GTX 960 or GTX 970

[Broken Radio]

Hello Community,

I Should buy a GTX 960 and upgrade it in 3 years or buy a GTX 970 and upgrade in 3+ years ?

 

[Pr3di]

If you can get the 970, that`s the best choice.
It`s always good to go with the strongest one-card you can get. And in your case, that`s the GTX 970.

 

[rolli59]

I just upgraded from HD7950 (GTX960 level) to GTX970 after 3 years so I say go GTX970 if you can afford it.

 

[hanser30]

Wait, the 970 has problems with the Vram, rumors say that nvidia is going to recall the 970s to fix the problem. The thing is that it doesn't have 4gb of VRAM, it only has 3.5gb, the rest 0.5 is in a separate allocation. The thing is that after the load passes 3.5gb the card will overheat and the performance will decrease.

If I were you I would go with the 960 and then upgrade in 3 years.
Depending on your budget and your needs you can go for the 970 if you really need that much of performance or you can go with the 960 and still have a good card for three years.

 

[holyrage]

it doesnt overheat the card is just trying to read the other 512MB of Vram which tanks the bandwidth causing stutter

IMO if u cant wait go with the GTX970 (if u don't plan on going above 1080P)

my 7950 will be almost 4 years old when the R9 380X is out and this is when i plan on upgrading coz the GTX980 will also drop in price ( if u want Nvidia GPUs that is )

IMO get a GTX970 and get one that OC's well check the EVGA SSC it has 133% Power limit which should help when OCing

 

[krells]

The 970 is the way to go if your budget allows. The vram issue has been blown way out of proportion.

 

[rolli59]

Wait, the 970 has problems with the Vram, rumors say that nvidia is going to recall the 970s to fix the problem. The thing is that it doesn't have 4gb of VRAM, it only has 3.5gb, the rest 0.5 is in a separate allocation. The thing is that after the load passes 3.5gb the card will overheat and the performance will decrease.

If I were you I would go with the 960 and then upgrade in 3 years.
Depending on your budget and your needs you can go for the 970 if you really need that much of performance or you can go with the 960 and still have a good card for three years.

Rumor is wrong and there is no problem, GTX970 has two sections of ram 3.5GB and 0.5GB it does not have any effect until you hit high details on very high resolutions like 4K.

 

[holyrage]

u can hit it @ 2k with a Horribly Optimized game ( he he watchdoge huehuehue)

but that's another story Honestly u shouldn't run into trouble 3 years later+

if u want a card with perfect 4GB with a reasonable price wait for the R9 380X @ Jun

 

[mrhippo900]

GTX 970 is optimized to run res's like 1440p and higher.
GTX 960 is Literally made for 1080p gaming.

 

[hanser30]

I'm sorry I was miss informed, but I wouldn't go for the 970. For me the 960 should be enough for 1080p gaming. If you want to go high res then buy a 980 or wait till AMD releases the 300s. I would only go for the 970 if it is really necessary. If it is an urgent measure I would go for the 290 since it can handle high res and it doesn't drop the bandwidth.

 

[hanser30]

I thought that the card overheated and the boost 2.0 dropped the bandwidth to regulate the temperature.

 

[holyrage]

I thought that the card overheated and the boost 2.0 dropped the bandwidth to regulate the temperature.

where are u getting this from? the card dosnt overheat? hell even on the stock cooler it runs cool

and it only has issues @ 2k with (with texture mods n stuff) or 4K

1080P the GTX970 will max anything

the GTX960 wont last for long @ ultra with AA OFF

my 7950 clocked @ 1300/1900 is going to give up on me soon and im going to have to lower my settings which i dont like except for lowering the AA

 

[rolli59]

I thought that the card overheated and the boost 2.0 dropped the bandwidth to regulate the temperature.

where are u getting this from? the card dosnt overheat? hell even on the stock cooler it runs cool

and it only has issues @ 2k with (with texture mods n stuff) or 4K

1080P the GTX970 will max anything

the GTX960 wont last for long @ ultra with AA OFF

my 7950 clocked @ 1300/1900 is going to give up on me soon and im going to have to lower my settings which i dont like except for lowering the AA

The reason I upgraded from my HD7950 to GTX970, starting to drop settings.

 

[hanser30]

I thought that the card overheated and the boost 2.0 dropped the bandwidth to regulate the temperature.

where are u getting this from? the card dosnt overheat? hell even on the stock cooler it runs cool

and it only has issues @ 2k with (with texture mods n stuff) or 4K

1080P the GTX970 will max anything

the GTX960 wont last for long @ ultra with AA OFF

my 7950 clocked @ 1300/1900 is going to give up on me soon and im going to have to lower my settings which i dont like except for lowering the AA

I don't even remember where I got the information from (some unknown site), but my bad, I think I got confused with something else. I always believed that the 970 lowered the bandwidth because of the boost 2.0. I just read an article that said that accessing the last 0.5gb of the card reduces the bandwidth to 14.28 percent (which makes me look like I was talking too much sh*t) But about the memory allocation, I don't know if nvidia already released a driver that is suposed to fix most of the problem but at the end it is always depending which type of gaming you are looking forward on.

I would prefer a 960 for the prize, but if it was really necessary I would go with the 970. The AMD 300s are almost on the corner so I would rather wait to see if it is better to go for AMD later, that's why I was saying about buying a 960 to save a couple of bucks and then upgrade to an AMD 380x, 390 or better if necessary.

 

[holyrage]

OFC a 20nm card with insane amount of bandwidth thanks to HBM will beat nvidia cards amd is better bandwidth wise thats why they scale well @ high res


the Nvidia engineers already optimized the GTX970 to ONLY Access the last 512MB if it is really needed (so as long as your skyrim mods dont eat more than 3.5GB of VRam @ 1080P i dont know what is going to lol ) except for unity which needs 2 way titan X SLI to max out ALL HAIL THE CRAPPY CONSOLE PORTS game was never meant to run more than 60fps

i my self plan on upgrading @ AUG ( i really want my card to be 4 years old XD)

@rolli59 what OC did u get out of your 7950 b4 u replaced it with the 970? im at 1300/1900 @ 1.22V only ! it is insane

 

[rolli59]

OFC a 20nm card with insane amount of bandwidth thanks to HBM will beat nvidia cards amd is better bandwidth wise thats why they scale well @ high res


the Nvidia engineers already optimized the GTX970 to ONLY Access the last 512MB if it is really needed (so as long as your skyrim mods dont eat more than 3.5GB of VRam @ 1080P i dont know what is going to lol ) except for unity which needs 2 way titan X SLI to max out ALL HAIL THE CRAPPY CONSOLE PORTS game was never meant to run more than 60fps

i my self plan on upgrading @ AUG ( i really want my card to be 4 years old XD)

@rolli59 what OC did u get out of your 7950 b4 u replaced it with the 970? im at 1300/1900 @ 1.22V only ! it is insane

I just was modest and only did 1000 on core (XFX DD version) and kept ram at stock. Still with a MSI 970 I am getting close to 70% boost with my 3570K.

 

[bamj6]

I can't speak for 1080p or over as I'm on 1600x900 and won't change anytime soon. GTX 960 was the perfect card at the perfect price for me. GTX 970's are absolute overkill for that resolution. if you spend money for a 970 at 1600x900 resolution, then you lose $100 that could go somewhere else for a PC.