Which is better, 960 or 970s?

[Dylan Dunn]

Hello everybody, so Nividia has recently announced 4 gb versions of 960s, and as far as I can tell from looking at the specs of the two, 960 seems to be better than the 970 for 100 dollars less or more! Now, although i've done my research on graphics cards, I can't quite confirm if it's truly better so maybe someone will find something that's a deal breaker that I missed?

Below is the Newegg's listing of MSI 960 and 970:

MSI 960 Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127860&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

MSI 970 Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127832&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Which is better, 960 or 970?

 

[rolli59]

The 970 hands down! http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/29.html
The added memory will help some performance at higher resolutions but nothing like the 970 does.

 

[larkspur]

The GTX 970 is much, much more powerful than the GTX 960: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-4.html

 

[ZeusGamer]

Simple answer, GTX 970 is better.

 

[Dylan Dunn]

The GTX 970 is much better, even if the 960 had 4GB, it wont utilise it well because of its 128 bit bus

Would the Cuda Cores also play into the fact that it performs less?

 

[holyrage]

yah the gtx960 is downgraded in every aspect Vram bus width bandwidth Cuda cores etc..

 

[Dylan Dunn]

I see, well I'm interested in 970s; but compared to 980s they seem relatively the same, so say if I wanted to run 970 SlI on 3 monitors at 1080p or 1440p or even 4k if the options presents its self, would the 970 be able to accomplish that at 60 fps? *With the exception of 4k since only one or two gpus can really run 4k somewhat well*

 

[jerdle]

The GTX 970 is much better, even if the 960 had 4GB, it wont utilise it well because of its 128 bit bus

"The GTX 980 is much better, even if the 970 had 4GB, it wont utilize it well because..."

Funny how the statement is still completely accurate, eh?

960 4GB is a gimmick card, just like the 970 is a gimped card. The 960 just happens to be worse.

 

[holyrage]

i wouldn't go with SLI 970s for 4k coz of the Vram limit hell i wouldn't it use it for more than a single 1440P monitor or 1080P with the AA turned UP

 

[ZeusGamer]

i wouldn't go with SLI 970s for 4k coz of the Vram limit hell i wouldn't it use it for more than a single 1440P monitor or 1080P with the AA turned UP

Why not? At 1440P and playing Battlefield 4, my VRAM only consumes about 2.5GB with the MSAA on 4X. So why wouldn't you use GTX 970 on high resolutions like that? 4K I understand. I wouldn't even dare touch 4K with my GTX 980 SLI. But 1440P, really?

 

[holyrage]

tbh i wouldn't worry about Vram limit unless it is 4k or heavy mods on a 1440P with the AA turned up

4GB is good for 4k 3.5GB isnt

unity is a bad game that a 970 wont even run ( and it hits the 3.5GB on the card)

the highest Vram usage i ever saw was 2.6GB from BF4 coz i had the Res slider turned UP and the AA was turned off i have a 7950 btw

in a nutshell if you're gonna play a well optimized game a 970 will do and wont hit the 3.5GB Vram wall even at 2K

if u play something made by ubisoft Cough cough watch doge/unity the 970 will choke