Should I get GTX 970 (and which one?) on i5 4460

[GarfieldsField]

I have i5 4460 and 8 GB RAM.

 

I need GPU because I was using one integrated in CPU and was not happy with it. First I was thinking getting GTX 750ti, seemed pretty good. Great value (around 1200,00 in my currency), and not too shabby performance. Then GTX 950 came out. Seemed great option for a little bit more money (1600,00). Then people suggested me to get GTX 960 because it is more complete card (around 2200,00 for 4GB one). And now I have money for GTX 970 (around 3000,00)

 

So I got from buying GTX 750ti (1200,00) to getting GTX 970 (3000,00).

 

Is that insane or should I do it?

 

Is performance worth that price gap?

 

Is my little CPU good enough or should I stick to 950/960?

 

I've used to hear great stuff about GTX 970, but now people seem to not like it that much (I know about 3,5GB fiasco). It seems that it is not great. And people are saying things alongside with that it will be worthless in next year or two. Month ago I was dreaming about having 970 one day, but after reading some comments I'm not sure anymore.

 

If you would recommend it to me, what brand should I go with? (MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte) 

 

I will play 1080p at least next two years. I'm filthy casual and dont care (or have monitor) for 1440p+

 

Thanks!

[Samppa221]

Your cpu is enough even for a gtx 980 so yes

 

I would say get the Gigabyte G1 if you can

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's a good card. The CPU will easily handle it. 

 

An R9 390 will perform a bit better though. 

 

The 3.5GB vRAM "Issue" has been over exaggerated. At 1080p, it's not an issue, at least not for now. 

 

EDIT: And really, all the 970s are good, or at least not bad. Gigabyte's G1 is the best performing I believe, but it's not by much.

[ind3x]

Your CPU won't be a bottleneck, and i do suggest going for a powerful graphics card.

I honestly wouldn't suggest the 970 anymore, but rather the new 390 from AMD.

It's value is better than the 970, and early tests show that amd cards fare better with dx12.

[p3acefrog]

I have i5 4460 and 8 GB RAM.

 

I need GPU because I was using one integrated in CPU and was not happy with it. First I was thinking getting GTX 750ti, seemed pretty good. Great value (around 1200,00 in my currency), and not too shabby performance. Then GTX 950 came out. Seemed great option for a little bit more money (1600,00). Then people suggested me to get GTX 960 because it is more complete card (around 2200,00 for 4GB one). And now I have money for GTX 970 (around 3000,00)

 

So I got from buying GTX 750ti (1200,00) to getting GTX 970 (3000,00).

 

Is that insane or should I do it?

 

Is performance worth that price gap?

 

Is my little CPU good enough or should I stick to 950/960?

 

I've used to hear great stuff about GTX 970, but now people seem to not like it that much (I know about 3,5GB fiasco). It seems that it is not great. And people are saying things alongside with that it will be worthless in next year or two. Month ago I was dreaming about having 970 one day, but after reading some comments I'm not sure anymore.

 

If you would recommend it to me, what brand should I go with? (MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte) 

 

I will play 1080p at least next two years. I'm filthy casual and dont care (or have monitor) for 1440p+

 

Thanks!

I have the 970 strix by asus i like it. The temptures stay solid at 57-62 never more never less. the fanless run when not in use it beautiful. The card comes with a back plate and looks sharp as hell. it  comes with higher clock speed then reguluar ones as well

[Oshino Shinobu]

 

It's value is better than the 970, and early tests show that amd cards fare better with dx12.

I wouldn't focus on this too much. It's too early to tell how DX12 will affect performance, both for AMD and Nvidia (and Intel). By the time games start releasing with DX12 support, we should see a new series of cards, most likely with full DX12 support, not the 11_1 support most cards have right now. 

 

It will also depend on the individual game for how it performs. They still have to optimise and implement proper support for it. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

I have i5 4460 and 8 GB RAM.

 

I need GPU because I was using one integrated in CPU and was not happy with it. First I was thinking getting GTX 750ti, seemed pretty good. Great value (around 1200,00 in my currency), and not too shabby performance. Then GTX 950 came out. Seemed great option for a little bit more money (1600,00). Then people suggested me to get GTX 960 because it is more complete card (around 2200,00 for 4GB one). And now I have money for GTX 970 (around 3000,00)

 

So I got from buying GTX 750ti (1200,00) to getting GTX 970 (3000,00).

 

Is that insane or should I do it?

 

Is performance worth that price gap?

 

Is my little CPU good enough or should I stick to 950/960?

 

I've used to hear great stuff about GTX 970, but now people seem to not like it that much (I know about 3,5GB fiasco). It seems that it is not great. And people are saying things alongside with that it will be worthless in next year or two. Month ago I was dreaming about having 970 one day, but after reading some comments I'm not sure anymore.

 

If you would recommend it to me, what brand should I go with? (MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte) 

 

I will play 1080p at least next two years. I'm filthy casual and dont care (or have monitor) for 1440p+

 

Thanks!

 

The GTX 970 is an amazing card. This card alone completely changed the GPU market last year and is the reason you can get AMD 90-series cards for around the $300+ price point in the US (not sure what they go for where you are). The only game I can't get 60 fps locked at ultra right now on my 970 is Witcher 3, which I play at a hybrid of ultra and high to stay around 60 fps. If you need just one illustration of how awesome the GTX 970 is, before it launched late last September the AMD R9 290 was $400 in the US. A little more than a month later you could get the R9 290 for $220 US. Sure, it's not the 980 Ti, but it's an extremely powerful GPU for 1080p gaming. I have had mine for nine months and it's gotta be my favorite piece of computer hardware I have ever had. 

 

Anyways, the 970 is enormously more powerful than the 750 Ti. It's like comparing a Dodge Charger to a Kia.

[GarfieldsField]

Thank you for quick responses.

 

I know R9 390 is (slightly?) better, but I would like go with GTX because of power consumption.

 

It is not problem for me to trim down quality a bit to play with stable FPS on 1080p. Hell, I will go to 1600x900 if I have to.

 

I was mostly wondering will gtx 970 last me for  about 2 years. To play old and new games on 1080p (even on 900p)...

 

Fallout 4?

[Oshino Shinobu]

Thank you for quick responses.

 

I know R9 390 is (slightly?) better, but I would like go with GTX because of power consumption.

 

It is not problem for me to trim down quality a bit to play with stable FPS on 1080p. Hell, I will go to 1600x900 if I have to.

 

I was mostly wondering will gtx 970 last me for  about 2 years. To play old and new games on 1080p (even on 900p)...

 

Fallout 4?

Yes, it should be. Not on max settings for two years, but just to be able to play them, yes. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

Thank you for quick responses.

 

I know R9 390 is (slightly?) better, but I would like go with GTX because of power consumption.

 

It is not problem for me to trim down quality a bit to play with stable FPS on 1080p. Hell, I will go to 1600x900 if I have to.

 

I was mostly wondering will gtx 970 last me for  about 2 years. To play old and new games on 1080p (even on 900p)...

 

Fallout 4?

 

The differences between the R9 390 and GTX 970 at reference clocks are pretty minimal at 1080p. Some games the 970 is stronger (Withcer 3, GTA V), while others the 390 is better (Far Cry 4, Shadow of Mordor), though in the games where the 390 is stronger the difference is usually bigger than in the ones where the 970 is. At 1440p the R9 390 is unquestionably the better GPU, but at 1080p the 390 and 970 are so closely matched that it could come down to the silicon lottery (e.g. how far you can overclock) to determine which would give you better performance.

 

There isn't a game out where you'd need to drop to 1600x900, not even close. And with Witcher 3 looking like it's the new Crysis 3, I doubt there will be a game for the next couple of years where you'd even consider going to 1600x900. I also wouldn't sweat the VRAM difference. Witcher 3 is perhaps the best looking game on PC right now and on my 970 it's usually using about 1.8 GB at a mix of ultra and high settings even with AA on. So that really tells me all that extra VRAM usage in other games probably isn't all that necessary if Witcher 3 can provide the visuals it does in less than 2GB. I have always heard that most games don't seem to perform any better at 1080p with more than 2GB of VRAM, that it's the strength of your GPU chip(s) that matter, and Witcher 3 really drives that point home.

[GarfieldsField]

I'm gonna get 970.

 

Which one?

 

I could get (and my concerns):

 

Gigabyte G1 Gaming 4GB

-Hynix memory instead of Samsung

-s lot of game crashes, black screens, doas

-coil whine

-fans always spinning

 

MSI Gaming 

-coil whine

-artifacting after few weeks

 

Asus Strix

-loud coil whine and chirping

-overall worst build quality

 

It seems that G1 has worst reviews on newegg and similar sites.

[TravisTea]

I used to have the G1 and it had some issues.. Like bad stuttering in games when it wasn't even intensive. I think they have bad batches of that card. I ended up getting rid of it and taking a loss because Gigabyte didn't want to do squat about it.

[Sammael]

I think you should get this instead, dx12 is coming, and if you want to keep the card for 2 years, it should yield better results based off the stuff we are hearing.  People telling you otherwise just prefer nvidia like I prefer amd, but that will probably lead you to a worse outcome performance wise.

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125805

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202148

 

No one here thinks the 970 is a better performing card overall, and the early info on future dx12 titles suggests better legs with amd's cards.  You'll be ok either way, but better off with the 390.

[MichaelTechTalk]

I'm not sure why its speculated that a GTX 970 will last you 2 years before needing to upgrade because thats not sure. The only reason we had to upgrade so soon previous generation was the redundancy of bad ports to PC. That's not the case anymore because of DirectX 12 regardless of rather the game is fully optimised using all DX12 advancements.

[RyGuy99]

At 1440p the R9 390 is unquestionably the better GPU, but at 1080p the 390 and 970 are so closely matched that it could come down to the silicon lottery (e.g. how far you can overclock) to determine which would give you better performance.

Yeah most benchmarks do show an huge improvement of fps with the 390 at 1440p or higher. It's interesting to note though that Jayz Sapphire Nitro video showed them performing extremely similarly even at 4K. Granted both cards were at pretty bad overclocks..

As for suggestions on 970 cards I'd check out the 970 club thread. Most will probably say MSI or Gigabyte as those have the best overclocking potential (usually) and are the best ones built to last. Typically they say to stay away from EVGA unless you want the better customer service and RMA service. Especially the SSC versions arent known to overclock well (stuck in the mid 1400s).

Yes there are issues on both sides but if your like me you could end up with the lesser of the issues...or you could have more lol.

My experience with the G1 gaming has been great. No coil whine (except every once a while in the FIFA 15 main menu) excellent overclocking (1582 mhz and 500+ on my memory). And that is stock voltage! I've got a stable overclock at 1603 with 20+ voltage and temps are still really great on air!

I can't say I would choose a 390 over my card right now. Granted I haven't used a 390 to see the difference in my system. I get vram usage of 4gb sometimes and haven't seen any performance drops even when upscaling to 1440p and 4K. But that's for my setup. Everyone differs so find out what you are playing and what you are using as a monitor to find what fits YOU.

[SteveGrabowski0]

As for suggestions on 970 cards I'd check out the 970 club thread. Most will probably say MSI or Gigabyte as those have the best overclocking potential (usually) and are the best ones built to last. Typically they say to stay away from EVGA unless you want the better customer service and RMA service. Especially the SSC versions arent known to overclock well (stuck in the mid 1400s).

 

I have heard the SSCs overclock pretty well. I was asking on the EVGA forums and most people seem to be able to get them to 1500 MHz, as the SSC models have much better power delivery (6+2 phases). The original ACX 2.0 models like the SC are the ones that are crap overclockers with their 4+2 phase power. The highest stable boost clock I can set is 1367 MHz, though it goes to a stable 1418 MHz in gaming from GPU Boost 2.0.

[D2ultima]

The 3.5GB vRAM "Issue" has been over exaggerated. At 1080p, it's not an issue unless you have multiple monitors and play in borderless windowed or other windowed modes and use Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, where the excess OS vRAM coupled with some vRAM-hungry games like Dying Light can cause lots of problems. 

I fixed it for you.

[TheConverter]

The 3.5GB vRAM "Issue" has been over exaggerated. At 1080p, it's not an issue, at least not for now. 

 

 

No. Just no. 

 

"You can never have to much ammo VRAM"

[TheConverter]

I fixed it for you.

I can use 8GB of vram on a single 1080p monitor if I want

Can't wait to get my hands on a 16GB or 32GB  GTX 1080 with HBM V2 for that sweet 8K and 16K gaming.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I fixed it for you.

 

I had Dying Light at 3.7 GB usage at 1080p on version 1.2, and it was still really smooth on my EVGA GTX 970 SC at the factory 1316 MHz boost clock. Patch 1.4 and beyond really cut down the VRAM usage though, at the same settings I'd use about 2.8 GB. My settings were everything maxed at 1080p other than shadow map size, which I set to high because very high caused a CPU bottleneck if you didn't have an overclocked i5/i7 (my CPU is a locked E3-1231v3).

[RyGuy99]

I have heard the SSCs overclock pretty well. I was asking on the EVGA forums and most people seem to be able to get them to 1500 MHz, as the SSC models have much better power delivery (6+2 phases). The original ACX 2.0 models like the SC are the ones that are crap overclockers with their 4+2 phase power. The highest stable boost clock I can set is 1367 MHz, though it goes to a stable 1418 MHz in gaming from GPU Boost 2.0.

Ah yeah that makes sense. Still despite that I've heard of the better overclocks mostly being with the FTW versions and not many from the SSCs. Interesting enough a lot the first 970 vs 390 videos had EVGA SSCs around 1440 mhz versus 390s around 1200mhz. I saw very little other 970 comparisons.

[D2ultima]

I had Dying Light at 3.7 GB usage at 1080p on version 1.2, and it was still really smooth on my EVGA GTX 970 SC at the factory 1316 MHz boost clock. Patch 1.4 and beyond really cut down the VRAM usage though, at the same settings I'd use about 2.8 GB. My settings were everything maxed at 1080p other than shadow map size, which I set to high because very high caused a CPU bottleneck if you didn't have an overclocked i5/i7 (my CPU is a locked E3-1231v3).

I don't know how your vRAM reporting tool managed to show 3.7GB of vRAM because according to nVidia, third party vRAM reporting tools do not know how to read/show usage from the final 512MB section. Technically, your 970 should never pass 3580MB of vRAM utilized in any reporting tool such as GPU-Z.

 

Unless you're on Windows 10, where vRAM usage is erroneously reported (I've gotten no indication that the errors have been fixed yet, but it doesn't mean they haven't been).

[SteveGrabowski0]

I don't know how your vRAM reporting tool managed to show 3.7GB of vRAM because according to nVidia, third party vRAM reporting tools do not know how to read/show usage from the final 512MB section. Technically, your 970 should never pass 3580MB of vRAM utilized in any reporting tool such as GPU-Z.

 

Unless you're on Windows 10, where vRAM usage is erroneously reported (I've gotten no indication that the errors have been fixed yet, but it doesn't mean they haven't been).

 

Never heard that about the VRAM reporting. I was using RTSS, and it was reporting 3.7 GB usage in Dying Light 1.2. I use Windows 7.

[D2ultima]

Never heard that about the VRAM reporting. I was using RTSS, and it was reporting 3.7 GB usage in Dying Light 1.2. I use Windows 7.

Yeah, nVidia said themselves that third party programs won't be able to see what's going on in that final 512MB. Unless they lied of course.

 

Have you checked with any other programs?

[SteveGrabowski0]

Yeah, nVidia said themselves that third party programs won't be able to see what's going on in that final 512MB. Unless they lied of course.

 

Have you checked with any other programs?

 

Nah, I just use RTSS mostly when I install a new game to test how various settings impact framerate.