[SOLVED] Is it worth upgrading

Jun 23, 2019
43
3
45
I have a gtx 970 right now and I want to upgrade to a better video card, what would be the best for the money? I have a few thoughts of graphics card I want to buy, gtx 1060 6gb, gtx 980, rx580
 
Jun 23, 2019
43
3
45
The 970 really shouldn't be far off unless there's a vram limit. Anyways a 1060 6gb or RX 580 is about the best you can get for your budget.

What CPU do you have?

I have a i7 3770, it’s custom built , I love it
89098137219587f4742323b60947c123.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: WildCard999
Jun 23, 2019
43
3
45

RLarcosPES2

Distinguished
Oct 10, 2014
164
18
18,615
No. Do not upgrade. I have the same GPU. Still going strong. I have a 1440p monitor at 75hz. It runs Control fine. A game that came out a few days ago.

Save your money for next year as 2020 will be wild for GPUs. Intel entering the market, 7nm NVIDIA Ampere GPUs, big NAVi from AMD. You will miss out on big jump to performance.

You say you are on a budget, so I highly recommend NOT to spend your money on a GPU for a measly 15% performance increase. Spend that money elsewhere, or save up some more for next year. That's my advice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WildCard999

Rockyb11

Reputable
Feb 15, 2016
26
2
4,535
Save your money for next year as 2020 will be wild for GPUs. Intel entering the market, 7nm NVIDIA Ampere GPUs, big NAVi from AMD. You will miss out on big jump to performance.
I am with this individual, next year we will be seeing some big stuff. But If you can, GTX 1070s are selling like crack on the used market. I've seen them from $170-200. Those kill any game ultra in 1080p and when I had mine it did well in 1440p as well. If you have the spare money then get the 1070, if not just save and sell some of your spare parts to get next year's stuff
 
  • Like
Reactions: WildCard999

RLarcosPES2

Distinguished
Oct 10, 2014
164
18
18,615
I am with this individual, next year we will be seeing some big stuff. But If you can, GTX 1070s are selling like crack on the used market. I've seen them from $170-200. Those kill any game ultra in 1080p and when I had mine it did well in 1440p as well. If you have the spare money then get the 1070, if not just save and sell some of your spare parts to get next year's stuff
Nah everything will be obsolete next year why bother? The 970 is still a very capable card. A 40% perf increase with the 1070 just won't cut it imho. He can get at least 100% perf increase next year. Let me clarify something, I have a strong belief that next year we will have a normal generational leap in performance, but a HUGE upgrade in performance per dollar, due to competition. Imagine a card with the performance of an RX 5700 XT for 150$. That is a possibility, since a new GPU cryptomining boom is unlikely, especially with the possibility of Monero(a major GPU mined coin) moving on with an ASIC friendly mining algorithm, rendering GPUs useless for that task.
 
I have to agree that no new cards in the sub-$200 price range would really be worth upgrading to from a GTX 970 at this time. The 970's performance is pretty much in line with that of a 1060 3GB or RX 570, and something like a 1060 6GB or RX 580 would only be around 10-15% faster in most games, which would be largely unnoticeable.

You would at minimum want something with the performance of a 1070 or 1660 Ti for it to be a worthwhile upgrade, as those cards should typically be around 50% faster than a 970. If you are not willing to spend that kind of money, then hold off until something better is available in your price range. A GTX 970 is still a pretty decent graphics card for 1080p, and you can always turn down graphics settings slightly to optimize performance.

As for next year's graphics cards, it's possible that they could offer a decent performance boost at any given price point, though I highly doubt we would see RX 5700 XT levels of performance anywhere near $150. Even $250 would probably be stretching it. They're not going to turn a $400 graphics card into a $150 graphics card a year after it launches. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the general performance gains at a given price point are much more subtle, maybe around 20-30% at most, with the real performance boost happening on the raytracing side of things.

The current RTX graphics cards may offer hardware support for raytracing, but they do so rather poorly, halving performance when fully enabled in a game like Control, for what amounts to relatively subtle improvements to visuals. A smaller process node would allow them to significantly increase the number of RT cores in new cards to greatly improve performance with those effects enabled. They could bring current RT performance to the mid-range for 1080p, and the successors to the existing RTX cards could achieve reasonable performance at 1440p. Doubling the RT cores should nearly halve the performance hit, making such effects more reasonable to enable.

And of course, there's the question of just when these "next generation" graphics cards will come out. My guess is that Intel's dedicated cards probably won't appear until late in the year, and we don't even know what price points their initial offerings will be targeting. It could potentially be some time in 2021 before they fill out their full product stack. Nvidia just released their SUPER refresh, so I wouldn't expect any major new generation of cards replacing them until at least the latter half of next year. And AMD just launched some higher-end parts as well that they probably won't be replacing for a while, again, probably not until the latter part of next year at the earliest. I do suspect AMD is likely to fill-in the lower part of their 5000-series product stack in the coming months, but pricing will likely be relatively in-line with their current offerings, and will probably not offer much more than 10% better value than Nvidia's current offerings in the $200+ range, and probably not much more than RX 580/1060 6GB levels of performance for around $150.
 

RLarcosPES2

Distinguished
Oct 10, 2014
164
18
18,615
If Intel can launch a GPU comparable to the RX 5700 XT at 200$ it is possible why not. Intel is like 90% sure that they will enter the market. There is a chinese company I think that has already entered the market but only in China and there are rumors about ARM making a move in discrete GPU, but take that with a grain of salt.

The GPU market currently is an extremely high margin business right now, there is PLENTY of space for other competitors to pop up. How these competitors expect to gain market share from the mighty and trusted NVIDIA (and a little AMD)? By cutting prices and offering bang for your buck GPUs. Also, there are zero licensing issues regarding the production and distribution of GPUs, you just need enough capital and know-how to enter that business.
 
If Intel can launch a GPU comparable to the RX 5700 XT at 200$ it is possible why not.
That's speculation based on little more than guesswork though. I suspect they will probably offer better performance than the competition at whatever price points they launch at, to help them get a foothold in the market, but there's a difference between competitive pricing and making your product half the price of the competition. They would undoubtedly want the hardware to be profitable, after all.

It's also possible that their first dedicated cards could have some issues. While they have had integrated graphics in many systems for decades, due to the very low performance of that hardware, many game developers don't tend to spend much time optimizing for it. So, performance or compatibility issues may arise, particularly in existing games not tested with the new hardware. It's also possible that certain driver features could be missing at launch.

Right now, very little is known about what Intel's graphics cards will be like, how they will perform, what price ranges they will initially cover, or even when they will be launching, aside from a suggestion that at least some hardware will come in 2020, which could potentially mean a year or more from now. It's probably best not to expect too much from them, only to end up being disappointed at what eventually launches.
 

RLarcosPES2

Distinguished
Oct 10, 2014
164
18
18,615
That's speculation based on little more than guesswork though. I suspect they will probably offer better performance than the competition at whatever price points they launch at, to help them get a foothold in the market, but there's a difference between competitive pricing and making your product half the price of the competition. They would undoubtedly want the hardware to be profitable, after all.

It's also possible that their first dedicated cards could have some issues. While they have had integrated graphics in many systems for decades, due to the very low performance of that hardware, many game developers don't tend to spend much time optimizing for it. So, performance or compatibility issues may arise, particularly in existing games not tested with the new hardware. It's also possible that certain driver features could be missing at launch.

Right now, very little is known about what Intel's graphics cards will be like, how they will perform, what price ranges they will initially cover, or even when they will be launching, aside from a suggestion that at least some hardware will come in 2020, which could potentially mean a year or more from now. It's probably best not to expect too much from them, only to end up being disappointed at what eventually launches.
It isn't really important what will Intel offer, but what will NVIDIA and AMD do to prepare themselves against the competition. Just recently NVIDIA launched their Super cards in order to have an answer to the 5700 XT, even though they are the market leader at this point. They do not want to let AMD get a foot in the door especially now that they have the Ryzen momentum. What will they do to prepare themselves against a new competitor with huge available capital, resources and R&D behind them, without anyone knowing what they will offer in the market? They will create the fastest cards available for their upcoming ones and when they launch them they will have to reduce prices for their existing cards by A LOT in order to make them stay relevant and be able to clear all of the stock that will be left. NVIDIA is targeting a 65% margin. There is plenty of room for a drop.
 
The GTX 970 is still plenty at 1080p 60hz under most circumstances. The only reason to upgrade is if your particular game runs bad at 1080p medium settings which is very rare or if you want a higher spec monitor such as 144hz or 1440p/4k. Ultra isn't the setting you really should be playing at anyway. It's High or very high. Ultra is unnecessarily taxing and it's not generally worth the performance hit for the slight bump in visual quality. It's certainly not worth spending any money on just to move a slider up a notch. You might be able to pick out differences here and there if you screenshot and zoom in but in the middle of the action you will not see a difference between high and ultra. I suggest keeping the GTX 970 and waiting a year or two. The CPU should be fine until then too. It's a decent balance in your system right now.