Good Graphics card for 1280x720 and possible 1080p?

[harrison5418]

Hello,
I'm looking for a graphics card for my pc, my monitor currently only has a high resolution of 1440x900, but generally I play in windowed mode in 1280x720... Anyway, I was first looking at a gtx 970, in case I get an 1080p setup, but that may be overkill, I've also heard my 8350 may bottleneck the gpu.
I'm generally looking to run max settings at 60fps+
Specs:
CPU: AMD FX-8350 (Stock Speed)
Heat Sink: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
GPU: GTX 660 (2GB)
Memory: 2x Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB (16GB Total)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99X Evo R2.0
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[HomerThompson]

Why not just stick with the 660? Is that not capable of maxing things out at that low of a resolution? I know a GTX 750 Ti can lock to 60FPS on Battlefield 4 high at 900p, and a GTX 660 is way stronger than a 750 Ti. You're just throwing money away if you buy a GTX 970 for such a setup. If you wait a year to get your 1080p monitor then the GTX 970 will likely be a midrange GPU by then, something worth $200-$250 max.

 

[rezeile008]

I would say you are already looking at a good buy, GTX 970 is a pretty good card and a lot cheaper than the GTX 980.

It's not overkill if you want to run max settings at 60+ fps (though this is a bit vague, you have to specify which games you want to run, because they all consume GPU power differently, but I'm assuming you are referring to modern AAA titles)

The GTX 970 seems to be on your budget so my opinion is go for it.

 

[harrison5418]

Why not just stick with the 660? Is that not capable of maxing things out at that low of a resolution? I know a GTX 750 Ti can lock to 60FPS on Battlefield 4 high at 900p, and a GTX 660 is way stronger than a 750 Ti. You're just throwing money away if you buy a GTX 970 for such a setup. If you wait a year to get your 1080p monitor then the GTX 970 will likely be a midrange GPU by then, something worth $200-$250 max.

It does with some games but with others, such as far cry 3, it has some trouble hitting the 60fps mark, especially if I use recording software while doing it, this makes me weary about trying games such as far cry 4.

 

[harrison5418]

Thanks for the quick responses, but I'm still on the fence on what to do, especially now that I got completely different responses..

 

[gibbly]

Don't worry about the CPU bottlenecking, a 970 is kinda overkill considering you aren't in 1080p but it is an exelant buy if you have the money for it, I'd drop $100 on a monitor first though, also shadow play in GeForce experience uses hardware acceleration so it isn't anywhere near as taxing as most recording software (quick tip)

 

[HomerThompson]

If you're going to buy a 1080p monitor right now, then yeah, the GTX 970 is incredible and would be an enormous upgrade from a GTX 660. But to run low resolutions at great framerates you don't need to spend anywhere near that. An R9 280 should kill everything at 720p or 900p for half the price as long as you're not CPU bound (sorry, I'm not very familiar with AMD CPUs).

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1039?vs=1332