Nvidia Drivers and 700 series cards.

[ProfDigity]

Hello community!

I have a couple questions that I could use some advice/guidance on.
1. I am currently running a MSI GTX 760 Hawk and can buy a used 780ti or 970 for $120. Is it worth it and which of those two would be a better buy?
2. Taking the first question into consideration, I have done some research about why the performance of my 760 has been impacted so heavily the last year or so and am thinking that maybe it is the Nvidia drivers? For example, when BF1 first released I could play it on High settings at 50 to 60 FPS. Now, I have to play at Low settings to get that same 50 FPS. Should I revert back to an older driver? Can I continue to play new titles on an old driver?

Taking both of those questions into consideration would the 780ti be a better upgrade than the 970? From my understanding current drivers allow the 970 to beat the 780ti, but should it based on the hardware? If I revert back to an older Nvidia driver would the 780ti beat the 970 in current titles such as, BF1, PUBG, Fortnite, FarCry 5, Witcher 3?

Thank you all in advance!


Computer Specs:

CPU: i5-4670K (oc'd to 4.6ghz)
GPU: MSI GTX 760 Hawk
Motherboard: ASRock z87 Extreme 4
RAM: 16gb GSkill 1866 DDR3
PSU: 850w Gold Rated
HDD/SSD: 250gb Samsung Evo, 1TB WD Caviar Blue
Monitor: Asus 24" 1080p @ 70hz

 

[quilciri]

The 970 is better. The older driver will not help the 780ti.

I don't know how you were seeing 60fps in BF1 on high settings with a 760. That's about where a 780 performs.
https://www.techspot.com/review/1267-battlefield-1-benchmarks/page2.html

 

[13thmonkey]

the drivers should not be a cause of performance dropping off, and certainly not to that degree, maybe 2-3-fps difference, but that's all. It's something else.

There is an unusual case where newer drivers may possibly cause more Vram to be used to use new features in games, and 760's have a lowish amount of vram and hence could be impacted, but it's highly unlikely and they'd do something to mitigate it.

 

[ProfDigity]

The 970 is better. The older driver will not help the 780ti.

I don't know how you were seeing 60fps in BF1 on high settings with a 760. That's about where a 780 performs.
https://www.techspot.com/review/1267-battlefield-1-benchmarks/page2.html

I know it sounds crazy, but that's what I was getting. That game is also fairly CPU intensive so maybe that's why? Appreciate the feedback on the 970 though. Thanks!

 

[ProfDigity]

the drivers should not be a cause of performance dropping off, and certainly not to that degree, maybe 2-3-fps difference, but that's all. It's something else.

There is an unusual case where newer drivers may possibly cause more Vram to be used to use new features in games, and 760's have a lowish amount of vram and hence could be impacted, but it's highly unlikely and they'd do something to mitigate it.

Appreciate the feedback! I may try an older driver, but like you said it's unlikely that's the cause. Thanks!