GTX 970 upgrade

[james1988]

Hi guys,

I currently own a MSI GTX 760 and have had it for about half a year. Although it delivers acceptable frame rates while gaming at 1080p, I notice frame rate drops in some games and stuttering in others. Overall the performance for me, while acceptable now, hasn't been all that impressive. I have tried to overclock it and even installed a third party cooler (Arctic accelero twin turbo 3) to aid in temps and yet overclocking did not yield the performance boost that others experienced maybe due to the fact that mine couldn't go that high.

I was thus wondering with the new release of the new GTX 970 if it would be worth it to get that card to game at 1080p. From the reviews that I've come across it seems that the 970 sits mean the GTX 780ti in some games. I want future proofing since I will be moving to a country whose prices for electronics are hugely overpriced.

Also I currently own a 650w silver PSU. That should be enough right?

Any suggestions welcome!

 

[Dawis67_AE]

In Norway prices are also high. 970 is defenently a way to go. But i would wait to find out which GTX 970 is best.

 

[james1988]

Its strange but it seems US has some of the best prices. I live in Taiwan currently and the prices sit at around $410 here for the Gigabyte version. Thats the one that I'm gunning for. According to most of the reviewers, it would seem that that version has the best all round overclocking ability.

My current MSI one although quiet seems to have that problem where it will spray what looks like bearing fluid on my clear side panel, which is also part of the reason why I bought an aftermarket fan.

My other choice is a 2nd hand MSI GTX 780 lightning thats 1 year into a 3 year warraranty but however from what I have seen the 970 in most cases exceed the 780's performance and is near 780ti range. Not to mention that apparently the 970 consumes less power for the performance it puts out.

 

[RevolutionHD]

Gifabyte GTX-970 WindForce G1 Gaming is the best 970 on the market.

 

[Alex Kelly]

^ Best performing yeah, but not best overall.
I recommend the MSI 970, and if that's out of stock the Asus is the next best option.
650W is more than enough, and it'll be a huge upgrade over a 760.

 

[coozie7]

The Questions:
What are your system specs? the cards in question really need a strong CPU and fast memory to give their best.
Exactly which power supply is it? Less scrupulous makers make all sorts of inaccurate claims about their products, some of which are downright dangerous to the system when loaded.

The Advice:
Right now the new GTX9xx cards are in short supply (I've not helped the situation in the UK by bagging one Tuesday 😉 ) so I'll say to you what I've said to others here: Wait. The shortage of supply will almost certainly mean a price rise in the near future and you really don't urgently need to upgrade, hold off until the card YOU want is available and at a sensible price.
Like the MSI/Asus BTW although I grabbed this little Inno3D card: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-039-IN&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010, check my review: 'smug new owner'.

 

[Dawis67_AE]

The Questions:
What are your system specs? the cards in question really need a strong CPU and fast memory to give their best.
Exactly which power supply is it? Less scrupulous makers make all sorts of inaccurate claims about their products, some of which are downright dangerous to the system when loaded.

The Advice:
Right now the new GTX9xx cards are in short supply (I've not helped the situation in the UK by bagging one Tuesday 😉 ) so I'll say to you what I've said to others here: Wait. The shortage of supply will almost certainly mean a price rise in the near future and you really don't urgently need to upgrade, hold off until the card YOU want is available and at a sensible price.
Like the MSI/Asus BTW although I grabbed this little Inno3D card: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-039-IN&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010, check my review: 'smug new owner'.

Listen man,
I have been creating few threads here on forums, done ton of research on net and watched ton of videos about new 900 series and i have come to conclusion.

9xx series is ment to replace 780 and 780ti so dont expect it to perform like Titan Z.
Reason to choose 9xx series is the price/performance radio. It performs outstandingly well to its price and its on the very high end side of GPUs on the planet with absoloutley remarkable performance on 1080p and a solid card for 1440p ALL ON HIGH SETTINGS.

Thats all junk facts, but now the real question, which card should i get? GTX 970 or 980?
It all depends on your buget. If you are like me, who wanted originaly to buy 780 i would go for 970. Its cheaper by a fair bit and it outperforms like beast. 980 is a great card if you are looking for SLI configurations and cheap super extreme gaming rigs. 980 alone has worse price/performance radio than 970 and i have seen 970 overclocks reaching near 980 speeds. Get 980 if you want to build something with X99 and Haswell-E that is gonna run 4k.

Now that u know if u want 980 or 970 its bit more about your own preference. Remember every aftermarket gtx 9xx is the same chip just different cooling solution.
Here is all the pros and cons of different manufacturers.

MSI: one of the best choices to go with. Solid build quality, low temperatures and no fan speed technology that makes fans spin only if it gets hotter than 60 degrees (which it rarely does). Bad side is maybe some people dont like the design.

Gigabyte: Its the best overclocker. it doesnt feature no fan speed technology, but it is a beast of overclocker. Although i heard gigabytes fans die quickly :| its also pretty long but speed are goooooood.

ASUS: Dont really recommend since it worst of the 2 above performance vise and it also doesnt run any cooler than MSI.

EVGA: For this one, turn arround. Its had some problems with incorrectly placed gpu resulting in loudness and bad performance. DONT, unless they change it.

Anyways, read the news and follow the updates on the cards.

Hope i helped u.

 

[james1988]

The Questions:
What are your system specs? the cards in question really need a strong CPU and fast memory to give their best.
Exactly which power supply is it? Less scrupulous makers make all sorts of inaccurate claims about their products, some of which are downright dangerous to the system when loaded.

The Advice:
Right now the new GTX9xx cards are in short supply (I've not helped the situation in the UK by bagging one Tuesday 😉 ) so I'll say to you what I've said to others here: Wait. The shortage of supply will almost certainly mean a price rise in the near future and you really don't urgently need to upgrade, hold off until the card YOU want is available and at a sensible price.
Like the MSI/Asus BTW although I grabbed this little Inno3D card: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-039-IN&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010, check my review: 'smug new owner'.

@coozie7 : I'm currently running a silver grade 80+ PSU with i5 2500k @ 4.4ghz with 16gb Crucial Ballistix 1600mhz CL9 ram. What I'm unsure about is whether my CPU will bottleneck. I'm on a Z77 board so my only upgrade path is Ivy bridge and the performances aren't that much of an increase from what I've heard.

About my PSU, It's a taiwanese brand so I guess it's less recognized overseas. It's called Super Flower. I'm running a 650w 80+ silver variant. Though I'm considering changing to a better brand like Seasonic if necessary. I'll see how it goes.

 

[james1988]

Thanks to all for very informative answers. I also tend to agree that performance wise the Gigabyte one "seems" to be the better performing one. I would normally go with MSI as the other gentleman pointed out for the silence but my 760 had a bit of issue with the fans. When you ramp them up manually in the summer when auto gets a little hot, they tend to spray some kind of oily substance out. Apparently they put extra bearing lubricant to aid in silence at low fan speeds.

 

[Alex Kelly]

^ That sounds awful, fair enough. Remember the MSI 970 is based on a completely different cooling design than older MSI cards.

 

[james1988]

^ @Alex Kelly: You're right but it seems as if they are optimizing their fans more for silence now. I had a MSI GTX 560 before and while it wasn't that silent, it also didn't have any problems running at higher speeds.

 

[Alex Kelly]

Yeah, the MSI 970 actually OCs really really well though.

 

[Dawis67_AE]

Yeah, the MSI 970 actually OCs really really well though.

Have u got yours yet? If so u OCed it? Results?
I am also buying within next week.