EVGA GeForce GTX 970 or 980 for 2560 x 1440 WQHD Monitor?

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balastrea

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Mar 26, 2010
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Hello - I'm looking to build a new Photo Editing / Gaming rig and plan to buy the Asus PB Series PB278Q 27" (2560 x 1440 WQHD ) Monitor for better Photo Editing mainly because of the 100% sRGB fidelity and higher res it offers. I am torn between which GPU to get however. The EVGA 04G-P4-3978 GeForce GTX 970 or the EVGA 04G-P4-2982-KR GeForce GTX 980. At this point in my budget, I can only afford the Monitor if I go with the 970. However I'm willing to wait on the monitor if (in the long run) the 980 would be a better GPU. Also I have a lesser quality Asus 27" monitor I plan to use more for Web and document viewing and it is only rated for 1080p.

As for Gaming on this rig, I mostly play games such as Diablo3 and maybe some WoW but may try some more demanding games at some point. Any input from this awesome community would be very much appreciated.

Specs on the planned build are:
Case - Corsair Obsidian 750D Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
MB - MSI Z97A GAMING 9 ACK LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 BX80646I74790K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600
RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 Desktop Memory Model CMY16GX3M2A2133C11R (Red)
SSD - SanDisk Extreme Pro SDSSDXPS-960G-G25 2.5" 960GB SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
 
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The EVGA 04G-P4-3978 that you've selected is the EVGA GTX 970 FTW+ ACX 2.0+ Graphics Card. See the performance of this card at 2560 x 1440 Vs GTX 980 on various games below:
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As you can see the EVGA GTX 970 FTW priced at $370 is only 5-8 FPS less than a GTX 980 with least price of $530 for the Asus version. The EVGA GTX 980 04G-P4-2982-KR, which you have selected is priced at $595.

For the superclocked GTX 980 you've selected, even it delivers an extra 3-5 FPS, than an ordinary GTX 980, the difference in performance between the GTX 970 and GTX 980 would be 8-12 FPS max.

To achieve that extra 8-12 FPS at 2560 x 1440 resolution you've to spend $215 more than the GTX 970 price. So is it worth spending that much for another 10% extra performance? That you've to decide.

Clearly the best price to performance card at 2560 x 1440 resolution is the GTX 970. Also keep in mind that it consistently delivers pretty good frames at all demanding games listed above in that resolution. So I suggest get the GTX 970, which would serve more than your purpose till NVIDIA "PASCAL" Cards that may be release either at the end of 2016 or early 2017.

Cheers!
 
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Good points, though going out now for this, down the road if wanting to up the ante and a second screen or have it last and possibly SLI, as I said if it's in the budget, go for it. I went with a 980 Strix for that very reason and already picked up a second one. If I had gone 970, I prob would have had a second one a couple of weeks later instead of a few months down the road
 
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Great points from both Tradesman1 and yeskay. Thank you! However it's not making my decision any easier haha. I keep leaning towards the 980 but I think its mostly the aesthetics and maybe the extra CUDA cores (Not sure that 384 more makes that much difference or not). Yet the Monitor I want is currently on sale and I'm not sure how much longer that will last. It's one of those things that my wife says - wait a few months and we can get the monitor later, but that usually gets put off until it just never happens for a $500 purchase. I'm planning to buy all this on a Newegg 12 month interest free type deal and we've budgeted $2,500. I've already downgraded the SSD to a 480GB vs the 960GB (Which is out of stock anyway). The 480GB should be fine but going with the 980 would still put us a little over $200. I guess I'll kick the Pros and cons around a little more before I take the plunge. Our old system is going on 5yrs old and in need of being handed down to the kids lol.
 
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You're welcome! I understand your situation. Go with the plan that works for you.
 
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Ok - I just dropped the ball. I re-worked the build slightly by going with a smaller SSD 480GB rather than the 960 - as it's been out of stock and on back order for a while now. Newegg can't guaranty that it will show up and I'm jones'ing to get this build started. By dropping the SSD price I was able to talk the boss into letting me add a couple hundred more to the budgeted cost haha. By doing that I was able to get the Monitor while it was on sale still. I am hoping this will be a great build, and last a good 5 years at least before we need to upgrade again. Let me know what you think. I've had others suggest I go with the 2011 socket for the DDR4 options but I don't want to wait for the DDR4 prices to drop before I can afford a decent set.

Here is what I went with. All from Newegg:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DfWf4D
 
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Congrats! You managed to convince your boss and came up with a solid build. I'm with you with regard to DDR4. I don't see the DDR4 coming down soon and that too to the level where everyone can buy one like the DDR3 RAMs. The build looks pretty solid and 5 year worthy.

And by the way, don't forget to get "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" & "Batman: Arkham Knights" for free.

When you get the GTX 980, you'll receive a redeemable code to download those games. You can redeem it here at the NVIDIA's Official Redemption Website:
GEFORCE REDEMPTION

Cheers!
 
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