GTX 1060 6gb or GTX 970 4gb

[shadowfiend]

Heys guys, christmas is approaching and i'm planning to get a new graphics card. I currently have an antique Powercolor Radeon 6670 1gb ddr5 paired with an Athlon x2 260 lol. For my gpu, i'm considering these cards from MSI:

Gtx 1060
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Gtx 970
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I will be pairing my card with an i5 6500 and plan on maxing out (if possible) Star Wars BF, dota2, Tomb Raider and GTA 5 on 1080p only. No plans of 4k gaming.

Back to the cards, one thing that worries me is the 192 bit bus on the 1060. Despite being newer than the 970 which has a 256 bit bus, will this really affect performance? Thinking about going with the 970 too but the 3.5/4gb issue is a little unsettling since I plan on maxing out gta5 which i think maxed out, might actually consume close to 4gb of VRAM and maybe then would get the performance drop. I know the issue was overblown though and I've heard a lot of great things about the 970 but being almost similar in price to the 1060 with its 6gb of VRAM, I really have a hard time deciding.

Also, I chose those cards since that price point is the most I am willing to spend for my gpu. (So no 1070 and above..) If you guys know of better options for my budget, I would really appreciate the advice.

Sorry for the long read and the ignorance, been out of the pc game since 2011 so please educate me as much as you can. Thanks!

 

[DSzymborski]

In the face of actual benchmark data -- which reflects any impact of those bandwidth limits already -- the bus width is essentially irrelevant. The 1060 is the more powerful GPU.

 

[lunyone]

The bus isn't that important for the GPU's that you have listed. The GTX 1060 6 gb is > than the GTX 970 4 gb, IMO.

What is your budget for your new-ish build and what parts are you transferring over to the build?

 

[nikoli707]

it depends on what you are paying for these cards. out the box the 1060 offers tiny bit more performance. if you count max stock bios overclock then they are roughly equal. there really isn't any reason not to get the 1060 unless you are getting the 970 for considerably cheaper.

 

[n0ns3ns3]

^ since when 15-20% is tiny ?

 

[shadowfiend]

Thank you so much for your answers! So it seems the bus width isn't that important after all. Alright i'll be going with the 1060. Any idea though on what brand of the 1060 would be the best? (Excluding the Asus strix version since it costs a lot more here in the philippines). Apart from the Asus, all the others zotac, msi and galax are the similarly priced 1060's here compared to a 970.

Not going to transfer any parts anymore since they are all obselete and incompatible with my prospect build..

Regarding my overall budget, i have roughly 16,500 pesos set aside for the mobo (Asrock H110M-HDV), cpu (i5-6500), memory (kingston hyper x 4gb ddr4) and hopefully a Seasonic 520w S2II 80 plus bronze.. then planning on using some extra savings and a portion of that 13th month pay for the gpu.. is it a good build?

 

[lunyone]

Not sure where the other parts are coming from, but so far your list looks pretty good (listed parts below, I threw in an MSI 1060 6 GB card):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($58.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston FURY 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($30.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB GAMING X Video Card ($174.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $519.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-01 05:09 EDT-0400

 

[primekazan]

Firs of all the GTX 970 was a really good peace of hardware - even with its memory problems (I personally didn't face them even with GTA V, Witcher 3 etc. maxed out). But in that case, since we have 2016 already, I would go for GTX 1060. With GTX 1060 you will have a little bit more power under the hood and of course the newer technology. Additionally the GTX 1060 have less power consumption and you will have additionally 2 GB more VRAM (in this case i would go for 2,5 GB more VRAM since GTX 970 had 2 blocks - 3,5 GB and 0,5 GB).

 

[lunyone]

Personally I'd go for the RX 480 8 GB GPU (so I can take advantage of Freesync/Adaptive sync on the monitor side of things). But that is just my personal opinion.

A few RX 480's to consider, unless you prefer the 1060 6 GB GPU's.

 

[shadowfiend]

Thanks again everyone! Have really decided on the 1060 now.