worth upgrading from a gtx 970 4GB to a nvidia gtx 1070 8GB?

[Macenstein]

I built a system for my son in feb of 2016 with a 4GB gtx 970 graphics card. he is not complaining yet about performance but in looking for something to get him for christmas, would you think he would notice a difference in upgrading to the 8GB nvidia 1070?
He seems to play COD and Overwatch mainly at the moment.

I tried comparing the cards on a website which basically gave the 970 a score of 7.2 and the 1070 a score of 8.8.

thanks for your opinions.

 

[TJ Hooker]

What are the rest of the system specs? Does he have a 1080p/60Hz monitor? If so, you're unlikely to see a huge boost from the 1070.

 

[BurgerandChips66]

If it's to be used on a 1440p monitor with >60Hz refresh rate, then a 1070 is a worthwhile upgrade over a 970. Although Overwatch is not very demanding, so the benefit would be more for COD or similar games like Battlefield 1 for example.

However, the 1070Ti is 'paper' launching on 26/10/17 and you might be able to pick one up a couple of weeks after that. Might be worth the wait.
We don't know what the exact availability or price at retailers will be yet (or the exact performance for that matter) so I'd wait and see what sort of a value proposition that one is before buying anything.

 

[Macenstein]

sorry guys, this was the full build, minus 3 SSDs and a 3TB SATA I had, and his monitor mouse and keyboard.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gmRjt6

 

[Macenstein]

i can't find my orders for his monitors... I know he has 2 and at least one is 1920. I think the other is higher resolution however. I'll keep looking.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Given the high GPU prices right now due to mining, it is hard to recommend a 1070 (although prices have seem to come down a little). The 1070 ti will probably be an excellent mining card because it runs on GDDR5 memory and not GDDR5x like the 1080. Therefore, expect very high prices on the 1070ti as well.

If it were me, I would look at a 1080. Even the cheapest 1080 will easily out perform even the best 1070 and typically the pricing is not too far apart. Remember, Nvidia's MSRP for the 1070 is $349 and the MSRP for the 1080 is $499. Finding a 1070 for less than $400 is not an easy task and most are priced around $430ish and you can find 1080's on sale for under $500.

Additionally, if your son is gaming on a 1080p/60hz monitor, I would keep the 970 and hold off on a GPU. At 1080p/60hz the monitor will be your bottleneck with either the 1070/1080. So you may want to consider getting a 1080p/144hz panel for him. He can use his 970 with the new panel and upgrade to the next generation of GPUs next year.

 

[geofelt]

GTX970 to GTX1070 is a two tier jump on tom's gpu hierarchy chart.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
They recommend at least a 3 tier jump; that would be to GTX1080 or GTX1080ti.
The risk with a small jump is that one may be disappointed if there is no magical difference.
The vram of a card is not a good metric for dselection; it will be appropriate for the particular card.

Has the 6600K been overclocked?
If not, that would be a reasonable thing to do.
How high you can go is determined by luck in getting a good chip.
Your cooler is fine.
As of 12/04/2016
What percent can get an overclock at a somewhat sane 1.40v Vcore.

I5-6600K

4.9 14%
4.8 38%
4.7 67%
4.6 87%