970 vs 1060 3gb

[BabyPCMR]

Im not sure which is a better buy right now. The 1060 is newer and will probably be supported longer, but the 970 has 1 extra GB of vram. 

 

Any idea which to go with?

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, BabyPCMR said:

but the 970 has 1 extra GB of vram. 

Actually it only has 500mb of extra vram since the other 500mb is poop.

 

Honestly speaking these cards are extremely similar, as you stated the 1060 is newer and slightly faster, the vram does not matter for this level/tier of GPU since you probably shouldn't be using them on any thing higher than 1080p which would render in the need of extra vram.

[Tech Wizard]

The GTX 970 technically only has 3,5GB vram. Save up for a 1060 6GB in my opinion.

[McHox]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

Actually it only has 500mb of extra vram

Just now, Tech Wizard said:

The GTX 970 technically only has 3,5GB vram

why is this still a thing,it's got 4gb.
all is useable,its not a problem to fill it up
last bit is just a bit slower

 

[Gaurav S Rao]

Just now, McHox said:

last bit is just a bit slower

 

which only causes a bit of terrible performance.I'd go for a 1060 (6GB prefered) as it is almost the same perf. as the 980.

[NelizMastr]

7 minutes ago, McHox said:

why is this still a thing,it's got 4gb.
all is useable,its not a problem to fill it up
last bit is just a bit slower

 

A BIT? Lol. The last 512MB uses a 32-bit wide bus, limiting bandwidth to such a degree you'll get framedrops into next tuesday. 

[Guest]

The 1060 3GB and 970 are nearlly identical in performance, the 1060 is about 6% faster then the 970, of which there shouldnt be a noticable performance difference between the two when gaming. The 1060 6GB does have the extra frame buffer, its only 10% faster then the 3GB model and Nvidia basically disabled 10% of the cores on the 3GB version of the 1060 and downclocked it a little. Yes, the 1060 is newer and will be supported longer, but judging from the little to minor performance differences between the two cards, either of them will be ok for gaming and difference in performance wont be noticable.

[Stefan Payne]

14 minutes ago, BabyPCMR said:

Im not sure which is a better buy right now. The 1060 is newer and will probably be supported longer, but the 970 has 1 extra GB of vram. 

 

Any idea which to go with?

Pest and Cholera.

 

You need at least 4GiB for modern games, 6GiB are way way better.

So save money for the 6GiB 1060 or get an RX470 or 480 (8GiB of course)...

[blitzilla]

48 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Pest and Cholera.

 

You need at least 4GiB for modern games, 6GiB are way way better.

So save money for the 6GiB 1060 or get an RX470 or 480 (8GiB of course)...

 My understanding of vram is that a 1060 is a 1080p card,   and at that the 3gb is more than enough vram, if your trying to play in 1440p you should not even be playing with a 1060 to begin with... 

[Stefan Payne]

6 hours ago, blitzilla said:

 My understanding of vram is that a 1060 is a 1080p card,   and at that the 3gb is more than enough vram, if your trying to play in 1440p you should not even be playing with a 1060 to begin with... 

That's wrong.

The resolution hasn't that much to do with VRAM consumptioon. Especially with today memorys the resolution is not that important no more.

That's an old fairy tale from when the VRAM was measured in Megabytes...

 

Either way, 3GiB VRAM isn't enough, even in 1080p, there are many games that want at least 4GiB but thanks to the consoles it's better to have at least 6, better 8 GiB VRAM...

 

And even in the olden days when the 970 was new, people found out that the card stutters for no reason whatsoever -- because the VRAM Architecture and because some games even then used more than 3GiB VRAM!

So 3GiB is _NOT ENOUGH_.

And the other 3GiB VRAM are totally worth the price. Especially if you want the card to last!
 

[mike_ers]

Current 970 user here, if you can get a used 970 that's in good condition and from a trusted seller for under 180 then it's far better than the 1060 at that price. Buying new would just be stupid. If you get a good, stable overclock on a 970 it will beat the 1060 3gb in practically every game and trades blows with the 1060 6gb in most games that aren't fully VRAM-amount dependent. (Even more so at 1440p.) Find a used one that's still running good for a great price and it'll be better than the 3GB 1060 and run games well for at least another year or two.

 

Only real advantage to the 1060 3gb over the 970 is that it's a bit more efficient and it has slightly better DX12 support. Otherwise the 970 is the superior card in most cases.

 

If you can save an extra paycheck/allowance though, the 1060 6GB is a much better idea for right now unless, again, you can get the 970 for a great used price.

 

Otherwise at 1080p with a good CPU and good RAM, you will get 60 fps average or above in PUBG (Low-Medium), Witcher 3 (Ultra), Battlefield 1 (Ultra), etc.