Recommended NVIDIA Graphics Card

[grimlockPH]

Hi, what would be the best choice of Nvidia graphics card for this build:

i7-4790 (non-K)
ASRock H97 Killer
HyperX 8GB DDR3
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB
WDC Blue 1TB HDD
Seasonic M2II 520W PSU

I'm currently looking at a GTX 760 and a GTX 970. Clearly, the GTX 970 is better, but is it recommended for my build? Would any components in my build bottleneck the card? Well, budget's 350 USD and I won't be spending that on any good AMD cards, because f*ck my PSU. Friend of mine said that the GTX 760 would be perfect for me, but what do you think of that GTX 970? It's Zotac btw. I'll be playing AC Black Flag and Unity in the coming weeks, because I just started gaming for the first time last week playing AC Rogue and I love it. And any game suggestions please, thanks!

 

[holyprof]

Are you sure it's 760 and not 960? The GTX 960 is one of the finest graphics card that nVidia currently has to offer. It's faster than the 760, sells at similar price and will be supported for longer because it's newer.

If you're playing on a 1920x1080 monitor, the 960 should be more than adequate. For higher resolutions, go for the 970. The rest of your build seems ok. The CPU choice is strange for a gaming build but i guess you have your reasons.

 

[disturbed force]

Your system will have no issue running any gpu on the market (PSU excluded), so I would go with the 970.

 

[Kitt Sue]

The GTX 970 will work great in your system. Just note that the Zotac model of the 970 often has some coil whine, so it can be a little noisy under heavy load

 

[grimlockPH]

Are you sure it's 760 and not 960? The GTX 960 is one of the finest graphics card that nVidia currently has to offer. It's faster than the 760, sells at similar price and will be supported for longer because it's newer.

If you're playing on a 1920x1080 monitor, the 960 should be more than adequate. For higher resolutions, go for the 970. The rest of your build seems ok. The CPU choice is strange for a gaming build but i guess you have your reasons.

Just saw the GTX 960, I wonder if it's faster than the GTX 760 when using AutoCAD? Does the memory bandwidth difference matters too much? That's still one nice card. With ower power consumption, my PSU would love it.

I'll only be playing at 1600x900. Regarding my CPU, I'm using AutoCAD and other rendering softwares so I thought it was a good choice.

 

[holyprof]

You won't feel any difference in AutoCAD, as far as i know neither the 760 nor the 960 are certified so AutoCAD will use the basic DirectX driver. If you are into 3D design and animation, better invest in a professional Quadro / FirePro card (stupidly expensive unless you earn money from working with it). For techncal drawing, CPU power is all you need, graphics card will just show the resulting geometry.

 

[grimlockPH]

You won't feel any difference in AutoCAD, as far as i know neither the 760 nor the 960 are certified so AutoCAD will use the basic DirectX driver. If you are into 3D design and animation, better invest in a professional Quadro / FirePro card (stupidly expensive unless you earn money from working with it). For techncal drawing, CPU power is all you need, graphics card will just show the resulting geometry.

Can't even get my hands on the cheapest Quadro. Maybe I'll just push the budget a bit more for the GTX 970 or maybe save some cash by getting GTX 960, then upgrade my RAM to 16GB. I just can't decide. Will any of the two show performance improvement in Sketchup/vray etc.? Thanks for the help!

 

[mrhippo900]

Get a 970, your build should be able to handle.

 

[jerdle]

970 better choice.

 

[Epic Sasa]

you definitely run a r9 295x2 with a 300 watt psu gg
JKJK yea 970 is best msi and gigabyte

 

[holyprof]

Can't help you further with autodesk products, i use mostly complex 2D drawings, and graphics card shows no improvement at all, only CPU and RAM big enough to store all the data (currently 8GB but soon to upgrade to 16GB). For 3D, graphics card could improve speed a bit when working with rendered (not wireframe) objects but i never used that so better ask some that knows better.

 

[williaml573]

I'd definitely go with the 970; it has a great performance to price ratio. Also, if you don't get the 970, don't get the 760, as the 960 is already out.

 

[SimonEyez]

I agree with the rest. I have the MSI GTX 970 Gaming http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GTX-970-4G-Gra... and can vouch for it's excellent performance and quiet operation. Highly recommend it!