Need advice with PC build

[Justin_73]

I made a thread asking for advice on a PC build, since I'm going to be making my first in about a month or two, and someone gave me specs for a budget gaming PC, and I have a few questions about it.

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor

Motherboard: Gigabyte Gigabyte GA-H170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

RAM: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card

Case: Thermaltake Versa H22 ATX Mid Tower Case

PSU: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply

I was debating on swapping the 960 out with a 970, depending on a few things.

Is the extra performance worth the extra money
Does the missing .5gb of VRAM matter
and if the build listed above would work well with the 970, with no bottlenecking or compatability issues.

Also, I was wondering if the i5-6500 is a good processor for light/heavy gaming, as some games I play are more CPU intensive than others, such as Total war: Warhammer, etc.

Thanks for the help in advance

 

[sidewinder1911]

The 970 is for playing games at maximum quality, 60 fps, on a 1080p monitor. Generally speaking, games at 1080p will not use more than 3GB (at least, I've never played any that have), so it's not really a big deal. Whether or not you upgrade will be determined on how demanding your games are. Total War Warhammer can run on max settings at about 50fps on a 760, so no problem for 960.

The i5-6500 is perfectly fine for any gaming needs you might have, won't bottleneck the 970 at all.

 

[Justin_73]

The 970 is for playing games at maximum quality, 60 fps, on a 1080p monitor. Generally speaking, games at 1080p will not use more than 3GB (at least, I've never played any that have), so it's not really a big deal. Whether or not you upgrade will be determined on how demanding your games are. Total War Warhammer can run on max settings at about 50fps on a 760, so no problem for 960.

The i5-6500 is perfectly fine for any gaming needs you might have, won't bottleneck the 970 at all.

Thank you for the quick reply, I'm aware that more VRAM is only really utilized when you get to 4k, etc. but I'm still unsure whether or not to get the 970, in your opinion, would the 970s performance be 200$ (Canadian) more than the 960, and will it be relevant for a long time being.

Also, another, unrelated question is, how big is the performance gap between the 960 and 960m? Currently I'm using a dell "gaming laptop" that I'm less than impressed with, and if the performance in the 960 isn't much greater than the 960m I definitely think I'll go for the 970.

Thanks again

 

[cfortney]

The 970 is for playing games at maximum quality, 60 fps, on a 1080p monitor. Generally speaking, games at 1080p will not use more than 3GB (at least, I've never played any that have), so it's not really a big deal. Whether or not you upgrade will be determined on how demanding your games are. Total War Warhammer can run on max settings at about 50fps on a 760, so no problem for 960.

The i5-6500 is perfectly fine for any gaming needs you might have, won't bottleneck the 970 at all.

Thank you for the quick reply, I'm aware that more VRAM is only really utilized when you get to 4k, etc. but I'm still unsure whether or not to get the 970, in your opinion, would the 970s performance be 200$ (Canadian) more than the 960, and will it be relevant for a long time being.

Also, another, unrelated question is, how big is the performance gap between the 960 and 960m? Currently I'm using a dell "gaming laptop" that I'm less than impressed with, and if the performance in the 960 isn't much greater than the 960m I definitely think I'll go for the 970.

Thanks again

the mobile series GPUs are equivalent to a step down in the desktop, roughly. The 960M performs roughly the same as a 750ti, it's a decent little GPU for an inexpensive laptop.

 

[smorizio]

with any gpu you have to be care full when you go from one level of gpu to another. on nvidia gpu the 960/950 use a lower end gpu chip then the 970. the 970 uses the same chip in the 980 but nvidia cripples part of the chip. with the newer 1070 dropping in june. your better off waiting for it and the newer kurby lake cpu from intel. (updated skylake).
if you get into newer games the 960 may not have the prossing power on large format screen to keep the newer games at 60 frames. the newer 1070 is as fast as the 980ti is at the same price as the 970 and uses less power.

 

[sidewinder1911]

I heard the 1070 tops the Titan X in gaming performance, and is cheaper. If you can save up until then like @smorizio suggested then do so. It will retail for around 750 CAD. While no card will be relevant for a long time at the speed these new GPUs are being pumped out, the 970 will at least give you better frames at 1080p for some time. Example, it will run BF4 on max at around 80-85fps whereas the 960 will do 60.