Hardware Need some help to decide GPU.

[Kamiyama]

It's been a while since I've doing my homework with GPUs. So I'm looking for new Nvidia GPU. I know that GTX980Ti and Titan models are powerful enough, but I don't have afford for them. I've currently 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (MSI).

There's couple that I've been wondering. First, ASUS STRIX GTX 960 DirectCu II 4GB OC. That's about 239€. Other one is Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 Gaming OC 4GB, but that's over 100€ extra with 349€ price tag. I wanna know if GTX 960 is any good upgrade to old one and gaming or is GTX970 really worth of 100€ extra?

I don't need any Titan-like powerhouses to play games at over 9000k resolution with over 9mil fps, I just need GPU that will run games in 1080p at steady 60fps with high settings for few more years to come.

Here's my other system information:


Summary
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 4770 @ 3.40GHz 40 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00Gt Dual-Channel DDR3 (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. H87-PLUS (SOCKET 1150) 28 °C
Graphics
T27D390 (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (MSI) 31 °C
Storage
223GB KINGSTON SV300S37A240G (SSD) 27 °C
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164 (SATA) 30 °C
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ (SATA) 27 °C
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-07YGA0 (SATA) 31 °C
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-07YGA0 (SATA) 31 °C
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SI USB Device (SSD) 27 °C
465GB BUFFALO External HDD USB Device (SSD) 27 °C
29GB RDP8 SD/microSD USB Device (USB)
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
High Definition Audio

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The GTX 970 gives the best bang for your buck, so if you can afford it, it would be better to go with it over a 960. It'll last you longer before it gets outdated too, so in the end you might save money on it.
To run modern games at 1080p and high settings you really need a 970 minimum.

 

[Kamiyama]

The GTX 970 gives the best bang for your buck, so if you can afford it, it would be better to go with it over a 960. It'll last you longer before it gets outdated too, so in the end you might save money on it.
To run modern games at 1080p and high settings you really need a 970 minimum.

Ok, good to know, I'm going for that then. Thanks a lot for the answer!

 

[Armadillo]

The GTX 970 gives the best bang for your buck, so if you can afford it, it would be better to go with it over a 960. It'll last you longer before it gets outdated too

It's arguably already outdated.

Even at 1080p more and more games are creeping past 3.5GB vram usage (what the 970 effectivly has, the shitty .05GB after that just tanks performance). Some are even going past 4GB now. Unless you intend to upgrade again soon (when the new cards appear), I wouldn't go with a 4GB gpu anymore.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

It's arguably already outdated.

Even at 1080p more and more games are creeping past 3.5GB vram usage (what the 970 effectivly has, the shitty .05GB after that just tanks performance). Some are even going past 4GB now. Unless you intend to upgrade again soon (when the new cards appear), I wouldn't go with a 4GB gpu anymore.

Do they use that much even on High settings? I'm kind of doubting that.

 

[Armadillo]

Do they use that much even on High settings? I'm kind of doubting that.

Not sure, of the top of my head.

Shadow of Mordor. Ultra settings will use it. A gpu the level of a 970/390 has the grunt to do ultra@1080/60, but the 970 hits the vram wall, the 390 won't. So vram limit is an issue there, you have the power for 1080/60 on those settings but can't use it
Dying light -Can't remember
Rise of the tomb raider, uses >4GB at very high texture settings. Makes almost no difference in performance at all, a 970/390 level card isn't getting a constant 60, either way. So may as well take them.
Lords of the fallen, can't remember.

So yeah, mostly very high, but would be playable on that level card if not for the vram usage.

High texture on a lot on a lot of games are also getting over 3GB (you see stuttering in a fair few games with 780 now). I don't see the vram trend reversing anytime soon, and the op wants to keep the card for a while, so a card with only what is essentially only 3.5GB of vram is madness.

I'd take a 390 at that price level, they both trade blows with each other in terms of fps and you have the safety net of more vram.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Not sure, of the top of my head.

Shadow of Mordor. Ultra settings will use it. A gpu the level of a 970/390 has the grunt to do ultra@1080/60, but the 970 hits the vram wall, the 390 won't. So vram limit is an issue there, you have the power for 1080/60 on those settings but can't use it
Dying light -Can't remember
Rise of the tomb raider, uses >4GB at very high texture settings. Makes almost no difference in performance at all, a 970/390 level card isn't getting a constant 60, either way. So may as well take them.
Lords of the fallen, can't remember.

So yeah, mostly very high, but would be playable on that level card if not for the vram usage.

Either way, high texture on a lot on a lot of games are also getting over 3GB (you see stuttering in a fair few games with 780 now). I don't see the vram trend reversing anytime soon, and the op wants to keep the card for a while, so a card with only what is essentially only 3.5GB of vram is madness.

I'd take a 390 at that price level, they both trade blows with each other in terms of fps and you have the safety net of more vram.

But OP wants 60fps, I don't think 60fps@Ultra is very likely with a 970 even if it had more vram. You may be right that vram is an issue with a 970, I honestly don't know how to tell if it's vram or simply processing power that's bottlenecking. I haven't had much success with Very High/Ultra settings on my 970, it just tends to lower the FPS for not much graphical improvement so I decided that High was the best setting overall. Still I think it's powerful enough to run current games well, might not be the case for games coming in the next 2-3 years though, depending on what kind of games you play.

 

[Armadillo]

But OP wants 60fps, I don't think 60fps@Ultra is very likely with a 970 even if it had more vram. You may be right that vram is an issue with a 970, I honestly don't know how to tell if it's vram or simply processing power that's bottlenecking. I haven't had much success with Very High/Ultra settings on my 970, it just tends to lower the FPS for not much graphical improvement so I decided that High was the best setting overall.

With the vram, easiest way (other than monitor usage, which isn't always accurate anyway) is stuttering. If the fps are just dipping, it's just not enough power. If it's stuttering/pausing etc (fps suddenly dropping really low, the back up etc), then vram.

Shadow of mordor gets 1080/60@ultra. So with a 970 it's 100% possible, just you hit a vram limit. Others like tomb raider, you are not getting 60 not matter what (seriously, the outside areas tank fps for everyone, you can forgot about 60fps on a 390/970 level card), so may as well have more eyecandy if you are not reaching 60 anyway.

And I'm not saying it's a big issue now, but we already have games using >4GB, mostly on very high, but even on high settings a lot of games are now pushing >3GB, getting awfully close to the 3.5GB of the 970, so while not a problem yet, if i wanted to keep the card for a while, like the op does, I'd think very carefully about going with a card with 3.5GB vram, especially when there is one for the same price, that performs much the same, but has 8GB.

 

[dfsa3fdvc1]

IDK what prices are like where you live but I'd suggest you look at a R9 390.
Where I'm at the price for the 390 is less expensive than the Nvidia 970 and the performance is higher and the amount of VRAM more than double.

Better card, costs less.

 

[Originality]

Personally I don't see any real advantages from 770 to 970. There's only one Gen between them, and the next Gen (pascal) is rumoured to be coming out around April. I have a 770 too, but I'll be waiting to see what pascal has to offer before upgrading.

 

[Joe88]

for almost all games "out now" you wont need more than 4GB @ 1920x1080
the problem is the future games, a few games are pushing that 4GB 3.5GB limit now, just cause 3 can use 3.3-3.6GB, skyrim loaded with all the fancy gfx mods uses well over 4GB
and of course once dx12 games start showing up thats when the problems will hit

rotr is just poorly optimized (shitty xb1 port), they will probably never bother to fix it like arkham knight

either wait for the new cards (I doubt they be available in april) or look at amd's offering, or just get a 980/980ti

 

[TotalInsanity4]

I would HIGHLY recommend that you get a 960 with 4GB of VRAM. It may not be the best price/performance but it is most certainly the best type of NVidia card in its price-point

 

[OneUp]

I don't think a 960 would be much if any improvement over a 770. A 970 would be decent, but not a huge improvement either.

Take a look at this from Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
The writer of this hierarchy would recommend only upgrading if you're going 3 tiers higher, otherwise the performance difference would be marginal.

If you're looking for more VRAM and the AMD 390 is cheaper, that could be the better deal for more VRAM.

 

[mgrev]

get some dank stuff from /r/ayymd like a fury nano