970 for 768p?

[Pranay08]

I am looking to purchase a 970 when the price drops to $260-270. I am mostly planning to play at 768p. I assume that the 3.5GB VRAM will be sufficient, and that I will be able to maintain a steady 60fps with new games at high settings (not necessarily Ultra). I would have gone for the R9 390, but I don't think I will be using 8GB of VRAM, and from what I have heard, the 970 is better when it comes to heating and driver support. I have just gotten into PC gaming so for the next year or two I will mostly be playing older games. I assume there will not be any issues?

[Swndlr]

The 970 will destroy games at that resolution

[ZetZet]

970 will comfortably play games on 1080p 60fps High/Ultra.

 

[Aereldor]

Even a GTX 950 will max out almost everything at that resolution at a solid 60FPS, since it's about half the pixels that a 1920*1080p display has (1/3rd if you mean 1024*768). Your GTX 970 will probably never even hit 100% usage no matter what you throw at it. 

If you want to keep that low-resolution monitor, you're wasting money on the GTX 970. I'd recommend buying a 1080p monitor for $100 and an R9 380 instead.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I have no issues at 1080p with mine, not even with VRAM.

You'll be fine, almost overkill, but you can use DSR to FURTHER Improve Image Quality on your 768p panel.

[craftymind3003]

29 minutes ago, Pranay08 said:

I am looking to purchase a 970 when the price drops to $260-270. I am mostly planning to play at 768p. I assume that the 3.5GB VRAM will be sufficient, and that I will be able to maintain a steady 60fps with new games at high settings (not necessarily Ultra). I would have gone for the R9 390, but I don't think I will be using 8GB of VRAM, and from what I have heard, the 970 is better when it comes to heating and driver support. I have just gotten into PC gaming so for the next year or two I will mostly be playing older games. I assume there will not be any issues?

dude, 970 is for maxing out games at 1440p, cheap 950

[SkilledRebuilds]

4 minutes ago, craftymind3003 said:

dude, 970 is for maxing out games at 1440p, cheap 950

You wont hold 60fps in all titles whatsoever with a GTX970 @ 1440p.

Not even games at 1080p, are ALL 60fps.

 

But in saying that, he'll have plenty of headroom @ 768p. But the game engine itself, can cause its own problems, and dips sub-60fps no matter what resolution it is.

 

[HKZeroFive]

5 minutes ago, craftymind3003 said:

dude, 970 is for maxing out games at 1440p, cheap 950

No, a GTX 970 cannot run a constant 60 FPS on maxed out settings at 1440p. The VRAM also becomes a limiting factor.

 

It can, however, run 1080p comfortably at max settings. But even then, it doesn't apply for more demanding games.

[craftymind3003]

2 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

You wont hold 60fps in all titles whatsoever with a GTX970 @ 1440p.

Not even games at 1080p, are ALL 60fps.

 

But in saying that, he'll have plenty of headroom @ 768p. But the game engine itself, can cause its own problems, and dips sub-60fps no matter what resolution it is.

 

My friend has gtx 960 gigabyte g1 gaming and can max out all games at 1080p at 60fps, I've benchmarked on call of duty black ops III, the witcher 3, the division, battleborn and shadow of mordor

[LooneyJuice]

As stated above, yes, 970 will do just fine for your resolution. I will say though, if you're not overclocking and all that jazz, the R9 390 has slightly better base performance. Additionally, the whole "worst driver award" goes back and forth over the course of time. I'd say stay away from AMD for driver support if we were having this conversation a year ago, but they've picked up the pace immensely, not to mention their Crimson platform is very slick now. And I'm saying this as a G1 Gaming 970 owner.

 

I'd only really stay away from the R9 390 if you can't really trust your power supply, since it draws more power than a 980ti. It does also have a bit less overclocking headroom if you ever want to draw on that performance. Thermals on the other hand are no issue, especially if we're talking about a Sapphire Nitro R9 390. Extraordinary coolers.

[craftymind3003]

2 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

As stated above, yes, 970 will do just fine for your resolution. I will say though, if you're not overclocking and all that jazz, the R9 390 has slightly better base performance. Additionally, the whole "worst driver award" goes back and forth over the course of time. I'd say stay away from AMD for driver support if we were having this conversation a year ago, but they've picked up the pace immensely, not to mention their Crimson platform is very slick now. And I'm saying this as a G1 Gaming 970 owner.

 

I'd only really stay away from the R9 390 if you can't really trust your power supply, since it draws more power than a 980ti. It does also have a bit less overclocking headroom if you ever want to draw on that performance. Thermals on the other hand are no issue, especially if we're talking about a Sapphire Nitro R9 390. Extraordinary coolers.

i'd say get a decent 960 and invest the rest of the cost in a $100 1080p monitor, you'd just notice more of a difference

[LooneyJuice]

21 minutes ago, craftymind3003 said:

My friend has gtx 960 gigabyte g1 gaming and can max out all games at 1080p at 60fps, I've benchmarked on call of duty black ops III, the witcher 3, the division, battleborn and shadow of mordor

I'm sorry, but based on your previous post regarding "1080p 60fps on everything" for a 960, I can't help but call it misinformation. Nothing personal, but check benchmarks. A 960 performance wise is closer proportionally to a 950 than a 970. The bump to the 970 is quite substantial. Additionally, you're suggesting to a person who may have a limited budget for upgrades, to buy a higher resolution panel - granted, for higher visual fidelity - but accompany it with a slower card and overall worse performance than focusing on a better GPU. Not to mention the quality of 1080p panel you'd be able to buy by splitting the same budget for a 960 and a monitor, not great I presume.

 

And here are some numbers, not mine, but from proper benchmarks to bring some substance to the argument. Baring in mind that the 950 is an xtreme gaming one because I just slapped together a bunch of quick search results.

 

GB 950 Xtreme: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_950_xtreme_gaming_review,22.html

GB 960 G1: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_960_g1_gaming_4gb_review,24.html

GB 970 G1: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_970_g1_gaming_review,21.html

 

And that's pure numbers, which I can confirm are accurate when cross-referenced with my results, and I have a better 970 sample than they did. So, if after the above you still want to claim the 960 will run AAA titles maxed out at 60 fps 1080p (Although admittedly it'd be fine for a 768p panel), when in fact there's plenty of titles that would bog down a 970 at that resolution, and suggest to a potential buyer to split the budget on 2 lesser products. By all means.

 

EDIT: 950 link

[craftymind3003]

Quote

3 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

I'm sorry, but based on your previous post regarding "1080p 60fps on everything" for a 960, I can't help but call it misinformation. Nothing personal, but check benchmarks. A 960 performance wise is closer proportionally to a 950 than a 970. The bump to the 970 is quite substantial. Additionally, you're suggesting to a person who may have a limited budget for upgrades, to buy a higher resolution panel - granted, for higher visual fidelity - but accompany it with a slower card and overall worse performance than focusing on a better GPU. Not to mention the quality of 1080p panel you'd be able to buy by splitting the same budget for a 960 and a monitor, not great I presume.

 

And here are some numbers, not mine, but from proper benchmarks to bring some substance to the argument. Baring in mind that the 950 is an xtreme gaming one because I just slapped together a bunch of quick search results.

 

GB 950 Xtreme: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-950-xtreme-gaming-review,1.html

GB 960 G1: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_960_g1_gaming_4gb_review,24.html

GB 970 G1: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_970_g1_gaming_review,21.html

 

And that's pure numbers, which I can confirm are accurate when cross-referenced with my results, and I have a better 970 sample than they did. So, if after the above you still want to claim the 960 will run AAA titles maxed out at 60 fps 1080p (Although admittedly it'd be fine for a 768p panel), when in fact there's plenty of titles that would bog down a 970 at that resolution, and suggest to a potential buyer to split the budget on 2 lesser products. By all means.

 

I suppose you're right, but a good card like the 970 just doesn't seem to give justice n a 768p monitor, i'm more about general visuals than fps, for example some might boast that they've got 20fps more than me, but for the same price I got a really good monitor which looks amazing

[blu4]

34 minutes ago, craftymind3003 said:

dude, 970 is for maxing out games at 1440p, cheap 950

Not really...

[craftymind3003]

3 minutes ago, blu4 said:

Not really...

Personal experience with the gigabyte gtx 970 extreme (not overclocked), it works just fien with an average of 58,something fps, which I think is just fine

[Ethan9750]

Unless you're playing AAA titles at max settings at 1440p there is no way the 970's 4GB VRAM (3.5) is going to be fully utilized. Most 1080p games  don't need more than 2 gigs (some exceptions may be there) and for 768p unless you are planning to upgrade your monitor in the near future there is very little reason to invest in a 970. A 950,750ti. even a 650ti will more than cut it even on a 1080p monitor. I use a 650ti for gaming and I max out most of my games at around 40-50 fps sometimes 60 (I don't play many AAA titles) . DSR could be a good reason to buy a 970 though I am not very knowledgeable about it so can't say anything more.

[LooneyJuice]

1 minute ago, craftymind3003 said:

 

I will agree it initially looks like major overkill, no arguing there. But I'm also coming from the camp of at least being able to maintain a target framerate for the sake of smooth operation and guarantee some longevity for future titles. If you always factor in stuff that you probably have to upgrade first, you end up with a never-ending chain of stuff that needs to take priority over something like a new GPU. The fact is, a monitor purchase is a substantial purchase, which makes a big difference, granted,  but if you're aching for number-crunching power, the component doing most of the work has to take the top spot. A decent enough $250~ 1080p monitor can come later down the line, which will be driven more easily by said 970/R9 390.

 

And also, like you said, a monitor at the same price range as a 970 can indeed be an excellent monitor, like a good IPS panel. But compare that to a cheapo TN panel, and honestly I'd rather stick with a better 768p panel. Again, a good GPU now will be able to run a possible 1080p panel further down the line.

[craftymind3003]

1 minute ago, Ethan9750 said:

Unless you're playing AAA titles at max settings at 1440p there is no way the 970's 4GB VRAM (3.5) is going to be fully utilized. Most 1080p games  don't need more than 2 gigs (some exceptions may be there) and for 768p unless you are planning to upgrade your monitor in the near future there is very little reason to invest in a 970. A 950,750ti. even a 650ti will more than cut it even on a 1080p monitor. I use a 650ti for gaming and I max out most of my games at around 40-50 fps sometimes 60 (I don't play many AAA titles) . DSR could be a good reason to buy a 970 though I am not very knowledgeable about it so can't say anything more.

I agree with you (except the vram always helps)

[Ethan9750]

58 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

I have no issues at 1080p with mine, not even with VRAM.

You'll be fine, almost overkill, but you can use DSR to FURTHER Improve Image Quality on your 768p panel.

Have you tried DSR ? If so can you tell me if it offers any tangible benefits ??

[craftymind3003]

3 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

I will agree it initially looks like major overkill, no arguing there. But I'm also coming from the camp of at least being able to maintain a target framerate for the sake of smooth operation and guarantee some longevity for future titles. If you always factor in stuff that you probably have to upgrade first, you end up with a never-ending chain of stuff that needs to take priority over something like a new GPU. The fact is, a monitor purchase is a substantial purchase, which makes a big difference, granted,  but if you're aching for number-crunching power, the component doing most of the work has to take the top spot. A decent enough $250~ 1080p monitor can come later down the line, which will be driven more easily by said 970/R9 390.

 

And also, like you said, a monitor at the same price range as a 970 can indeed be an excellent monitor, like a good IPS panel. But compare that to a cheapo TN panel, and honestly I'd rather stick with a better 768p panel. Again, a good GPU now will be able to run a possible 1080p panel further down the line.

I suppose, but from your side and mine there needs to be moderation, for example I know an idiot with an 15.5'' 1080p monitor , with a 980 ti, and the screen looks so ridiculous regardless of how good the stuff on the monitor looks, and a 980ti could easily do 4k

[Ethan9750]

7 minutes ago, craftymind3003 said:

I agree with you (except the vram always helps)

Apart from the fact that its better if there is some additional vram left over,is there any other reason  more vram helps ??

[craftymind3003]

1 minute ago, Ethan9750 said:

Apart from the fact that its better if there is some additional vram left over,is there any other reason  more vram helps ??

In certain games, like world generators (minecraft) and certain fps games plus graphics designing and especially open GL take use of more vram

[SkilledRebuilds]

24 minutes ago, Ethan9750 said:

Have you tried DSR ? If so can you tell me if it offers any tangible benefits ??

Depends game to game really if its worth it or if it even benefits texture quality or better anti-aliasing.

Performance scales as expected.

[Pranay08]

1 hour ago, craftymind3003 said:

i'd say get a decent 960 and invest the rest of the cost in a $100 1080p monitor, you'd just notice more of a difference

 I might add another 768p monitor I have lying at home two months down the line, when I shift to a bigger desk in another room in the house. I am not too bothered by the difference in visual fidelity at 768p/1080p but I prefer running 60fps locked at almost all times.

[craftymind3003]

44 minutes ago, Pranay08 said:

 I might add another 768p monitor I have lying at home two months down the line, when I shift to a bigger desk in another room in the house. I am not too bothered by the difference in visual fidelity at 768p/1080p but I prefer running 60fps locked at almost all times.

ok, but a gtx 970 is very overkill, a decent gtx 960 would be more than enough, in your situation i'd buy a gigabyte gtx 950 extreme and with the left over money buy more games, but one things for sure the 970 will be really good, if in the future you'd wan to play good games at 768p the gtx 970 would be good because it is "too good" and when games become more advanced the 970's abilities won't lower too much at 60fps, and 60hz. If that is you are intending to future proof for your monitor