GTX 970 a good upgrade?

[h3llfire741]

I have an AMD 7870 Black edition, I was wondering if the GTX 970 is worth the upgrade from my current GPU. How big of a difference will I see between the two?

Also, which brand of the GTX 970 should I get? I've been reading that its a close tie between the MSI and the ASUS Strix, mostly because the EVGA one has some cooling problems.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

MSI and the ASUS Strix , < yes it's the best upgrade on the market. 😀

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The 7870 is in tier 7 / the 970 is equivalent to the 780 is tier 4

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel, and you may not even notice any worthwhile difference in performance.

We haven't seen a card like the 970 hit the market in quite a number of years, if ever. Its overclocking ability and SLI scaling are "off the charts" and the price is crazy cheap.

 

[james1988]

MSI for silence and Gigabyte for a bit of silence sacrificed for performance.

 

[Alex Kelly]

Yeah, they're all amazing cards.
MSI is the best, followed by ASUS. They're both as silent as each other and cool about the same, but the MSI OCs higher while the ASUS looks slightly better and requires only a single 8 pin connector for power.