GTX 960 4GB worth it?

[dougdangger]

I would not touch anything from AMD at the moment.  Those cards are on their way out.  Going with an R9 290 will require you to purchase a 800watt power supply.  Don't believe any nonsense that the fanboys tell you.  Read the reviews of people who bought the 290 themselves in Newegg.  Their component quality is awful.  Not to mention majority of the low ratings are from dead cards.

 

You can get a GTX 960 now for $170 at Fry's Electronics with a license for The Witcher 3 for free.  If you have a power supply <400 watts you're good to go.

 

R9 280X will still run you $240 and an extra $80 for a beefy power supply if you don't have one.

 

 

I've seen a GTX 970 for $320.  They come with a free code for The Witcher 3 so that saves you about $50 there.  So you're getting a 970 for the price of a 290.  970 > 290.

 

Strictly 1080p gaming the GTX 960 is a good buy for $170.

[Nena Trinity]

I would not touch anything from AMD at the moment.  Those cards are on their way out.  Going with an R9 290 will require you to purchase a 800watt power supply.  Don't believe any nonsense that the fanboys tell you.  Read the reviews of people who bought the 290 themselves in Newegg.  Their component quality is awful.  Not to mention majority of the low ratings are from dead cards.

 

You can get a GTX 960 now for $170 at Fry's Electronics with a license for The Witcher 3 for free.  If you have a power supply <400 watts you're good to go.

 

R9 280X will still run you $240 and an extra $80 for a beefy power supply if you don't have one.

 

 

I've seen a GTX 970 for $320.  They come with a free code for The Witcher 3 so that saves you about $50 there.  So you're getting a 970 for the price of a 290.  970 > 290.

 

Strictly 1080p gaming the GTX 960 is a good buy for $170.

A 290 needs a 650-750w PSU last time I checked. =S

 

And 280X needs a 550W one. =P

 

Well the 970 is pricy but I guess I may have to get it... 

 

960 seems good but many here seems to say it sucks. D=

[Shiro Hagane]

You're better off getting a good R9 280 without the x. All the x is a higher clock speed that can easily be overcloked. A friend of mine was able to get more with an R9 280 than my friend with a GTX 760. Especially for 1080 gaming, it'll be an easy 40 dollars saved. But it is all on your choice.

[Nena Trinity]

You're better off getting a good R9 280 without the x. All the x is a higher clock speed that can easily be overcloked. A friend of mine was able to get more with an R9 280 than my friend with a GTX 760. Especially for 1080 gaming, it'll be an easy 40 dollars saved. But it is all on your choice.

I would love a 280 but Catalyst isnt doing so well in OpenGL... 

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=bioshock-inf-18&num=2

It kinda make me wanna cry. =c

[dougdangger]

[Sam Z Man]

I would not touch anything from AMD at the moment.  Those cards are on their way out.  Going with an R9 290 will require you to purchase a 800watt power supply.  Don't believe any nonsense that the fanboys tell you.  Read the reviews of people who bought the 290 themselves in Newegg.  Their component quality is awful.  Not to mention majority of the low ratings are from dead cards.

 

You can get a GTX 960 now for $170 at Fry's Electronics with a license for The Witcher 3 for free.  If you have a power supply <400 watts you're good to go.

 

R9 280X will still run you $240 and an extra $80 for a beefy power supply if you don't have one.

 

 

I've seen a GTX 970 for $320.  They come with a free code for The Witcher 3 so that saves you about $50 there.  So you're getting a 970 for the price of a 290.  970 > 290.

 

Strictly 1080p gaming the GTX 960 is a good buy for $170.

Okay let me tell you this straight off the bat, your wrong.

You can run a 290 on a 600 watt power supply with headroom to spare.

AMD does not control the quality of the components, that it's strictly done by the board makers they can choses whatever quality of components or layout they wish the only thing that changes is the GPU itself.

You can run a 280X with any 500 watt power supply that has good voltage across the 12 volt rail.

I have seen 290X's constantly come up for 300$ and outperforms the 970 in almost every game.

[Nena Trinity]

Farcry uses SO HOW MUCH VRAM?!!! X__X 4GB is outdated in a year or two... *cries*

 

Okay let me tell you this straight off the bat, your wrong.

You can run a 290 on a 600 watt power supply with headroom to spare.

AMD does not control the quality of the components, that it's strictly done by the board makers they can choses whatever quality of components or layout they wish the only thing that changes is the GPU itself.

You can run a 280X with any 500 watt power supply that has good voltage across the 12 volt rail.

I have seen 290X's constantly come up for 300$ and outperforms the 970 in almost every game.

Geh I told him that to. =)

[Sam Z Man]

You're better off getting a good R9 280 without the x. All the x is a higher clock speed that can easily be overcloked. A friend of mine was able to get more with an R9 280 than my friend with a GTX 760. Especially for 1080 gaming, it'll be an easy 40 dollars saved. But it is all on your choice.

The 280X is not just a overclocked 280

It has more

-shader units

-texture mapping units

-more compute units

[Sam Z Man]

Geh I told him that to. =)

You posted while I was making mine but double the effect is good.

[Nena Trinity]

The 280X is not just a overclocked 280

It has more

-shader units

-texture mapping units

-more compute units

I heard they were preety much same but even OC cant fix that. =D

 

You posted while I was making mine but double the effect is good.

Yeah this page does that...

[dougdangger]

Okay let me tell you this straight off the bat, your wrong.

You can run a 290 on a 600 watt power supply with headroom to spare.

AMD does not control the quality of the components, that it's strictly done by the board makers they can choses whatever quality of components or layout they wish the only thing that changes is the GPU itself.

You can run a 280X with any 500 watt power supply that has good voltage across the 12 volt rail.

I have seen 290X's constantly come up for 300$ and outperforms the 970 in almost every game.

Sorry but you're dead wrong on all accounts.  Even on Mantle optimized games (BF4) the GTX 970 kicks the crap out of the R9 290 with a lead of at least 10fps.

 

Can I power a component with a lower rating than what's suggested?  Sure.  Smart thing?  Nope.

One of the things you would have learned on Computer Building 101 is to not skimp on your power supply.

 

 

Quick energy estimate for the year ($1.4kWh in my city)

AMD R9 290 in a system with a rating of 600 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $873.60 yearly cost.

 

Nvidia GTX 970 in a system with a rating of 400 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $582.40 yearly cost.

 

You're eating up an extra $291 worth of electricity per year with a Radeon card.

I'd rather put that $291 on another 970, SLI the rig and your R9 290 will die of envy.

[Nena Trinity]

Sorry but you're dead wrong on all accounts.  Even on Mantle optimized games (BF4) the GTX 970 kicks the crap out of the R9 290 with a lead of at least 10fps.

 

Can I power a component with a lower rating than what's suggested?  Sure.  Smart thing?  Nope.

One of the things you would have learned on Computer Building 101 is to not skimp on your power supply.

 

 

Quick energy estimate for the year ($1.4kWh in my city)

AMD R9 290 in a system with a rating of 600 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $873.60 yearly cost.

 

Nvidia GTX 970 in a system with a rating of 400 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $582.40 yearly cost.

 

You're eating up an extra $291 worth of electricity per year with a Radeon card.

I'd rather put that $291 on another 970, SLI the rig and your R9 290 will die of envy.

CF/SLI is a waste no matter what.

[heathd]

Sorry but you're dead wrong on all accounts. Even on Mantle optimized games (BF4) the GTX 970 kicks the crap out of the R9 290 with a lead of at least 10fps.

Can I power a component with a lower rating than what's suggested? Sure. Smart thing? Nope.

One of the things you would have learned on Computer Building 101 is to not skimp on your power supply.

Quick energy estimate for the year ($1.4kWh in my city)

AMD R9 290 in a system with a rating of 600 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks $873.60 yearly cost.

Nvidia GTX 970 in a system with a rating of 400 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks $582.40 yearly cost.

You're eating up an extra $291 worth of electricity per year with a Radeon card.

I'd rather put that $291 on another 970, SLI the rig and your R9 290 will die of envy.

Where in the world does a kWh costs 1.4$?

[maizenblue]

The 960's puny memory bandwidth is a potential bottleneck from hell, regardless of how much VRAM it has. I wouldn't touch this card regardless of budget, unless they were giving them away for free.

[heathd]

If I where to guess? North Korea?

But Nvidia has compression tech or is that fan-boy talk? :c

I honestly think the only way you would use the full four gigs of vram on a 960 is if you had two in sli, which is defeating because you could have just purchased a 970

[Nena Trinity]

I honestly think the only way you would use the full four gigs of vram on a 960 is if you had two in sli, which is defeating because you could have just purchased a 970

Then I get 0.5gb more VRAM and well it costs more... Also Ubisoft games seems to use over 3.5GBs of VRAM.

[typographie]

Going with an R9 290 will require you to purchase a 800watt power supply.

 

?!

 

 

-snip-

Both Nvidia's 900 series and AMD's R9 285 use a new form of color compression technology that increases the effective bandwidth of their memory. But the framerate performance you see is the performance after that's already been taken into account. Better just to watch the benchmarks than buy based on abstract technical jargon.

[othertomperson]

but 3GB is a minimum for 1080p going forward (in my own opinion)

 

You're aware that AMD's upcoming Titan competitor, which is very much going after the 4K market, is "only" going to have 4GB HBM?

 

imo if you want more than 2GB vram you should be pushing for a more powerful GPU to go with it such as the 970 or 380X tier. If you get a 280X it should be because you want a 280X, not because you think that vram is a massive issue in this mid tier cards.

[Nena Trinity]

Close, Commiefornia

Oh thats next to North Korea?

 

It's fanboy talk.  Kind of like turbo chargers.  Those things don't really exist.

 

 

?!

 

 

Both Nvidia's 900 series and AMD's R9 285 use a new form of color compression technology that increases the effective bandwidth of their memory. But the framerate performance you see is the performance after that's already been taken into account. Better just to watch the benchmarks than buy based on abstract technical jargon.

So far the 960 seems impressive but 3 years from now?

 

You're aware that AMD's upcoming Titan competitor, which is very much going after the 4K market, is "only" going to have 4GB HBM?

 

imo if you want more than 2GB vram you should be pushing for a more powerful GPU to go with it such as the 970 or 380X tier. If you get a 280X it should be because you want a 280X, not because you think that vram is a massive issue in this mid tier cards.

 

Well the 4GB of HBM is faster in theory lets see how it perform when released!

[dougdangger]

http://kotaku.com/geforce-gtx-960-review-sweet-spot-gpu-or-not-1681640697

 

R9 280 & 280X are both hardly any better than the GTX 960.  Yet both cards are more expensive, consumes more electricity and produces more heat.

 

Looks like Nvidia snuffed out that fire.

[dougdangger]

So far the 960 seems impressive but 3 years from now?

 

Well the 4GB of HBM is faster in theory lets see how it perform when released!

 

GTX 960 may not be impressive in 3 years.  But 1080p won't be the standard by then.  I don't see how that doesn't make sense seeing that most gamers change video cards every 2 years.

[Nena Trinity]

http://kotaku.com/geforce-gtx-960-review-sweet-spot-gpu-or-not-1681640697

 

R9 280 & 280X are both hardly any better than the GTX 960.  Yet both cards are more expensive, consumes more electricity and produces more heat.

 

Looks like Nvidia snuffed out that fire.

Interesting!

 

North Korea and Commiefornia have the same type of leadership.  You know, fascist atheists enslaving people to death.  But we're going too far off tangent.

 

GTX 960 may not be impressive in 3 years.  But 1080p won't be the standard by then.  I don't see how that doesn't make sense seeing that most gamers change video cards every 2 years.

Yeah I am lazy at replacing parts!

[Briggsy]

You're aware that AMD's upcoming Titan competitor, which is very much going after the 4K market, is "only" going to have 4GB HBM?

 

imo if you want more than 2GB vram you should be pushing for a more powerful GPU to go with it such as the 970 or 380X tier. If you get a 280X it should be because you want a 280X, not because you think that vram is a massive issue in this mid tier cards.

 

This is very true, AMD have admitted that up until now they have not bothered optimizing Vram usage in any way, but with the 390x/Free-titan/whatever its called they have now assigned a couple programmers to optimize drivers for Vram use. Whether there is a trickle-down effect across all AMD cards remains to be seen, but clearly that doesn't help any Nvidia cards like a 960. Nvidia will not likely be optimizing Vram usage with the 6/12GB GM200 buffer if they can help it.

 

And yeah. no one with any sense buys a card solely for the Amount of Ram, but it is the only variable with each generation that scales linearly in size, so there is that to consider.

[Sam Z Man]

Sorry but you're dead wrong on all accounts.  Even on Mantle optimized games (BF4) the GTX 970 kicks the crap out of the R9 290 with a lead of at least 10fps.

 

Can I power a component with a lower rating than what's suggested?  Sure.  Smart thing?  Nope.

One of the things you would have learned on Computer Building 101 is to not skimp on your power supply.

 

 

Quick energy estimate for the year ($1.4kWh in my city)

AMD R9 290 in a system with a rating of 600 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $873.60 yearly cost.

 

Nvidia GTX 970 in a system with a rating of 400 watts

4 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $582.40 yearly cost.

 

You're eating up an extra $291 worth of electricity per year with a Radeon card.

I'd rather put that $291 on another 970, SLI the rig and your R9 290 will die of envy.

 

You made me laugh thanks, but here are some real facts.

 

If you are going to compare cards power usage, Use the actual TDP not manufactured numbers.

GTX 970=145 watts

R9 290=250watts

 

Also a 1000 watt power supply will never draw 1000 watts if your components draw 500watts.

 

Energy costs 0.06-0.14$/kWh your estimate of 1.4$ is very inaccurate.

 

ACTUAL energy estimate for the year ($0.09kWh on average)

AMD R9 290 TDP of 250watts

3 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $17.55 yearly cost.

 

Nvidia GTX 970 TDP of 145watts

3 hours of use per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks  $10.179 yearly cost

 

You only use 7.371$ more and that's 3 hours 5 days a week of your gpu running at FULL LOAD the whole time, which never really happens during games so effectively its 4 hours of gaming which is on the high side but I will disregard that.

 

Also if you live in a apartment or are not the one who pays the power bill this argument is completely pointless.

 

So in closing @dougdangger i have a few tips for you.

-Stop being a incompetent fool 

-Look into things before making a post about it

-Present accurate numbers and facts

[Shiro Hagane]

The 280X is not just a overclocked 280

It has more

-shader units

-texture mapping units

-more compute units

Oh really? Thats actually very interesting to know.