GTX 970. Is it worth it?

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pythonix

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Nov 14, 2015
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So I am building a gaming PC, and am thinking about using the gtx 970. now my only problems are that
1: the 3.5 gb/4gb vram issue
2: my friends say it isn't very future proof

so even with the vram issue, is it still worth it? will it get good performance and max settings on my games like arma 3 and rust? and my last question, could it run dual monitors at 1080p at good performance ( i plan to game on 1 and have a map or teamspeak on the other)

thanks,
pythonix
 
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The GTX 980 Ti is one of the best, if not the best card you can buy in my opinion. As you can probably gather from the again huge price difference and perhaps the naming convention, the GTX 980 Ti is another step up from the GTX 980. You can get a TITAN X which is better than the GTX 980 Ti but in my opinion, it is a little overkill and at that point you may as well wait for new GPU releases. In terms of FPS, I think the GTX 980 Ti is up to about 30% better than the GTX 980 on higher resolutions, but the difference is not as big on 1920x1080 resolutions; maybe around 20% better. Still, either way, if you can afford it, it is clearly the one you should get if you want the best performance. However, I will say that the price per...
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A 970 is a very good card for 1080p gaming. The VRAM thing hasn't really been an issue in any of the games I play.

If you are really worried about the VRAM you could get a R9 390 for the same price. That would give you 8GB of VRAM instead of 4GB in the GTX 970 but it will also give you less FPS in most games if you are playing at 1080p.

I'm not saying that the 390 is a bad card but game benchmarks show that the 970 is better for 1080p gaming.

It's also the better choice if you care about Nvidia's Psysx and their other Gameworks features that end up in so many games these days. I personally don't care about this stuff that much but some people do. In my opinion they usually don't add that much to my gaming experience and they often cause big fps drops.
 
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The GTX 970 will be great for 1080p gaming and when I owned one it played everything at max settings just fine. The only time I ran into a problem was with Shadow of Mordor and Watch dogs due to exceeding the 3.5gb of fast memory. Otherwise I never ran into any other problems with my games.
 
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depends on the game and details you want to play. I have plenty of friends that have issues or got refunds because of the GTX 970 3.5/.5GB debacle. Games like GTA V, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, COD Advanced Warfare...to name a few...can all have trouble when you max out the settings. They breach that 3.5GB limit at 1080P. More and more games are using 4GB of frame buffer at 1080P so the issue will be come more common. All that said it is a good card for the money, a solid performer (besides said issues) and a great overclocker. The issue stopped me from buying 2, i went with GTX 980's instead (was no Ti back then) and I have been happy I did. But I am a gamer that requires 60FPS vsync'd, max settings, max filtering and AA. So I need more then one card either way at 1080P. If your willing to cut back on some game settings I would get the GTX 970, if not...try an R9 380+ or make the jump up to a GTX 980 (Ti or not).
 
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Depends what resolution you are talking about. The GTX 970 typically beats the R9 390 at 1080p but loses at higher resolutions. The OP in this thread specifically mentioned 1080p so the 970 is a better choice.

Even the benchmarks you linked to agree with what I just said. The page that you linked to is EA games that are optimized for AMD GPUs. The rest of the pages in that same article show the 970 winning by double digits in many cases for most other games at 1080p.

Edit: Even the AMD optimized games on the first page show the 970 within 2-3FPS at 1080p. Like I said, the games on the other pages in that same article show the 970 up by double digits in several cases at 1080p.
 
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Just like it was mentioned it will depend on the game your playing and in addition if you're using mods. The card is still great for the money however if you can save the money and afford a GTX 980 which is a sizable jump in price I would suggest saving the additional money for a 980 Ti. However with that said if you're trying to stay in a price range then the 390 would be best for 1080p gaming and you won't run into any of the memory limitations due to 3.5+5 or 4GB buffers.
 
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https://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/31.html

Take a look at this chart by Tech Powerup. The bottom left shows 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution. In an average of 20 games they benchmarked the 970 is better than the 390 at 1080p.

Everyone keeps saying the 390 is the better 1080p card but actual FPS benchmarks don't seem to support that.

Again, I'm not saying the 390 is a bad card. The difference between it and the 970 is small enough that most people would be happy with either choice. I am saying the 390 is not a definitively better option for 1080p like some people are here. The benchmarks I have seen just don't support that idea.
 
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It's all subjective in the end.... the site you linked shows that the 390 is just a tad bit ahead of the 970 which i would agree with but you have to also consider the memory. Even if the performance was equal between the two cards as soon as you reach the 3.5Gb frame buffer it becomes a mute point. The fact still remains that the 390 is the better card... 8GB is still more than 3.5+5 regardless if the game that's being played even uses it or not the 390 still has longevity on it's side.
 
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I get the point of what you are trying to say about future proofing but you said the part I put in bold backwards. The site I linked shows the 970 a tad ahead of the 390.

As for the 3.5GB frame buffer that's not exactly true. HWInfo shows games like Shadow of Mordor, GTA V, and Arkham Knight using more than 3.5GB of VRAM on my system but Nvidia Shadowplay still shows that I'm getting 60 FPS.

The 970 has .5GB that is slower than the rest of its VRAM. That's a fact. Plenty of tech websites, including Tom's Hardware I think, have said that this doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of framerate. One article I read before I bought my 970s (before the 390 was released) said that they had a hard time finding real world games to replicate the problem some people were having though.

I'm not saying that it will never be a problem but as of now it hasn't been for me so far on any of my games. Now if a game asks for more than 4GB you are definitely right. The 390 can go above 4GB with plenty of room to spare while the 970 cannot. Going over 3.5GB does not necessarily cause problems though.
 
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right, so i would prefer to stick to nvidia cards (the gtx ones) but I think I read somewhere that the 980 has the same memory problem, although from this I don't think it is true. Would the gtx 980 be better than 2 gtx 970s?
 
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The 970s are great cards for 1080 gaming. They can be overclocked a little bit without much trouble, and perform very well for as restricted they are in the stock bios. I have a pair of 970 FTWs. They're beastly cards. Top scores for 2 x 970 in Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme and Firestrike Ultra. To get really great performance out of them though, you have to run a custom bios...which means flashing the bios. Not something I'd suggest for a beginner.

That said...if I were buying a GPU TODAY, it'd be the 8GB 290X. For as good as my GPUs run, they still can't keep up with the 290Xs. And right now, you can get the 8GB 290X for about the same price as the 390 and the 970...and it'll outperform them both.
 
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The VRAM might be an issue at higher graphics settings, but you should still be able to do okay without having to lower the settings past the point where they stop looking good. Both the GTX 970 and the R9 390 are the cheapest and perhaps most value-for-money GPUs in their performance range, so getting either would be a good choice. The GTX 970 does seem to perform better at 1080p, but I think those benchmarks are for 1920 x 1080 resolutions. I have no idea which card would do better at 1080p with games running on two monitors which effectively doubles the amount of pixels in standard 1080p. Given the same situation, I would choose the R9 390 to be extra safe in terms of VRAM because I would rather suffer lower but still playable fps than risk potentially hitting my VRAM limit.

Which ever GPU you get, don't expect to be able to run all games at their maximum settings at slippery smooth fps. There are some games and settings out there that give even the best current GPUs a hard time, not to mention games which are just poorly optimised for any hardware. There is no such thing as a future proof GPU.
 
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Right, so how does the gtx 980 fit into all of this? Is it better than all the cards mentioned so far?money wouldn't really be a problem cause I'm willing to extend it just that little bit, but is it really worth it compared to the 970?
 
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The GTX 980 will be better than both the GTX 970 and the R9 390. I like to think of it as a step up. The price jumps from the GTX 970 / R9 390 upwards get rather large, but if money isn't a problem for you then go for it. How much money are you looking to spend? A common rule of thumb is just to get the best GPU which you can comfortably afford.
 
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The GTX 980 Ti is one of the best, if not the best card you can buy in my opinion. As you can probably gather from the again huge price difference and perhaps the naming convention, the GTX 980 Ti is another step up from the GTX 980. You can get a TITAN X which is better than the GTX 980 Ti but in my opinion, it is a little overkill and at that point you may as well wait for new GPU releases. In terms of FPS, I think the GTX 980 Ti is up to about 30% better than the GTX 980 on higher resolutions, but the difference is not as big on 1920x1080 resolutions; maybe around 20% better. Still, either way, if you can afford it, it is clearly the one you should get if you want the best performance. However, I will say that the price per performance in the high end will not be as good as the GTX 970 / R9 390 cards and if you want more out of your money rather than the best possible performance, then you should still consider the GTX 970 / R9 390.
 
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The 980 is a 66% jump in price for 20% more performance. So it's worse in price/performance than the 970.
The 980Ti is a different story though. It's one of the fastest cards there is, runs 4K games fairly comfortably and has the performance equal to 40-75% of the 970 for around 2X the price. Very much worth it if you have a system that can handle the card and enough money.

Be wary though. The ratio diminishes with lower resolution. So if you don't plan on upgrading the monitor, get the 980 instead.
 
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