 970 is the fact that it can OC to near 980 performance levels. Many people do not see how this isn't a selling point.

Regardless of which card he chooses, he cant go wrong with either card for what his usage demands are. People tend recommend the 970 because it is, in fact, out performing the r9 290 on many levels, including price to performance ratio. That's all.

 

[Dog Soldier]

Lots of good info. Thanks guys!