Building a new rig : 980 or 970 ?

[Monarch]

Why not 390 or 390X?

 

390 > 970

390 < 980

390X > 980

390 cost a bit more than 970.

390X is cheaper than 980.

 

Incorrect.

 

970 < 390(X) (due to heavily OCed memory and higher core clocks compared to 290X)

980 > 390(X)

 

OCed 970 ≥ OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

OCed 970 ≥ 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

[EJ993]

I would agree that 970 is the best value, but its just silly when people say that 980 is just pointless. Actually 980 and 980ti has same price/performance ratio.

Other thing is that everyone is saying that 970 is enough for 1080p, and thats wrong. I have 980 which is overclocked to 1500mhz and I still cant max gta 5 and get 60fps constantly, I dont even think you could max gta with 980ti (with msaa). Other example is wither 3, I have every setting on ultra, also aa turned on, and most of the time im getting 50fps on 1080p, sometimes it drops to like 35-40fps. So I would image that with 970 it would drop to below 30fps, which is unplayable. 

At the end of the day, I would say get the best single gpu you can afford.

 

Oh, and what about 390x? How much can you oc? Not much, really. Other disadvantage is that uses 3sli slots. Im not even mentioning huge power consumption, noise and heat it produces....

[EJ993]

Incorrect.

 

970 > 390

970 < 390X (due to heavily OCed memory and higher core clocks compared to 290X)

980 > 390X

 

OCed 970 > OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

OCed 970 ≥ 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

It should look like this

 

OCed 970 > OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

OCed 970 < 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

[nims0c]

OCed 970 > OCed 390

 

Can you link some benchmarks to support this? I was under the impression from Jayz new video that they were about equal.

[Nena Trinity]

Incorrect.

 

970 < 390(X) (due to heavily OCed memory and higher core clocks compared to 290X)

980 > 390X

 

OCed 970 > OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

OCed 970 ≥ 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

Nvidia cards+OC=Pink screen and no more sound...

[typographie]

8 GB (is it Gb ?) of RAM (CAS 7)

 

GB is correct. Ideally, uppercase B is "bytes," lowercase b is "bits," though not everyone is so strict about it. One byte is eight bits.

 

RAM is usually measured in bytes, whereas transfer speeds are usually expressed in bits. Data is data, though, so it would be technically correct (though unusual) to say you have 64 Gigabits of RAM rather than 8 Gigabytes.

[Monarch]

It should look like this

 

OCed 970 > OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

 

Incorrect.

 

970 < 390(X) (due to heavily OCed memory and higher core clocks compared to 290X)

980 > 390X

 

OCed 970 > OCed 390

OCed 970 ≥  OCed 390X 

OCed 970 ≥ 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

 

OCed 970 < 980

OCed 980 > OCed 970

 

No, OCed 970 will be as fast as stock 980, or faster than 980 if you overclock it to ~1580 Mhz, ~8000 Mhz memory.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7555258

This is my 970 at 1582/7650. Got crapphy Hynix memory so cant reach 8000 Mhz.

 

This is what 970 with memory at 8000 Mhz can do:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7558491?

It was posted by someone in LTT 3DMark thread in the graphics cards section.

 

This is 970 at 1609/2120:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4608620

Source: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/212222-ltt-3dmark-thread/page-82#entry5070456

 

 

Now to compare that to 390X. This is guru3d's review:

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=16423

 

ANd this is OCed G1 980, guru3d's review:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_g1_gaming_review,26.html

 

 

The reason why I said 970 is greater than or equal to OCed 390/390X was because it's known that most 970's OC well. We don't know yet if most 390(X)'s OC that well, or it's just reviewers that got good chips.

[antoine5555]

I have never overclocked anything before. I would be interested in that, but I would have to take serious lessons before, to avoid damaging a 970 or a 980. I'd say that I would like a card that will allow me to play games on high, maybe ultra, right out of the box, and only in a few years maybe, when it starts to be limited, consider overclocking.

 

I will play various games : GTA 5, BF4, Arma III, Skyrim, Far Cry 4, F1 2015, Minecraft... There isn't just one type of game I will be playing.

 

I'm surprised to hear that an OCed 980 won't be enough for GTA 5 in maw settings. I know these kinds of games are very demanding, but GTA 5 in max settings would be a thrill for me.

 

I'm gonna try and sum up what has been said so far, even if some of you don't agree on certain things : a 970 hardly matches a 980, but would be enough to play the best games out there, even though it might mean a small loss in performance. It also represents the best bang for the buck. A 980 would be more powerful, but on a 1080p monitor, and without overclocking, wouldn't give a much noticeable difference, at least not enough to pay the extra price. On the AMD side, a 390 or 390x would be in between a 970 and a 980, though some of you may not agree with this.

 

I hope I made a good summary, it's hard to get a clear answer.

 

So far, here is what I can say then : a 970 would be good enough if I don't mind losing a bit of performance. But my guess is this : with a 980 I would have a longer time ahead of me before I need to upgrade my system, whether it is by overclocking the card or by changing it completely.

 

In other words, a 970 is good enough for current games, while a 980 will be better for games to come in a few years. Does what I just said make any sense ?

 

Considering that I probably won't change my system for quite a while, a 980, despite its price, might be a better fit in the long run then.

 

EDIT : Thanks Typographie for the explanaition. I knew there was a difference between GB and Gb, I just didn't knew which one was what.

 

Thanks for the links Monarch. I will look into that ;-)

[Monarch]

Can you link some benchmarks to support this? I was under the impression from Jayz new video that they were about equal.

 

Edited my original post. It should be ≥.

And the reason I said ≥ was because we know for sure Maxwell cards OC well and I've seen 970's reaching around 14.5k graphics score. I've never seen any 390/390X getting such a high score yet.

[Monarch]

I have never overclocked anything before. I would be interested in that, but I would have to take serious lessons before, to avoid damaging a 970 or a 980. 

 

You can't damage them. The only way to damage them would be to raise the voltage too high, but that's impossible as the voltage can only be increased by 87 mV. 

 

 

I'm surprised to hear that an OCed 980 won't be enough for GTA 5 in maw settings. I know these kinds of games are very demanding, but GTA 5 in max settings would be a thrill for me.

 

If you turn down grass quality and advanced settings, you could max out everything else in GTA 5 with a 980. Ultra grass quality and advanced settings are way to demanding on hardware, not even 980 Ti SLI could run them at smooth 60 fps. And they don't make the game look much better anyway.

 

 

I'm gonna try and sum up what has been said so far, even if some of you don't agree on certain things : a 970 hardly matches a 980, but would be enough to play the best games out there, even though it might mean a small loss in performance. It also represents the best bang for the buck. A 980 would be more powerful, but on a 1080p monitor, and without overclocking, wouldn't give a much noticeable difference, at least not enough to pay the extra price. On the AMD side, a 390 or 390x would be in between a 970 and a 980, though some of you may not agree with this.

 

Stock 970 is slower than 980, but OCed it will match the 980, and if you're lucky and get a good chip even beat it. Everything else is correct.

 

 

So far, here is what I can say then : a 970 would be good enough if I don't mind losing a bit of performance. But my guess is this : with a 980 I would have a longer time ahead of me before I need to upgrade my system, whether it is by overclocking the card or by changing it completely.

 

In other words, a 970 is good enough for current games, while a 980 will be better for games to come in a few years. Does what I just said make any sense ?

 

 

980 is a bit more future-proof, you could say that because it's pretty fast, especially OCed, and it has full speed 4GB VRAM, unlike 970 which has 3.5 GB full speed, and then last 512 MB significantly slower, which pretty much makes the extra 512 MBs useless.

970 is just not good enough to max current games, like GTA V, Witcher 3. Unless you OC it to perform as good as a 980. 

 

 

Considering that I probably won't change my system for quite a while, a 980, despite its price, might be a better fit in the long run then.

 

General consensus is that 980's price tag does not justify the performance you get compared to 970. But if you OC it, and most Maxwell cards OC very well, I think it is worth it. No OCed 970 will yield 15k+ graphics score, and only the very best 970's can hit more than 14k graphics score in Firestrike.

 

Now, we've discussed graphics scores in Firestrike benchmark, but there's much more to a GPU than that. Consider driver support, features like Gsync/Freesync, etc.

The issue with AMD is that their DX11 driver has huge CPU overhead. Meaning, you need a faster CPU to get the same FPS as with an Nvidia equivalent card. One more thing to note is, last 3 drivers from Nvidia have been unstable. There are ton of complains online. I don't know if they'll fix the issue soon, but their driver support got worse. AMD's driver support is crap as well and has been since forever. 

 

Power consumption and heat output is another thing to consider.

 

[antoine5555]

Ok then, I see things more clearly now, and I have to thank you all for that. You guys have an incredible community ! :-)

 

So I think my choice is done : I will go for a 980. It is more future proof, which is a good thing for me. On top of that, I am currently using a crappy laptop which makes gaming impossible (well it is possible if I don't mind temperatures around 150 °C and 2 fps...). I've been using this computer for several years and I can't take it anymore. So, even if a 980 doesn't have the best value, and could be a bit overkill, consider this me doing myself a little treat after enduring bad performances for a long time ;-)

 

It all comes down to the choice of the card now. I think I'll go with this :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834

 

It raises other questions though : will the 600W PSU I selected be enough with such a monster ? Is a Core i5 good enough, or am I better off with a Core i7 ? I will look into that.

 

I really want to thank you all for your help. I will order the components for my new computer in a month or two when money is here, so feel free to add more to the debate, I'd be glad to read what you have to say ;-)

[Anonymous1b]

Ok then, I see things more clearly now, and I have to thank you all for that. You guys have an incredible community ! :-)

 

So I think my choice is done : I will go for a 980. It is more future proof, which is a good thing for me. On top of that, I am currently using a crappy laptop which makes gaming impossible (well it is possible if I don't mind temperatures around 150 °C and 2 fps...). I've been using this computer for several years and I can't take it anymore. So, even if a 980 doesn't have the best value, and could be a bit overkill, consider this me doing myself a little treat after enduring bad performances for a long time ;-)

 

It all comes down to the choice of the card now. I think I'll go with this :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834

 

It raises other questions though : will the 600W PSU I selected be enough with such a monster ? Is a Core i5 good enough, or am I better off with a Core i7 ? I will look into that.

 

I really want to thank you all for your help. I will order the components for my new computer in a month or two when money is here, so feel free to add more to the debate, I'd be glad to read what you have to say ;-)

 

That's a wise decision overall but I will AGAIN tell you to not buy the 144Hz. Maxing out all the setting means you'll probably only get around 75fps in the more demanding games and you might as well play on a 60Hz monitor.

 

As for i5 vs i7, obviously the i7 is more powerful as far as raw performance is concerned but since you probably won't use it for video editing and so on (will you?), for gaming the differences might be minute. There is, however, a caveat. A lot of games are first coded for consoles and then ported to the PC. With current consoles having eight cores, games are far more optimised for eight cores. An i5 and an i7 both have four cores but i5's don't have hyperthreading, while i7's do (it basically allows one core to work on two threads simultaneously, thus giving you eight you virtual cores). As such, in the near future, an i7, with eight cores, might give greater dividends than an i5 (though, at the time, from a gaming perspective only, the difference isn't too much).

 

As far as I know (I'm building my own PC for the first time so this is from the suggestions I've got from others) a 600W power supply will be fine for a 980 with an i7.

[Monarch]

Ok then, I see things more clearly now, and I have to thank you all for that. You guys have an incredible community ! :-)

 

So I think my choice is done : I will go for a 980. It is more future proof, which is a good thing for me. On top of that, I am currently using a crappy laptop which makes gaming impossible (well it is possible if I don't mind temperatures around 150 °C and 2 fps...). I've been using this computer for several years and I can't take it anymore. So, even if a 980 doesn't have the best value, and could be a bit overkill, consider this me doing myself a little treat after enduring bad performances for a long time ;-)

 

It all comes down to the choice of the card now. I think I'll go with this :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834

 

It raises other questions though : will the 600W PSU I selected be enough with such a monster ? Is a Core i5 good enough, or am I better off with a Core i7 ? I will look into that.

 

I really want to thank you all for your help. I will order the components for my new computer in a month or two when money is here, so feel free to add more to the debate, I'd be glad to read what you have to say ;-)

 

Definitely go for the i7. My i5 hits 100% on all 4 cores in GTA 5, my 970 gets bottlenecked in such CPU-bound situations and I get microstuttering. It's not too bad, but latest titles, especially open world ones like GTA V are CPU heavy. And you said you wanted to get a 144 Hz monitor, so you're going to want as much fps as you can get, so you need both good CPU and GPU. 600W is plenty for an i7 + 980, and you could even overclock them. Just make sure you get a good quality PSU.

[antoine5555]

The PSU I picked is a 600W FSP Fortron. I've read they are quite good, though the one I picked, the Hyper 600W, is only 80 PLUS.

 

A Core i7 would be the best choice then, duly noted. I don't plan on doing video editing or else, but just like the 980, an i7 might be more future proof.

 

A friend of mine has a 144 Hz monitor, so I'll test my pc on it and see if it is really necessary.

 

Monarch, how much RAM do you have ? As I said in my first post, I plan to take 8 GB CAS7 memory. I read everywhere that this is enough for current games. Is it ?

[Anonymous1b]

The PSU I picked is a 600W FSP Fortron. I've read they are quite good, though the one I picked, the Hyper 600W, is only 80 PLUS.

 

A Core i7 would be the best choice then, duly noted. I don't plan on doing video editing or else, but just like the 980, an i7 might be more future proof.

 

A friend of mine has a 144 Hz monitor, so I'll test my pc on it and see if it is really necessary.

 

Monarch, how much RAM do you have ? As I said in my first post, I plan to take 8 GB CAS7 memory. I read everywhere that this is enough for current games. Is it ?

 

 

Currently, yes, that would be enough but since consoles, too, have 8GB of RAM and PC games are far bigger - and more complex - than their console counterparts, you should invest in 12-16GB. Of course, it also depends on your usage. I have a bazillion tabs open simultaneously so even 8 GB is, at times, not enough for me, while for a lot of people, it's overkill. Overall, though, getting more than 8 would be the way to go, especially since you're aiming to future proof your computer.

[antoine5555]

Thanks for the advice Anonymouse1b.

 

Considering that current games will run perfectly with 8GB of RAM, I'm gonna go for it. And later, when I need more, I will upgrade my RAM.

 

I'd rather save money on the RAM now to spend more on the graphics card. Upgrading the graphics card will be way more expensive than upgrading the RAM.

 

I made the same choice with my HDD. I first picked a 2TB HDD, considering that I store a lot of things on my computer. But instead, I went for a 1TB HDD, thinking that this will be enough to begin with, and later on buy another one. That's money that I can spend elsewhere.

 

By the way, I also picked a 120GB SDD from samsung, but I'm thinking of maybe taking the 250GB model.

[maizenblue]

I think some people get too carried away with the price to performance argument on the 970 and kind of miss the point.

 

If the 980 is what you need to get a minimum of 60 fps at the resolution and settings you game at on the games you play, and you have the money for it, that is the card to get.

 

It doesn't matter if a 970 is a great deal if it cant quite achieve what you want. If the next higher up card can, then go with that card if you can afford it. There may be circumstances where the 970 just doesn't quite cut it but the 980 barely does.

 

Case in point, playing bf4 on ultra settings at 1440p. The 970 is going to struggle and you will see FPS drops below 60 frequently. The 980 has just enough extra power to barely get it done. It doesn't matter if you can OC a 970 to same speed of a reference 980, because you can also OC a 980 to maintain the same gap, so the same performance gap remains, and in the bf4 example, you probably need that 980 OC to keep above 60 fps.

 

To me, minimum FPS are whats important. Maximum FPS is meaningless and average is only good for comparing overall performance of two cards.

[antoine5555]

If the 980 is what you need to get a minimum of 60 fps at the resolution and settings you game at on the games you play, and you have the money for it, that is the card to get.

 

You make a good point here. This is what I'm gonna do. Indeed, it might be overpriced, but it gives me the performance I need, is more future proof than the 970 and I can afford it.

[Prysin]

970 most bang for the buck at 1080

wrong. 390 is.

 

 

@antoine5555

in your case, the options should be

 

Max performance 980

Cheaper, but almost 980 performance - 390X

best 300 USD card - 390

 

970 is slightly (5-10%) behind the 390, but it costs the EXACT SAME. Yes you can overclock a 970 massively, but you can overclock the 390 too. And tests have shown that when overclocked, the 390 and 970 is still trading blows. Either way, 390 has 8GB of Vram, thus it is slightly more future proof then the 970. I say slightly, because you can just turn down a few settings at 1080p and still use the 970 for the next 3 years. OR you can leave the settings at max and use the 390.... Atleast the 390 wont ever get memory limited (cuz it will run out of GPU horsepower before it manages to use all the memory in the first place)

[antoine5555]

I didn't know the 390X had 8GB of VRAM. That's interesting, especially for the price. I'll have to consider that. Thanks ! :-)

 

The endless battle between Nvidia and AMD... ^^

 

Some people seem to think there are more problems with AMD, that Nvidia cards are more stable. I guess it comes down to personnal experience.

 

Not having any with either of these two brands, your help is greatly appreciated ;-)

[Michael Ray]

If you're looking into gaming, the 980Ti and the 970 offer the best value. The Ti provides even up to a 35% increase in performance in some games. The 970 on the other hand, is way cheaper than the 980 bit you only lose about 10-15% of performance. So, either you pony up for a 980Ti or take the 970. Since your gaming on 1080p, the 970 will absolutely crush Any game on even Ultra settings so that's the one you should go for but you Olean to upgrade your monitor, then in terms of future proofing, you might want something faster.

Oh, and also, get an i7, if possible, because with consoles now having 8 cores, it will pray huge dividends, probably, in the future to have a processor with the same number of cores.

Current consoles do not have 8-Cores going towards gaming applications. Maybe, 5-6 Cores. Also, these are very weak "Jaguar" Cores in which 4-Cores clocked at 1.6-1.75Ghz cant even touch a Intel i3. Pretty sure even a Intel i3-41XX will destroy those 8-Cores Jaguar Cores even if they are efficiently used. The Alienware Alpha and its i3 have proven that already.  

[TheConverter]

980ti

 

Because everything else from Nvidia is pretty shit compared to what AMD offers now.

[TheConverter]

I think some people get too carried away with the price to performance argument on the 970 and kind of miss the point.

 

If the 980 is what you need to get a minimum of 60 fps at the resolution and settings you game at on the games you play, and you have the money for it, that is the card to get.

 

It doesn't matter if a 970 is a great deal if it cant quite achieve what you want. If the next higher up card can, then go with that card if you can afford it. There may be circumstances where the 970 just doesn't quite cut it but the 980 barely does.

 

Case in point, playing bf4 on ultra settings at 1440p. The 970 is going to struggle and you will see FPS drops below 60 frequently. The 980 has just enough extra power to barely get it done. It doesn't matter if you can OC a 970 to same speed of a reference 980, because you can also OC a 980 to maintain the same gap, so the same performance gap remains, and in the bf4 example, you probably need that 980 OC to keep above 60 fps.

 

To me, minimum FPS are whats important. Maximum FPS is meaningless and average is only good for comparing overall performance of two cards.

 

Then set the AA from 4X to 2X because nobody sees it while going rambo in multiplayer.

 

Or even better, set the graphics to high,aa off,hbao off and get that juicy fps 

 

Luckily my 980Ti does 144fps @ 1440p Ultra 2X aa

[Anonymous1b]

Current consoles do not have 8-Cores going towards gaming applications. Maybe, 5-6 Cores. Also, these are very weak "Jaguar" Cores in which 4-Cores clocked at 1.6-1.75Ghz cant even touch a Intel i3. Pretty sure even a Intel i3-41XX will destroy those 8-Cores Jaguar Cores even if they are efficiently used. The Alienware Alpha and its i3 have proven that already.  

 

I didn't say that the processor in consoles was more powerful - or that consoles will have better computation simply because they have 8 cores, as opposed to the 4 in an i5. I was talking about optimisation. When they make a game, the console is their top priority. As such, since the previous generation only had a few cores, that's what they coded for and, even if your PC had a billion cores, they often didn't even bother to make sure that your PC would use as many of the cores as you had. If the console had two, your PC would use two, even if you had a billion. With current consoles having 8, most games are optimised for 8. So, the games are better optimised for 8 cores vs. 4 cores, regardless of how powerful each core is. Thus, during the last generation of consoles, having more cores in an i7 did not yield any significant benefits (because either they were not being used anyway or [read the next paragraph]), and games are mostly not CPU bound anyways so the difference between an i5 and an i7 was almost negligible in terms of your frame rate. With this generation, that might change.

 

And, it goes beyond mere utilisation. Not only were the extra cores not used in the previous generation but there's also more to it than just enabling the extra cores. They have subroutines, task scheduling, queues and so on which will now all be optimised for 8 cores. That is what will, possibly, allow you to squeeze a lot more performance out of an i7 today than you did during the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.

[antoine5555]

TheConverter : that's what I was talking about. There are so many people out their that LOVE Nvidia, and others who LOVE AMD. My guess is that it all comes down to personnal experience.

 

Maybe instead of just saying that what Nvidia does is shit, you could explain to us your point of you. Why do you think that way ?

 

Also, as I said earlier, even though a 980ti would be great, it is out of my price range, so I won't even consider buying it.

 

About consoles now : what I understand Anonymouse1b, is that a Core i7 is better, not because it is more powerful, but better optimized, is that it ?

 

Many people seem to think that a Core i7 is not necessary, and that a Core i5 is more than sufficient, at least with current games. But an i7 would be better for games to come, as developers will work more and more on those 8 Cores CPU we find in the PS4 and Xbox One.